Better User Experience

An app that has an easy and intuitive user interface and covers an effective workflow (e.g. no double input of data) will be used to a greater extent, resulting in more work getting done. On the other hand, mobile apps give the opportunity to be geographically flexible by definition, but if this feature is not combined with ease of use, then they quickly become redundant.In a Forrester study, 64% of respondents said they would not use corporate apps because of the poor experience.

When complicated business processes are translated to a few taps and swipes, though, it promotes finding and sharing information as well. Your employees are used to beautiful consumer apps to help with their personal request, and the same kind of experience will enable them to use the enterprise app from day one, drastically cutting training time or skipping it altogether.

Flexibility, Collaboration, and Time

The most obvious feature of a mobile application is that it gives a greater level of flexibility for the employees. Freed from a 9-5 schedule, your employees can benefit from individual peak times to improve overall performance. A recent survey by Vodafone found that 83% of the companies recorded improvements in productivity due to a flexible working policy.

With enterprise social apps and other channels, employees can easily update or even train each other for better outputs. This collaboration can be easily adapted to mobile. One reason to do so is the proven ability to connect workers at remote places who get to combine their expertise when it is most needed even in new ways, such as sketches and other visuals.   

Mobile also helps to get more things done when your team is out on the field for deals: the real-time input of the data (of prospective customers or of orders) results in a faster sales process.

Access to Corporate Data

Input is just one side of the equation – the output, wherever and whenever, is just as important. Mobile business applications help companies better manage their data to reach their full potential.

If everyone has access to the same dataset, regardless of whether or not they are in the office, it radically increases effectiveness and productivity. A good example is the checking of inventory before closing a deal, but knowing about the latest promotion or a recall on a product it’s also essential for the business.

More Savings

Let’s get down to business! For a new mobile tool to be considered for productivity improvements, it should prove that through the productivity gains, business gains are achieved. It could be visible as savings in time or money for the organization.

The better use of human resources through mobility apps, e.g. through converting manual processes to mobile ones, comes with significant costs savings most organizations, a recent mobile app usage survey revealed. Add streamlined business processes and again, finding the necessary information quickly, and you have also saved a good amount of employee uptime.

The post Why Use Mobile Apps to Improve Workplace Productivity appeared first on Scolvo.

All solutions have their pros and cons, and it mainly depends on your needs and resources to choose one or the other. What is important is that you don’t let yourself talk into any of these options just because that’s the main profile of the developer. A good professional team will closely follow technology trends to be able to provide you with the solution that is most suitable to your needs.

Web Apps: Adapting Kings

They are more than websites optimized for mobile devices: with strong backend functions and interactive features, they are powerful companions to businesses. At the same time, they are browser-based, distributed on the web, and updated automatically – just like a website.

It’s a great choice mainly for consumer apps, where you have to provide a solution for many diverse platforms. In a better-regulated business environment, it can still be a viable alternative if you have a tight budget but still want to exploit mobile opportunities, or if you want your app to be more informational than transactional.  

Pros

• You only need to develop it once to run on all devices.
• Every update will automatically appear in the app and users will all have the same version.
• You don’t need approval from a third party for a release.
• Due to automatic updates, A/B testing features can be done effectively.
• Since your app can be opened in a browser without downloading anything, users are more likely to give it a try.

Cons

• Specific mobile functions, such as sensors or local databases, can only be partially integrated.
• Different mobile browsers might cause bugs that hinder performance.
• Network limitations: your users will need to be online to use the app.

Native Apps: Speed Champions

These are apps that use the native programming language of a certain device and can fully integrate its features. They are distributed through app markets where users download them and install them on their devices. In June 2016, business apps were the second most popular category in the Apple App Store. However, a separate app is needed for each platform (or at least the most popular ones).

It’s a great choice if you want to provide an extraordinary user experience, if your site is more transactional than informational, or if you are considering to monetize your app later on.

Pros

• An installed app runs faster than any other application, even it is loaded with extensive graphics.
• Full integration allows the user experience to be taken to the maximum.
• The app stores make apps easier to find, download, or update.
• These markets have strict rules to accept new apps and they also provide regular security checks.
• It is easier to include offline functionality to an app that is installed on the user’s device.

Cons

• Multi-platform development, maintenance, and updating have higher costs.  
• Because of the several programming languages, it is also more difficult to track and eliminate bugs.
• The distribution and availability of updates depend on third parties (app stores).

