It Won’t Work Without Measurement

Before we take a look at the figures that show how much the business can gain by enabling sales, it is essential to stop for a minute. The mentioned numbers would not be available without companies measuring their efforts.

Sounds so fundamental, right? However, you would be surprised how many of them forget about that in the rush of implementing the new workflows. Alternatively, according to our sources from around the online water cooler, each of the stakeholders considers different measures the most relevant and the projects slip on disagreement.

Don’t be that company! Arrive at an agreement with the C-suite on the measures in advance and continuously monitor your KPIs – just as you are already doing it with your targets. Sirius Decision’s State of Sales Enablement 2017 study shows that 57% of the companies use some impact-based measurement of their sales enablement efforts.

Have the Cracks Been Fixed?

So many hard-working hours and good intentions can fall through the cracks if those have not been fixed. Processes tend to erode over time and, before you introduce any new technology or method, they should be checked for faults and fixed.

The most common mistake is letting data gather in different systems that are not integrated with each other. The bottom line is your CRM is well-connected. Even better is a mobile app, combined with the CRM, that can also function as a distribution and command center for sales ops. From a C-suite perspective, that central hub becomes essential when creating the reports, which are only as good as the input of data.

The other well-known phenomenon is the inability to react to changes midst the complexity of the products and customer demand. More complex products require more consultations, and engaging today’s more informed customer requires competent advice all the way through the buyer’s journey.

Numbers, please!

So if everything goes as planned and you have avoided all of the above pitfalls, how far can you get with sales enablement? With 44% of Sales Tech survey respondents stating that failing to get approvement from the C-suite for their sales technology purchases, it is more important than ever to see clearly about the return of such investment. However, sales enablement is even more than tech: it needs to help the organization excel in many ways.

A 67% improvement in closing deals

One of the significant advantages of sales enablement technology is that it can closely align the sales efforts with the marketing operations, e.g., by providing content for all steps of the journey the potential buyer goes through. With this close cooperation, companies can become 67% better at closing deals, as well as grow their revenues 24% faster and their profit 27% faster in three years’ time, according to a Wheelhouse Advisor infographic.  

At least 10% increase in conversions

In their Sales Enablement Practitioner Survey of 2016, Highspot found that half of the respondents could increase their pipeline conversion rates by at least 10%, with 12% of the companies recording an over 30% increase. Higher conversion rates mean the revenue per rep increases, too.

59% of top performers use it

Of those organizations that earned more than their targets, 59% have a dedicated sales enablement function. Moreover, of those that could do even better, achieving a 25% growth compared to goals, 72% had already invested in sales enablement, a Forrester Insights and Brainshark joint report claimed.

17%-21% potential improvement in quota attainment

An essential pillar of sales enablement is training, including the onboarding of new reps. With a dedicated investment in the necessary services through sales enablement, the potential to attain quotas improves by 17.7% for conventional methodology or process training and 21.3% for onboarding, according to the Sales Enablement Optimization Study by CSO Insights.

Every two weeks, SCOLVO presents you with even more numbers in our regular newsletter. Sign up now to get it:

The post Use Mobile Sales Enablement to Delight Your C-Suite appeared first on Scolvo.

Financial services companies are constantly haunted by the competition but it has been proved that new, innovative solutions, such as mobilization, are able to keep them in the game. Still, it’s not a cheap bet, so smart budgeting is essential.

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Through the following examples, we show you how to build strong commitment by the smart allocation of resources, in order to achieve success in the banking sales department.

Changing the perspective

Imagine your firm, a financial services company, has a digital transformation strategy in place and, as a part of it, a mobilization project for the whole workforce. Your task as the sales department head, will have to work on translating your own team’s corporate workflows to a targeted app on a mobile device. You will have specific needs, though, in terms of devices, mobile and desktop applications. How do you make sure you’ll get a fair share of the budget while not asking too much of an already huge financial commitment?

