1. Existing IT systems and online services get mobilised

Over the past couple of years, online companies such as Salesforce, Box.net, Linkedin and Basecamp, as well as traditional IT businesses including SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and Filemaker, have invested heavily in mobilising their online services.

Some of the apps and services are pretty good, but most of them are just mobilised versions of the web product rather than tools that have been developed specifically for mobile use. However, recently these companies have also vastly improved their service APIs and today you will frequently find third-party apps integrating with the services of these companies and providing a much better user experience, enhancing the core services and increasing uptake over time.

2. Independent productivity applications

The best mobile productivity tools today were created, built and designed by start-ups with mobile first (or very early) in mind. This includes amazing apps such as Evernote, Slideshark, Hourstracker, GoodReader, Pages, Omnifocus, Dropbox and Bloom, which help improve personal productivity through note taking, task management, presentations, file sharing, time tracking and more.

The great thing with all of these apps is that you can use them completely independently of your IT department at a very low cost or even for free. At the same time, these benefits pose a major challenge to Enterprise IT departments that want to remain in control of the tools used for business and how business information is stored and accessed.

But since these services are frequently used by employees on their private devices, there is little the business can do. Currently the uptake of independent productivity applications is much higher than for official mobile tools in the enterprise.

3. Vertical mobile solutions

The most critical success factor to succeed with mobile enterprise apps is to understand the employees’ needs and key use cases, and implement a user experience to address each business area need. Great examples include sector-specific apps such as:

• Field work installation solutions with authorisation, check lists, issue reports (photos, videos and text) and completion sign-out. These are used by security firms and telecom installation companies, for example the Securitas customized solution for their field workers that install, test and repair alarms for businesses and households. The Blackberry app is used by thousands of staff and helps them sign the authorisation of the visit, test the alarm, register test results and specific issues and finally get a digital signature from the customer before leaving the site.
• Salesforce solutions used by field sales teams to prepare and plan for meetings, access the latest marketing material, present at the meeting, record feedback, follow-up with material and report to CRM.
• Real estate agent solutions for registering new objects, recording information about the object including owner details, object information, photos and videos, monitoring and communicating with prospective buyers and updating records when a deal is closed.
• Training for pharmaceuticals, shop sales staff, field sales people, etc, using virtual classes, quizzes, checklists, product material, social media updates, updates of material and ongoing surveys/polls.

  We believe that the end goal of mobile enterprise solutions should be to make the tablet or smartphone into a truly useful tool that guides users through the workday by integrating the tools and systems they need to interact with.

  To achieve this, we need a combination of mobilising existing IT systems, independent apps and Vertical Mobile Solutions. This will result in less time spent doing administrative tasks in front of the computer, increased accuracy of information, more time with customers, improved overall productivity and happier employees – and this is only the beginning.

Magnus Jern is CEO & founder at mobile app solution provider Golden Gekko