Hybrid Apps: A Better Version of Both Worlds

Hybrid applications combine the resource-saving characteristics of web apps and the adaptability of native apps. They are web apps at the core, wrapped in platform-dependent layers depending on which device they will be used. This way, they can look and feel like a native app, for a fraction of its costs.

It’s a great choice if you want to develop several apps for your business processes, but with better distribution and promotion opportunities, especially if you have a BYOD policy in place.

Pros

• Easy to adapt: it has platform-specific native qualities.
• Easy to develop: almost like a web app, you only add a mobile framework.
• Offers full integration with device features: just like a native app.

Cons

• Redesign needed: even if you have a web app ready, you need to make sure the designs match the different operating systems.
• Mobile framework expertise needed: your in-house programmers, as well as your support team, might find this job challenging.
• Limited graphics: just as with web apps, hybrid apps can’t carry graphic-heavy content.

The post Web Apps, Native Apps or Hybrids: Which One is Right For Your Business? appeared first on Scolvo.

How do you select who to trust with this project in the first place? The good news is, you have more than one option, and one should be simple enough to manage. Here’s a little guide to match your situation with a solution.

Mobile Platform Providers

When to choose it?

• If you want to translate a complex and specific process to mobile,

• If you want the user interface extremely customized,

• If you are ready to dedicate ample resources (time, workforce and money) to make all this happen.

Selecting a mobile platform provider might be the ideal solution if you need a very specific app, and you have the in-house expertise to build those specifics. A platform provider company will help you develop your own specific application by contributing modules or some other well-defined parts of the application development.

In some cases, you might also be able to select some basic functionalities to be built in. But more often, you will have to add the functions yourself, as well as tweaking the user interface precisely in the way you like it.

Software Vendors

When to choose it?

• If you are satisfied with the functionality of your ERP solution but would also like mobile access to it,

• If you have a piece of mainstream software with the mobility solution included.

If your business is already engaged with one of the major providers of ERP software, it might be a smart move to get the mobile solution from the same vendor. They tend to include this in their offering, so you will not have additional costs related to the mobile implementation, plus you get the same complex but familiar experience.

However, if the standard workflow in the ERP is not covering your processes, then the standard mobile workflow is not going to be satisfying either, ultimately hindering your productivity. It might also be too complex for the end user: even if you have the same software in your offices, field workers might not be familiar with its functionality, and will have problems using the mobile version.  

Application Developers

Individual Developers

When to choose?

• If you only need certain workflows to go mobile but based on industry best practices,  

• If you need an end-to-end solution,

• If you want a customized application,

• If ease of use is a priority.

With an individual mobile development, you have the luxury to have control over the outcome of the process, while you don’t really need to be involved in the process if you don’t want to. With a clear vision of the functionalities you need, all you have to do is to give a detailed brief to the developer.

Today, you can also find mobile development service providers like Scolvo that can offer you an off-the-shelf solution to your problem. Using the expertise gained from individual development projects, these companies create products that include the most common functionalities based on industry standards and best practices for a certain workflow.

This way, the risks of the development can be minimized for the decision-maker in your company, and also minimizing implementation times to as short as a week. These applications are typically made so simple to use anyway that they barely require any training times, they seamlessly integrate with your backend and can even be customized: by the user adjusting the settings or by the developer according to the client’s requests. To top things up, select a solution that has a great UI – you’ll be surprised how much it adds to the experience.

The post Three Ways to Develop Enterprise Mobility Apps appeared first on Scolvo.

Insurance

For the last few years, insurance companies all over the world have been struggling with ever increasing churn rates. As consumers have got used to adopt technologies to shop the best deals, they began to change insurance providers every chance they got, heating up the price competition.

Technology soon became an outstanding differentiator: just as the price, the easiness of managing their insurance mattered for the customer. But as a next step, businesses needed employee-facing apps for a real competitive advantage.

According to CapGemini’s World Insurance Report 2016, new entrants building their operations around digital services are considered the biggest threat by insurers. The rise of connected technologies and tech-savvy customers can make the demand for technological advancement necessary.

Sales processes, for example, have gone entirely digital in insurance, and the customer is usually given full control over the calculations of his or her rates. Participation throughout the whole process is a ubiquitous demand by the connected generation.

This requires a robust digital tool that supports the agent and the customer with real-time data and compelling visuals while capturing client data all along the way. The same tool opens the way to a set of innovative features, such as a custom presentation or a social map of prospects.