Media reports that giant global corporations easily spend billions of dollars on digital transformation projects. At the same time, Gartner’s recent forecast on IT spendings had an interesting statement: they claimed that while it was clear that companies would keep on spending on digital devices and IT services, the political and economic uncertainties would restrain them from spending as much as previously thought. The device budgets remain flat at $USD 589 and the services budgets will only grow by 4.2% this year.

To better achieve your mid- and long-term goals, try opting for a fixed percentage of the total technology budget: your actual spending on the different elements of the mix will depend on the developments in other areas, such as the back office, the data security and management, and the likes. One global firm was not afraid to allocate 30% of its total technology budget to mobility and collaboration projects, affecting 100,000 employees, and changed the entire ballgame with solutions like intuitive mobile dashboards and work chats.

Getting the C-suite on board

The strategy of your company focuses on eradicating inefficiencies in operations by giving people consumer-like technologies to work with. In practice, it means creating a BYOD-policy completed with the development of easy-to-use enterprise mobile applications.

While it’s not hard to see how such mobilization would benefit the sales team in their field work and would result in improved figures, the fact it is not an isolated project makes more room to negotiate the department budgets.

Be part of something big: when C-level executives are convinced to digitalize the enterprise and allocate the necessary budgets, it will be a large-scale opportunity for the sales department to up the game with more innovative solutions. One way to do that is link every line of the department budget back to the corporate strategy. Spending on a top enterprise mobility management tool ensures the most secure operations for the field team. Or, the high customer engagement, resulting from the increased responsiveness, validates the costs of a disruptive mobile application.

Securing a quick win

When breaking the down the costs of your project, it is useful to keep in mind that, although making the switch to digital and mobile is at least a few years’ investment, there are possibilities to ease the risk anxiety by securing a quick win.

Carefully examine the usual elements of a mobile plan: it is quite rare to spend equally on new hardware purchases, consultancy, mobility management and collaboration tools. Some of these areas will stand out either with their lower costs or by providing a quicker or higher return.

In our example, cutting device acquisition costs will not be a highlight since the strategy already builds on employees bringing their own devices to work. Consequently, you will not be able to save much on management tools, either. But if you can make these tools work sooner? That would be your win on the ROI-side and the more chances you get to have your budget approved.

Scoop the market for ready-to-use software solutions that are most likely to fit your operational workflows. Individual development not only costs more but also takes more time, and these sacrifices are seldom justified in use. You can also find sales-specific, ready-to-use applications that can even be customized, but not to the extent where it actually slows down the processes instead of accelerating them.

You can also focus on the savings side: sales can be especially strong in saving on paper costs when digitalizing its processes or cutting down on down times when mobilizing the field team. Also, If you make a good software choice as seen above, that means your team can use them from day one, saving on training costs as well.

Enjoy simplicity and ease of use and make your employees more productive in a days – Request a demo

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The post 3 Tips for Banking Sales Heads to Stretch Their Mobility Budgets appeared first on Scolvo.

Mobilization has solid advantages for all businesses, including those who help others discover the relevant opportunities and reach their full potential with mobility solutions. If you are an IT-consultant, a mobile developer or a system integrator, now you have good chances to profit from the new mobile way of working.

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IT-consultants

Professional IT services providers with a strong focus on enterprise trends must be aware of the value they can bring for their clients. Consultants can align the mobility projects of the businesses with their overall strategic goals in business development, operations, talent management, and innovation.

They can also help with the assessment of requirements, workflow adjustments, and manage the expectations regarding mobility project implementations times and challenges. Consultants have the background to prove that, as a result of a mobility investment, the performance of the clients will have measurable and sustainable improvements.

Mobile developers

In 2015, Strategy Analytics put the enterprise mobile application development market size at $41bn globally and expected it to reach $63bn by 2020. But the market grew more of a lightning speed, totalling at $74bn in 2016 according to the estimates, and expected to almost double at $128bn in 2022. The research also showed that certain sales force and field force automation apps were more widely used among employees, but corporate email and messaging were still the most popular applications.

Developers with a forward-looking approach can see the opportunities presented by this dynamics of market growth. In the recent years, the profession also attracted many new faces: according to the State of Mobile App Developers survey from 2016, about three-fourth of the developers have been in the industry for less than three years. Also in this survey is data showing that currently, only 8% of developers are working on tools in the enterprise category.

