As we talk to enterprise-level companies about their mobile needs, one topic comes up over and over again: saving money. No, not on our fee for developing their apps, but rather the all-important question of whether an enterprise app will truly save their business significant amounts of spend.
It’s an important question, especially as the mobile enterprise apps market climbs to $74 billion this year and is projected to grow to $128 billion by 2022. Big businesses are investing big dollars into their mobile work solutions and they want to know that their investment will save them money in the long run. Note: this is different from revenue generated by customer-facing apps which has been fairly well documented. Rather, our clients want to know whether their (usually) internally used app can increase spend efficiency. Yes they can! Here are 3 ways enterprise apps can save your business significant amounts of money.
1. The core value of why you’re building THIS enterprise app.
This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how often businesses “just want an app,” without really thinking through their mobile-first strategy. It can be a hefty up-front investment so it’s crucial your enterprise understands why and how a mobile app can streamline their business. What pain-point is being addressed? Can the issue be fixed with traditional desktop software? How much money do you expect this specific app will save you in a fiscal year?
Once a clear strategy is laid out, a custom app can be built to surgically target the need of your business. For example, Syngenta (a large agricultural company) realized it needed a way for mobile workers to find, download, and use software they needed to do their job. So they built out a self-service portal accessible by a mobile app to empower their employees with little need for IT support. The result: nearly $1.8 million saved annually.
The take-away here is that even if a business is itching to get into the app game, having a clear mobile strategy is crucial in building the right app to save money. Once the game plan is figured out, your mobile app can’t help but save time and money. It’s its entire point for existing.
2. Less overhead due to a productive mobile workforce.
The world is going mobile and the workforce is part of it. By 2022, 1.87 billion people will be working remotely across the world. Once you give people the right device, the right app, and 4G/WiFi, they can get stuff done anywhere.
Mitel via Townerkc.com has a great infographic that lists 8 ways a mobile workforce can save money, but just taking point 7 as shown above should be eye-opening. $10k saved per employee is nothing to sneeze at. And it’s not a story of a cheapo corporation forcing people to provide their own workspace. Working from home is shown to lead to a performance increase and a happiness increase. So a great mobile work experience can be win-win for the business that gets to save tens of thousands on overhead while giving workers what they want.
Of course, the key element here is that the mobile experience has to be great. Nothing is more frustrating for remote workers than an app that constantly breaks or makes their jobs more difficult. The mobile app your enterprise builds has to listen to the needs of your employees and constantly iterate to get better.
3. An agile, cloud-based business saves money.
Having a great mobile app goes hand-in-hand with taking your business to the cloud. In order for your mobile workforce to have a speedy, seamless experience on their devices, a solid cloud infrastructure is essential. Again, moving your computing requires an upfront cost, but cloud computing has been proven time and time again to save businesses money. Quick hit: a Rackspace survey showed that 88% of cloud using companies experienced cost savings, not to mention higher profits.
Another benefit is that being in the cloud makes it far easier to iterate on your business software, and we love agile companies that build agile apps. These apps have the following qualities:
- Easy-to-use UI.
- Small footprint in MBs.
- Stripped to core functionality.
And with these qualities in mind, a cloud-based agile enterprise mobile app can not only cut costs overall, but keep your companies that much more competitive. Ultimately, it’s less work, faster results, and a boon for your business and workforce.
Is your enterprise business thinking of going mobile? Let us know!