Utility/Energy

With decreasing prices and alternative service providers in renewable energy popping up from all corners, plus the outdated processes and organizational structures still in place, energy and utility companies also feel the pressure rising. They have more specific problems, too: to deal with high-value assets and various compliance issues. Improvements in technology have so far been out of consideration.

Mobility, on the other hand, has proven its value in several markets already. Equipping the field service team with enterprise apps on their mobile devices results in real-time, location-based data gathering that allows a more effective asset management,  collaboration, and reporting. For example, the administrators can immediately reassign tasks in case of any problems on the field. Workers can also access all data while out and about, like technical specifications or inventory for changing parts. Mobility is also able to boost the sales of services: with innovative mobile solutions, utility providers can easily include sub-contractor services while still keeping full control over the offerings.

Retail

Retailers are really at the forefront of the mobile movement, as their interest became obvious sooner than in any other industry, in implementing mobile solutions for the customers. The rapid expansion of e-commerce and the need to reposition offline channels made it more important than ever to give customers a seamless shopping experience.

In the convergence of the online and offline, mobile emerged also as a savior for more streamlined operations, although the challenge in developing employee-facing mobile apps compared to customer-facing ones soon became evident. Those that were developed for long-term use, with a workflow-based approach, and scalability in mind, became the most successful.

Today, the most advanced retail mobility apps provide customer data for a better understanding of demand, real-time supply or inventory information making operations among brands or branches more seamless. Furthermore, these smart tools enable store visitors to easily administer and report the performance of different locations, products, or sales personnel.

The post Three Industries That Get Enterprise Mobility Right appeared first on Scolvo.

Recognize Where You Are Now

The first step is to define where your business is now in the process of digital transformation, or in the journey towards a digital workplace. The Digital Workplace Group likes to describe it as an experience of work that is the sum of all the connected devices, software, and services the employees use. But you are free to explore other definitions, too.

At this point, you are invited to check on your workflows: are there any that is more pain than gain? It’s time to fix it then before the digital workplace takes over and mobile apps are introduced.

Once you have assessed what digital tools and services your business is using, don’t forget to weigh in the usage patterns of individuals and teams as well. Get everyone involved already at this point by asking for the opinions on what the digital workplace strategy should entail and what their attitude towards a digital approach is.

Then, look at the business environment. Try to figure out how much your competition has transformed to digital in the workplace. How do you evaluate your main competitor’s digital efforts? What solutions does the market embrace?

See Clearly Where You’re Heading

Now that you have the starting point, it’s time to elaborate the strategy. Remember that it will be used for long-term digital workplace planning purposes. Where do you want to get from here?

You can begin with the answers to some concrete questions, which would eventually form a clear vision: Is there an urgent need to provide the right devices to your employees? Maybe your communication channels need digital refreshment? Business applications to go mobile? A greater support for an ideal teamwork? Or assuring business continuity by digitally securing operations? Let your answers show what direction are you taking, what are the goals to achieve in your digital workplace strategy.

A mission statement will further elaborate on these concepts, with how do you plan to reach your goal and why a digital workplace will be valuable to everyone.

It is commonly advised to draft a roadmap on what steps are needed to execute the strategy, and to outline the priorities, aligned with three tracks: people, process, and technology. This part of your strategy will explain what steps are needed to achieve what you have envisioned and what are the objectives you will use to control the outcome.

When setting the strategy, you should not be driven by current budget constraints (we’ll talk about the do’s and don’t of budgeting later). A well-rounded strategy gives room for budget adjustments of either direction. Resource-wise, the focus should be on the expansion of funding options, by a deep consideration of the business benefits of a digital workplace solution.

Look back for performance control

While crafting your strategy, make sure you give hints on ways you will control performance. This could be an outline of regular revisions of objectives and action points, as well as a complete collection of KPI’s to follow. Communicating these control points early on will again improve transparency, which, in turn, help your employees engage with the digital workplace plan. Furthermore, the sooner a problem or a change in the direction of the overall business strategy is identified, the closer the strategy is to remain realistic – a key component in its success.

The post Creating a Digital Workplace Strategy Should Not Be Complicated appeared first on Scolvo.

When a Bad Workflow Becomes the Worst

Without proper analysis, any problem with a workflow can remain undiscovered and reallocated to the mobile solution you are implementing. If you give no thought to whether your employees are doing everything in a proper way, without major disruptions, expect to get some headaches instead when trying to calm the fights over mobilization.