While market growth is steadily supported by the wide expansion of mobile working, the growing availability of cloud and data services and wireless networks, a support system is also starting to develop on the supply side. Application platforms and builder toolkits that use modules for either native or web-based developments let developers create tailor-made, yet ready-to-deploy business applications cutting development times in half.

System integrators

Technavio puts the global system integration services market size at $362bn in 2016, with an 8% CAGR-potential, reaching almost $500bn in value by 2021. Another body, Research & Markets, has a calculation of the value lower, at $270bn for last year, with a prognosis of $388bn for 2021, but still showing a 7.5% CAGR. Yet another report by Grand View Research puts the bar at a value of $528bn to be reached by 2025. Automation and cloud integration seem to be the biggest drivers for growth.

The fragmentation and development, along with the growing investment volumes in IT, have been presenting new opportunities for system integrators, namely, specialisation. One of the specific areas of technology is mobile and integrating mobile solutions is an expertise often leading business to smaller integrators.

Help your clients make the most of their mobility projects – Join the SCOLVO partner community today!

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The post Want to Profit from Mobilization? Now You Can! appeared first on Scolvo.

There are three main areas where mobile solutions present real answers to the insurance industry’s current challenges – let’s see them in detail!

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Sales: from Slumping to Stellar

Insurance companies globally are struggling to close the most deals possible in the shortest amount of time, facing tough competition along the way from technology-driven players. Other than driving down the prices, they make the whole process of buying insurance easier – again posing a threat to providers with sluggish processes.

Traditional insurers need to keep up with this trend, and mobile applications are able to ease the pressure. Consumer-facing apps are a suitable solution for today’s conscious customer who demands a quick and transparent buying process with more interaction with the service provider, even if it’s virtual, like a 24/7 customer support.

When they do require a personal contact with the sales agent, employee-facing apps are the solution to support the sales cycle in many ways. Accessing data wherever and whenever is not a problem anymore, so agents can support their argument in real-time when meeting with clients. Equipped with a tablet, the agent can give full control to the customer in the calculations with automated quotes, while also able to show rich presentations or give advice on critical choices backed by database evidence.

Let’s not forget that mobile apps are two-way tools: while the agent is on the road, he or she can also supply business-critical information about customers and deals, such as quotes and preferences, that the whole team can have access to. Managers can communicate with the field team in real-time, through easy-to-use interfaces, and call the attention to cross-selling opportunities.

Damage Appraisal: from Dilatory to Dashing

Damage appraisal is one of the most important activities of insurance companies and a typical field job. Traditionally, it had been a paper-based process with lots of delays because of the slowness of paper file transfer and manual data input.

Digital transformation, however, didn’t leave the industry untouched, and the paper-based workflows are slowly being replaced by digital ones, ideally with a mobile-first approach. Some companies even take it one step further by embracing the increased connectivity of devices known as the Internet of Things, for on-site, automated claim management.

Mobile devices and easy-to-use apps are a way to maximize the output of an aging workforce of damage appraisers while attracting new, tech-savvy talent to the profession.

Mobile applications can handle the submission of low-risk claim forms in an instant, and provide the agents with information on the customer, helpful hints on reasonable claims, repair cost estimates, or compliance issues.

A simplified daily routine makes the use of a mobile app attractive to the agents, increasing their engagement and loyalty, especially if the application interface is user-friendly and minimal training times are required.

Due to a real-time input of appraisal data, claims can easily be adjusted by the next day, reducing the usual waiting times by even as much as 40%, which will increase engagement on the customer side.

Valuation: from Valid to Value-Added

Even the property sub-market of the insurers has been experimenting with steering their processes in the mobile direction to meet new demand from the customer side.

Frequently changing regulatory environments, market conditions, call for a sustainable solution to stay in the competition. By cutting back on process times and costs, insurers can save what is lost in the price competition.

