More than a decade since the Blackberry and iPhone changed the way mobile workers do their work, investment in an increasingly mobile workforce continues. Besides unchaining workers from their desks, mobile-specific technology such as geolocation is bringing new capabilities to the enterprise. Most of the companies in our survey that have consumed mobile applications like it so much they have come back for second helpings.
Figure 3 from our full report, Mobile Apps Adoption and Customer Experience, shows the percentage of organizations at five adoption stages. Forty percent report that they have some mobile applications in place and intend to increase investment. Only 16% report having mobile apps in place but plan no further investment, and 10% report that they are currently implementing mobile apps. Twenty-one percent are considering mobile apps, and 13% report no activity at all.
For the purposes of this report, we consider only the adoption of business applications that run on smartphones, tablets, and handheld devices. We include new implementations or retrofitting of existing business applications (such as CRM, field service, or time reporting) for access on smartphones, tablets, or special-purpose handhelds. We do not count laptops as mobile devices or email as a mobile application.
“Early adopters mostly created mobile versions of existing apps, but smart companies are starting to look at ways to deliver new experiences,” said David Wagner, vice president for research at Computer Economics, an IT research firm based in Irvine, Calif. “Screen real estate means that simply shrinking existing systems doesn’t make sense. More companies are using digital assistants and voice activation to create tailored mobile experiences. We’re really in the middle of creating a new way to work that is less keyboard-centric. Investment has really just begun.”
The full report provides an overview of mobile application adoption and investment trends, providing data on how many organizations have the technology in place, how many are in the process of implementing it, and how many are expanding implementations. We look at the return on investment experience, total cost of ownership experience, considered or planned uses for new mobile app investment, as well as the platforms on which companies are developing mobile applications. We also assess which sectors are adopting mobile applications, and whether those organizations are developing mobile applications in-house, outsourcing the task, or relying on commercial software vendors. We conclude with recommendations for making the most of mobile application investments. .
This Research Byte is a brief overview of our report on this subject, Mobile Apps Adoption and Customer Experience. The full report is available at no charge for Computer Economics clients, or it may be purchased by non-clients directly from our website (click for pricing).