Sales processes, for example, can be sensitive, because each flaw in the workflow management directly impacts the company’s bottom line. A process failing to focus on the consumer journey and submerging in the details is a typical mistake that will appear in the mobile solution magnified. You can be sure that’s the case when you see too many bells and whistles in the app and your staff desperately navigating the unnecessary functions.

Unfortunately, their hate will not direct towards the process but the mobilization. Without a fix, people will consider it an unusable solution that takes more time from them than it saves. Now you will have to win two fights: one for getting the workflow right and one to earn back the trust in mobility.

When a Good Workflow Becomes the Best

The first step is the analysis: what steps are taken in a work progress, who works on what tasks and how much time do they need? You will also have to analyze the communication methods throughout the process, to make sure they are efficient and transparent. Are there any ready-made solutions if a problem is emerging? What do people like about this process and what do they hate? Are there any ways to do it better? How?

If the analysis finds that everything is good as it is, you have a solid base for your mobile development efforts. The workers can be assured that the new application will follow the well-established steps of the roadmap while improving productivity by removing stationary restrictions.

Sticking to our sales example, your agents can go through the same assignments from a cold call to a personal visit. But having a mobile app at hand enables them to adjust their offer according to information from real-time business intelligence and have a compelling presentation ready at just the right step of the sales cycle. This results in more deals closed sooner.

If the analysis finds that the workflow is broken, then efforts can be made to fix it. The new workflow (and why it was necessary) should be widely communicated throughout the company so that everyone understands how it contributes to their works. If the employees are involved already in this phase of the planning process, it is more likely they will embrace the final app as well – perfected to their liking. After all, they will be the ones to use it.

The post Why You Should Fix Your Workflow Before You Mobilize appeared first on Scolvo.

Location: Working Anywhere and Everywhere

In Germany, 37% of the workers commute for more than an hour a day. However, in an age where your employees can work from anywhere, it is pointless. The less the commute, the more reduced are the stress levels of the employees, and the less sick days they are calling in for.

The fact that work can be done everywhere, even on the go, has its negative side, too. You, as an employer, might be tempted to disrespect off-times for your workers. Meanwhile, they might have hard times switching off, without the physical distance from work.

Positions: New Roles, New Skills

In most professions, new roles are emerging, while old ones are experiencing a transformation in duties, due to the proliferation of digital technologies. IT is a well-marked one: data scientists, mobile specialists or cloud engineers have only appeared lately, signaling a growing need for specialization. Instead of focusing on one technical area, IT professionals become more of service brokers, with a strong focus on business.

In production, there is a new industrial revolution going on that management needs to adapt to. The internet of things changes the methods used and requires the ability to understand and operate digital tools, in all positions and all levels.

Organization: Processes and Structures Intertwine

Processes, just like organizational structures, have to be digital-proof and, in order to make them so, managers have to think out of the box. Some of the activities are already made redundant by technology and a thorough examination often reveals other opportunities for streamlining. How workers interact during a process can also have an impact on the re-design. The goal is to have an operation that makes the most use of the new tools and how they help to increase productivity and measurement.

Luckily, technology facilitates collaboration. These new ways of teamwork require openness and transparency, and have a disruptive effect on traditional hierarchical structures, giving way to more horizontal alignments.

Information: Instant and On-Demand

The way workers access and process information is already sped up by the broad use of modern consumer technology – businesses just need to find a way to use it to their advantages.

By recording data on-site and saving it to the cloud, field workers or salespeople can give instant heads up to their colleagues about client action and behavior, and this kind of access to information makes decision making faster for the management.

Workers also have to be quicker in general, but they can use great tools as shortcuts and get deeper insights to support decisions. It’s not just the raw information that is always available on-demand, but the analysis as well – the next step in the big data evolution.

The post Look for These Areas to Manage Workplace Changes for Employees appeared first on Scolvo.

In fact, there is always something worth to establish: as a 2015 study from Avanade shows that digital tools improved productivity at 67% of the companies, and 43% could even grow their revenues as a direct consequence of digital adoption.

You don’t have to start from scratch though, if you use those building blocks in everyday practice, to make it fully digital. These building blocks are the steps you have already taken towards digitization. Here are the four major changes in detail:

1.Input tools and methods

From the dawn of the computer age, the traditional input tools and methods have been slowly replaced by digital ones. Besides paper and pen, we benefit from keyboards, mouse, scanners or cameras – all implicit accessories in every office. The replacement process is slow, but as we’ve seen in a 2014 research from Coleman Parkes and Ricoh, the majority of business leaders in Europe expect the transition from digital transformation to digital maturity by 2019. Mobile devices in the workplace [see our previous post] are just a result of a natural evolution thereof: a closing gap between the information technology you use at home and at the office.