During property valuation, the most useful is probably an appraisal helper that allows the agent to synchronize data about a property that was either put in off-site or on-site and add sketches or photos to a complete picture. Some applications also have the capability of converting documents like blueprints to portable formats and store them in the cloud for easy access.

The real-time access to specific data sends the message of professionalism to the client. Mobile applications allow the agent to use downtime to increase productivity as well as to add real value to a process without much effort.

For a worker who is always on the go, tracking mileage and other expenses without any paper involved is also a function of utmost importance. These documents can also be attached to reports and getting handled by the back-office staff with more efficiency.

See how SCOLVO helped improve the processes of Aegon Group, one of the most well-known names in insurance globally

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The post Tackle Your Challenges with Mobile Solutions: Mobility for the Insurance Industry appeared first on Scolvo.

SCOLVO had a really successful time at MobileTechCon last week!

Prospective partners and end-users kept coming to our stand:

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The designated event room was filled with the audience when our Head of Sales, Krisztián Tóth presented, and the live demo of creating a mobile application was an especially huge success.

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We also had some treats to offer to the trade fair visitors and we proved you never fail with cookies

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Also, we offered a raffle prize for those who registered with us and drew a  lucky winner who could go home with a Google Home!

We can’t wait for next year’s event – see you there, or at one of the other events of SCOLVO?

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The post MobileTechCon was a blast! appeared first on Scolvo.

In the workplace of today, technology already takes the center stage, offering us all kinds of opportunities to improve productivity. Tomorrow’s improvements will be less visible than mobile devices appearing and paper disappearing: sensors all around us will make sure we do the most work with the fewer resources.

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What’s available today?

To some extent, every workplace is digital today and businesses are increasingly becoming digital businesses. From retail to utilities, companies are dedicating resources to digitize their operations. They’re right in that they have no more time to waste : SADA Systems’ recent survey shows 49% of the IT professional respondents said digital transformation was ‘extremely high priority’.

The workplace as we knew it has surely changed lately, in at least 4 ways:

• we mostly use digital input methods (including mobiles), trust our data mostly to digital storage and management (as paper-free processes proved to account for improved productivity),
• our communication focuses collaboration (that has no obligatory ways or channels),
• and digital output methods are almost exclusive.

The technology, the new tools businesses give to the employees, are not just necessary enablers of the new ways of working but they are also important part of the work experience that is demanded by today’s workforce.

Talent wants to feel good while working, whether it is in the workplace or on the road. So the employers are getting them devices (that have come a long way from laptops and mobile phones to smartphones, tablets, and even wearables) and equipping them with enterprise apps. Consumer and business tech are used parallel and that improves instead of hindering productivity.

As a consequence, today’s digital workplace is (at least) double-faced: in the physical office, the focus is on being social and collaborative, while remote working promotes productivity in a personalized setting.

Schedules and locations are changing for each and every employee and they become flexible as remote working has become widespread (in great part due to mobile technology). It is an undeniable trend: according to an IDC estimate, there will be 105 millions of mobile workers by 2020, at a population growth rate of 2 million per year.

What can you expect tomorrow?

The workplace of tomorrow will, therefore, not be driven by unmovable physical objects or hierarchies, but by the values individuals’ works add to the overall performance. These values have to be transparent and shared throughout the workforce to ultimately form a company culture.

Besides these value-based traits, three other characteristics will also be omnipresent in tomorrow’s workplace:

• full digitalization and the art of extracting meaningful data to create new services,
• mobile technology that adapts to people (with an even stronger focus on user experience),
• and a shift from IT to other departments in making technology decisions.

In the near future, workplaces will also become totally paperless – so businesses will need more server storage space instead of file cabinets and apps instead of more devices or departments. Technology will be needed to better organize the workforce that is not in the office and may not even be directly employed.

The human workforce will mostly be used to perform the creative or managing tasks, while the Internet of Things (IoT) takes over the repetitive tasks and the collection of data. According to BI Intelligence, there will be 34 million of connected objects globally by 2020, requiring enhanced management practices and security measures.

