How to Handle Enterprise Mobility the Right Way

As a business owner, you’ve never had more options for increasing your reach and grabbing more customers. Leaving them happy and creating brand loyalty is easier than ever too. Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is taking advantage of these opportunities. Mobile apps are a great example. If your company doesn’t have one of its own-either for internal use or to engage your customers-you’re making a major mistake. No matter what your company does or what industry it’s in, a mobile app could be a huge difference-maker in your bottom line. The good news is that with enterprise mobility software, you can create your own from scratch easier and cheaper than ever before. Forbes actually wrote an article on making your own app which we highly recommend.

Once you understand the importance of enterprise mobility, the next step is getting your company a mobile application (you may end up with many though). In the past, this meant finding a developer who had experience relevant to your needs. It also meant investing a lot of money into the process and then waiting until you were next in line for this developer. All in all, you could wait a really long time only to end up disappointed by the result.

Fortunately, these days, you can use enterprise mobility software for the job. There are all kinds of platforms out there to choose from, meaning you can find one that will make the most sense for your capabilities, needs, and budget.

Even if you’ve never even attempted to create your own app before, you’ll find it’s now far easier than you ever imagined. There are literally titles out there that will allow you to build an entire custom app through a drag and drop interface. Check out this article by business news daily, which mentions 18 different resources you can utilize for you own app. You’re not the only person who wants to build a piece of software unique to their needs, but doesn’t have the time to go back to school and learn programming. This market has created platform after platform for addressing enterprise mobility apps in the most user-friendly ways possible.

Another reason to love an enterprise mobility platform is how quickly you can get your app developed and ready for use. Like we mentioned at the beginning, hiring a developer to create you an app from scratch could take a really long time. Not only will you need to live with a generous deadline, but this also means that what you end up with may need to be reworked several times over, unless you’re intimately involved in the process from the beginning.

With your own enterprise mobility platform, you’re in control from the very beginning. You don’t have to waste time trying to explain the intricacies of your company and the demands of your industry to someone who knows nothing about it before entrusting them to build you an app.

Given the short learning curve, you can easily get up and running and begin developing your own app in no time. Then, it’s just a matter of how much time you can put into the process of creating your application. Obviously, the more often you can work on it, the faster the entire project will go.

Also, because you’re in control, you can make modifications along the way. Chances are that you’ll come across features or elements of your app that need to be adjusted. In the past, you might not even stumble upon such an issue until after your developer was done creating it. Then, not only might you face an extra charge, but you’d have to wait even longer to get a finished product you can actually use.

No matter what, there’s a really good chance the app you make isn’t going to be the one you settle on. This has nothing to do with picking the right enterprise mobility software, though. Actually, it’s choosing a platform and handling this process on your own that actually makes it much easier to get the final result you want.

In short, even if you and your team test the app over and over, you’re going to find that your customers and/or employees do a far better job of putting it through its paces. You just can’t compete with that many people using your app with their own expectations. When problems are found, though, you possess the entire toolbox necessary for addressing what needs to be changed. It’s as simple as that.

Earlier, we talked about how tough it can be to explain to a developer what your company does and what you need an app to do. However, it’s no less necessary when you go this route because there are features unique to your business that must be represented in your application.

Now consider how this works on the digital side of things. Your app must be able to integrate several key components of your company’s unique business logic and data or it’s going to turn out rather underwhelming, to say the least.

When you’re shopping around for an enterprise mobility platform, look for one that has an API gateway capable of handling access to your company’s host systems, as well as any other proprietary applications you may currently be using. Otherwise, you’ll either need a lot of convoluted workarounds or will simply end up with an app that leaves a lot to be desired (and may not see any use).

You also need to have that API gateway be capable of supporting development and any runtime needs you may have. REST APIs that are capable of providing support to your platform web services will be extremely helpful too. Take the time to consider any and all functionality your app will need to play well with.

With the right mobile integration, you should be able to process message content, even if you first have to transform it. Granular services must be orchestrated properly too, turning them into composite versions. All of your messages and data have to be mapped as well, so that you can count on them being delivered on demand.

If all of this technical talk is over your head, don’t worry. This feeling puts you in the majority, which is why today’s enterprise mobility applications are designed to help make dealing with these important features easy and intuitive.

Think about it like WordPress or some other kind of CMS. Not so long ago, building a website meant hiring a developer, unless you had a lot of experience with HTML. Now, though, you can use something like WordPress to create a high-functioning website over the course of an afternoon.

While building your app will take a little more time than that, the idea is the same. Powerful features you want your app to have are represented in easy to understand ways, so you can customize your project without having a degree in development.

You don’t have to be any kind of expert to know that security is essential in today’s digital environment. Unfortunately, there are malicious parties all over the world who would love to have a shot at cracking through your systems and looking for opportunities to expose you.

The security of your mobile app cannot be overstressed. Fortunately, most enterprise mobility titles come with the necessary tools for ensuring you don’t leave yourself open to an attack.

When considering your options, only give attention to those enterprise mobility platforms that include encryption. You want every message being sent to and from your application-regardless of the type of data or the devices involved-full encrypted for your protection.

You also have to create an app that puts you in charge. We’ll talk about this more next, but in terms of security, this means being able to revoke access from a user whenever you want to. Once you do, all the application data related to it has to be destroyed as well.

Finally, let’s talk about application management, which just refers to your ability to control the app once it’s out in the wild. You want to get constant feedback, so you can be sure it’s doing its job. This way, you’ll also have a much easier time modifying the next version you create as necessary. The right enterprise mobility platform is also going to help you protect your application, as we mentioned above.