2. Data management and storage

The information you put in any system needs to be processed and stored and it needs more than hardware for that. It’s true that paper files are harder to go extinct than typewriters, but when was the last time you only had to process analog data? What you have to deal with day by day are already bits and bytes and it’s already an amazing gain in productivity. AIIM Market Intelligence data shows that improved productivity is in fact the second strongest driver in implementing paper-free processes, for over 40% of the companies.

You may not even be aware, but probably most of the applications and documents are stored on servers outside of company premises. Think Google Docs on a laptop versus MS Office and .doc files on your desktop computer. According to a 2016 study by RightScale, already 91% of the companies globally are at some stage of cloud adoption, from the planning stage to heavy use.

3. Communication tools and methods

Together with the other elements of work, communication has also been changing to digital and intuitive. Accelerated as a trend by the Millennials prevailing the workforce, a demand for open collaboration made new and quicker channels go widespread. You might still have landlines, but video conference calls are also integral parts of today’s corporate communications. Internal social networks, company chat boards, collaborating in share documents are just as well available. The point is not to have one obligatory way of communication, but a selection for every working style.

4. Output tools and methods

Just as with the input, the digitized output devices are so much parts of the everyday office life you barely recognize them. Your monitor is a given, and so is the printer or the projector that are able to display your work. Even if it didn’t come easy at first (i.e. print handouts of presentations), the editing possibilities and the on-demand nature of these digital tools eventually made them exclusive.

It turns out that, the business mindset’s change to digital, especially the switch to digital-first, is a surefire way to improve bottom lines. As a pleasant consequence, it has taught many of us to enjoy work again.

The post 4 Ways Your Enterprise Has Already Changed – Digitalization in the Workplace appeared first on Scolvo.

Radio turned on

Before consumer devices like mobile phones and tablets began to take over the workplace, enterprises had already been experimenting with mobilizing their workers and workflows. They mainly did that by adding peripherals to enterprise hardware to perform specific activities. The focus of these early-stage devices, as far as technology allowed, was mainly on functionality rather than the user experience or design.

The earliest mobilization happened in supply chain management, in warehouses, where it made instant business sense to implement dedicated mobile devices with barcode scanning and radio communication capabilities, because of the huge advancement in productivity.

The retail sector has also joined the mobile tribe long ago when it introduced the first Point-of-Sale card readers, well before 2000. These machines allowed to radically reduce transaction processing times – no wonder the growth of the market has been steady since more than a decade, and now reports a yearly shipment of about 35 million devices, being challenged by smartphones and app replacements only recently.

The present state of digital transformation

The same functionality of the peripherals are now mostly incorporated into the app arsenal of mobile phones or tablets. The rule of thumb is that, sooner or later, all peripherals make their transformation to an application.

Although these sometimes still lack some of the data capture capabilities, their use has become widespread due to the fact that apps present a significantly lower total cost of ownership. According to the latest Cisco Visual Network Index, global mobile penetration currently stands at 7.9 billion, with smartphones accounting for most of the 563 million of growth. No doubt the smartphone becomes the universal device with the apps as the specialization.

Subsequently, app development also grows at lightning speed. The worldwide market totaled at $41.1 billion in 2015 and experts estimate it to double by 2020. Enterprise mobile applications will worth about $63 billion by then, Strategy Analytics research shows.

The future of digital transformation

So the proliferation of consumer devices implied them to double as a work tool. A major trend in digital transformation is that in a foreseeable timeframe not only communication devices but also everyday objects will be connected to the network (Internet of Things) and be able to transfer data. According to Statista, it has already gone from 8.7 billion in 2012 to about 18 billion in 2015.

We’re already witnessing this transformation in the form of wearable technology, such as smartwatches or Google Glass, and smart sensors.

The fitness and health care industry is on the forefront of using these technologies, like tracking heart rates or blood sugar levels with smartwatches, but they are also are trying to find their ways in many other professions.

In retail, for example, wearables are also taking off, in line with growing consumer adoption, to improve in-store shopping experience, or transforming operations by adding them to the communication and collaboration mix.

Smart sensors, on the other hand, are the new favorites of the energy sector, incorporated for example into the ever growing arsenal of smart meters, and also improving the energy efficiency potentials of the grids as a whole.

The post On the Road to Digital Transformation: The Mobile Story appeared first on Scolvo.