Despite the risks, the future is rather bright: the IoT world will again give a boost to employee productivity and operational efficiency. Intelligent buildings equipped with cameras, thermostats, and other sensors, and controlled by mobiles, will be able to optimize the environmental impact and the working conditions for people and track assets.

They will heat and light only the rooms where there are workers, assign workspaces, monitors water usage, give location-based access to services, and locate objects within the territory. IT security and physical security will work in collaboration to prevent or manage unwanted events.

Help your clients accelerate their digital transformation with mobility solutions – Join the SCOLVO partner community today!

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The post Beginner’s Guide to the Digital Workplace of Today and Tomorrow appeared first on Scolvo.

The sum of the mobile devices, networks, and tools that allow employees to complete work tasks remotely, also known as enterprise mobility, has grown to a market itself, with an incredible potential.

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From an application development perspective, enterprises became an endless market outlet for developers with its exceptional demand driven by competition. And this trend is presenting great potential to the supporting industries as well, such as IT consultants and software integrators.

Here are some statistics that are quite convincing to jump on the bandwagon and add mobile application products to your offers:

1. Enterprise app market doubles in seven years

As a base for all mobile developments, the market of enterprise applications in general (desktop or mobile) was estimated at $150bn in 2015 globally, according to a study by Global Market Insights. The same study calculates with a 7.6% CAGR, suggesting the size of the market will reach $287bn by 2024 – almost double the 2015 figure.

2. Two billion mobile phones sold in a few

As for the devices, the mobile phones’ triumph is obvious: Gartner forecasts that, despite a slowing growth of smartphone sales, there will still be more than 2 billion sold of them by 2019. Such access to devices is driving demand for enterprise apps with performance and usability measures comparable to consumer applications.

3. Half of the employees work on mobile anyway

Regardless of whether their employer supports it or not, already 50% of employees used their smartphones for business purposes in 2015, a report from 451 Research revealed. This is a critical mass enterprises cannot ignore.

4. One in five businesses use 10+ apps already

So, apparently, they don’t even try to ignore the above demand. In an online survey by Canvas in 2015, 20% claimed to use more than ten business apps within the organization. These tools  were mainly cloud-based core apps from third parties, such as file storage apps, credit card processing, CRM, or accounting apps. Meanwhile, trends point in the direction of mobilizing more business processes for a sharper competitive edge.

5. Enterprise mobile app market also doubles in value soon

Accordingly, in 2016, the enterprise mobility market was valued at $74bn by Strategy Analytics. In only five years though, it is expected to reach an almost double value: $128bn. The main drivers behind this growth is the wide expansion of mobile working, especially in sales and field services, but also the growing availability of cloud and data services and wireless networks.

6. 83% of German executives support mobile apps

Accenture has found that even in Germany, where the digital transformation is still not mature, 83% of company executives thought mobile applications were essential to use digital technologies to their full potential. The most supportive industries are utilities and retail with 90%, while banking and insurance show 88% and 85% support ratios respectively. Among the apps already in use, productivity tools had the highest usage rates at 46%.

7. Internal IT-teams can’t keep up with demand

The capacity of internal IT-organization to deliver apps will probably not be enough to meet the ever growing needs for new tools: Gartner predicts that, by the end of this year, the pace of growth for the demand for mobile app development services will be five times faster.

8. The largest industries are still to catch up

So, in order to be or stay competitive, businesses will increasingly need to trust external services providers with their mobility projects. Technology-conscious companies will follow this trend easily, but the real market opportunities will lie in those that have so far been resistant to digitalization, like construction or manufacturing, spending only 1-2% of their multi-trillion-dollar revenues on IT-projects.

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The post What is the Real Potential of the Enterprise Mobility Market? appeared first on Scolvo.

With businesses worldwide finally getting the message about an inevitable digitalization and mobilization, we surely welcome the large-scale improvements it will bring. However, there will be challenges along the way, and the more you’re prepared the more likely you are to exploit the benefits of new technologies.

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Challenge #1: Speed

Now that the early adopters’ time is up, every other business has to act quickly and commit to digitalization. In a research done by McKinsey last year, figures show some industries clearly emerging, not so much for digitalizing their assets, but for a faster adoption of digital processes and interactions and a larger amount of digital workers. Tech’s lead is no surprise, but media, finance, and professional services are also in the top league. Companies operating in these sectors have workforces that are 13 times more engaged digitally than others – thus that much more of a chance to improve productivity.

Businesses are not just going digital, but many are going mobile-first. New processes and workflows are translated to mobile procedures before anything else. This trend requires a lot more applications though (the market segment is expected to double in five years’ time), so development cycles have to be quicker. Those procedures that can’t be mobilized can still be automated with technology.

Challenge #2: Security

Wherever sensitive data is being created there will be a chance of a cyber-attack. Fortunately, not only the criminals’ tools are improving. Mobile devices with access to business-sensitive information can be protected either with an Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) tool, or with mobile threat defense, or combining the two. Choose what fits your company best but don’t choose to ignore the threat – a mobile data breach can cost the enterprise as much as $26.4 million.

Challenge #3: New devices

No need to fight this: employees will continue to bring in their personal devices (mobiles, tablets, and increasingly, wearables), but this is going to be your smallest problem in the coming years. The Internet of Things (IoT) will pose a much greater challenge: with over 30 billion devices connected in a few years, you will need the proper business apps for them, just as you have them for other devices. It will require more complex platforms to have everything under control, together with a solid backend infrastructure.

Besides the technical challenges, there will also be the task of finding where to fit these new devices in the business processes. On a more positive note, if you succeed, you will be rewarded by extra productivity gains and even more cost savings.

Challenge #4: New user demands

Users have grown together with the digital age already have high expectations towards digital tools in the workplace, only to be outdone by the digital native generation. Millennials had caused quite a shock when taking over the workforce, demanding, even more, accessibility, even more functionality of the tools, and, most of all, a seamless user experience.

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2016 was a year of controversion: a faster pace of growth for enterprise mobility solutions due to increasing demand from businesses and some old concerns that stayed with it.

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Since enterprise mobility is arguably a key element of the digital transformation puzzle, it’s good news that digital transformation was put high on the agenda of many business executives: SADA Systems’ recent survey shows 49% of the IT professional respondents said it was ‘extremely high priority’ and 13% thinks mobile apps are cornerstones of it.

This is supported by the fact that, despite any concerns from the part of the management, mobile workers are everywhere. According to an IDC estimate, there will be 105 millions of them by 2020, at a population growth rate of 2 million per year. Technologies to facilitate this new type of working were sure to follow.

Bring your own IoT

For hardware, the talk is not only about BYOD anymore, although it has seen the addition of a new component in the form of wearables – at least it has been reportedly outgrown pilot projects and scaled to real deployments. Meanwhile, the focus of the IT security experts had also shifted from securing the devices to securing the data.

Worrying about devices entering the game is more and more pointless, anyway, as the IoT world takes over. Connected devices are expected to more than triple in number in only five years – BI Intelligence puts it to 34 billion by 2020. Businesses are better get used to the idea that mobilizing the employees was just one of the challenges and managing the connected objects will surely be a different one.

Financial apps rule in ROI

The industries ahead of their games with excellent mobility apps are numerous, and mostly led by the influence of the IT and telecom industry, according to a new report by Transparency Market Research. The report also states, however, that returns on an investment in such applications are the biggest in the banking, financial services, and insurance sectors that will expand at a rate of 25.7% between 2015-2022.

Learn how Aegon Aegon Group, one of the world’s leading provider of life insurance, pension and asset management, with claim settlement experts of an average age 50+, managed to cut the paperwork and time it took to complete their tasks

Market shake-ups

We’ve seen a further concentrating Enterprise Mobility Management market this year. Last year’s acquisition of AirWatch has gotten the ‘largest vendor’ title for VMWare by IDC, and some analysts are already cheering a similar move from Cisco towards MobileIron.

The shaky conditions called for new CEO at Mobilelron, while Citrix, another one with a huge change in its leadership, also made the news by announcing its partnership with Microsoft in May – a move showing the growing importance of simple and familiar when it comes to implementing a new solution.

Are we user-friendly yet?

Despite the constant growth and the undeniable trust of the businesses in mobility as the way forward, some challenges are yet to be solved. Enterprise mobility projects are still struggling with the incorporation of legacy apps and prolonging battery lives, but even more importantly, reaching an optimal level of user experience.

As the eyes of executives are set to the big picture, they start to tackle business workflows and processes. And when they go this deep, dealing with user experience issues is inevitable. Apparently, getting a user interface right is able to get anyone ahead of their games, making it more attractive to the new generation entering the workforce and more easy to learn for the previous ones.

Will the Year of the Rooster be the year of your business being mobilized? Share your thoughts about the trends you’ve seen or you’re expecting to see in the comments below!

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The post Digital Transformation and Enterprise Mobility 2016 – A Year In Review appeared first on Scolvo.

Putting the users first by keeping usability, readability, and consistency in mind at all times, are the basics of every mobile development. The result: a rich user experience that keeps the employees engaged.

In our recent white paper, 10 tricks to prevent mobilization fails in B2E apps, we have outlined the ultimate do’s and don’ts to guide you through your way to a successful application.

Use our checklist below during the development to engage your users with a great interface and make your enterprise mobile app implementation successful:

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1. PLANNING: IS IT OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE?

The workflow is optimized for mobile working, and real-time reporting is enabled. It facilitates electronic data transfer and the application of business intelligence and automatisms based on the company’s data assets.

Extra tip: add a powerful search function.

2. TARGETING: ARE USERS INVOLVED?

From the planning to the implementation, the actual users of the application have been involved in the process, and their feedback has been considered. It also includes options for future developments, should the users require new functionalities.

Extra tip: Use field research and one-on-one interviews.

3. ADAPTING TO TOOLS: DOES IT SUPPORT EFFECTIVENESS AND PRODUCTIVITY?

You have built on familiar features to give a sense of accomplishment, but simplified and adapted to mobile to create an added value. This is the time to decide if you want a native or a web application – or a hybrid one.

Extra tip: one or two distinctive features are enough.

4. NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT FUNCTIONS: IS IT EASY TO LEARN?

You have only included the features necessary for mobile working and that they are clearly structured and make navigation intuitive.

Extra tip: you can make the most important functions appear in all navigations.

5. EXPERIENTIAL, CONSUMER-IN-BUSINESS CONTEXT: IS IT ATTRACTIVE?

The app has a well-crafted, likeable design, that makes the employees want to use them.

Extra tip: Try gamifying some workflows.

6. ARE ALL USER GROUPS ADDRESSED?

The frontline workers are empowered and engaged; IT is relieved from training and maintenance duties; the management is supported in improving productivity. At this phase, you can double-check if the developed solution actually serves the need of all users.

Extra tip: Check with field workers first.

7. IS IT INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC?

It puts more focus on consumer-facing parts if this is relevant in your industry, but concentrates on the internal workflows if that makes more sense. The app supports productivity more if it combines the advantages of working on the go and having relevant functions to the profession.

Extra tip: inform yourself about industry best practices to achieve max productivity.

8. APPLICATION ADAPTED TO THE ENVIRONMENT: IS DATA INPUT EASY?

The input of data, i.e. filling out forms, is adapted to the smaller screens and different input methods, such as taps and swipes. The physical environment, such as the specialties of the field, is also taken into consideration.

Extra tip: Put the 4-5 most used features on the dashboard.

9. CONSISTENT APPLICATION OF DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS: ARE UI DESIGN PATTERNS RECOGNIZABLE?

Following the guidelines of the individual development platforms, standard patterns are applied that users can easily recognize and they can a sense of competence and confidence.

Extra tip: tailor-made notifications can further increase engagement.

10. EASE OF USE: FEEDBACK IS EVERYWHERE

Giving feedback to the user on his or her actions is helpful to recognize mistakes made, progress, or discover unknown functions.

Extra tip: Besides being ubiquitous, feedback should also come as fast as possible.

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