Weblance has tackled the issues of quality head on and implemented a best practice methodology that provides greater transparency, better communication and superior project management resulting in a more successful project and greater satisfaction.

The team at Weblance are focused on doing just one thing well and that is focussing on helping people build successful apps well.

While they have spent a lot of time refining their tools to allow people to build apps as fast as possible, these tools are really helping people work together and helping them to deliver the highest quality product possible.

All of the app development tools on the Weblance site are based on solid project methodologies and enforce best practice throughout the development process. Weblance has been founded by professional project managers and freelancers who have been through it and know what it takes to mange a project properly and understand that building your app right means building it at less cost and deploying faster.

If you haven’t already joined Weblance to manage your next project, then Click Here to check out Weblance now.

The report monitored 850 unique iPhone applications and 930 iPad applications throughout December, that had reached the Top 400 Overall on the iTunes app store.

The average price change across these apps was between $1 and $3 with price cuts having a far greater effect on the Apple App Store for iPhone with average downloads growing 1665% over a five-day period whereas app revenues on the Apple App Store for iPad increased by a mere 871%!

Developers were able to quickly notice the impact of their price cuts with increases visible after just three days in some cases and continuing for the duration of the sale period.

Revenue increases were attributed to both one-off fees and in-app purchases.

Furthermore, there was actually a negative effect felt at the conclusion of the sale with downloads dropping by -46% for iPhone apps and -57% for iPad apps (over an aggregated five day period) – customers obviously disappointed to miss out on the lower price or planning to wait for another sale event.

However the argument for dropping the price of your app appears to be far greater with cumulative growth in revenue of 159% show after 7 days with the surge of downloads compensating for the lower price charged during the sale period.

Click here to read more on the Distimo Blog.

Click Here to download the latest Distimo publication on the impact of price changes.

There are already many stories of businesses who have effectively developed mobile apps to engage with their customers. In Australia, Dominos Pizza is by far and away the leader in innovation and while we are certainly talking about a big brand with money to invest in mobile, many of their strategies can be modelled for implementation on a smaller scale (with similar results).

While the video below is from 2011, Think Mobile: Embracing The Digital Revolution is Dominos CEO Don Meij’s presentation from the Google Developer Conference and provides some unique insights into their approach to integrating mobile into their business model:

Developing a mobile app can be costly so you need to ensure that you get it right, the first time in order to deliver ongoing user engagement and downloads.

Below, we have outlined some of the important questions you should ask before deciding to design a mobile app for your business and share some of the keys to successfully developing an app that appeals to your customers and measuring the success of your app and your return on investment (ROI).

Important Questions To Ask Before Designing An App

A mobile app should be more than just an add-on to your business, it should be integrated as a part of your overall mobile marketing strategy.

While an app can be a great engagement medium, it isn’t necessarily the right solution for every business. You need to evaluate your overall business strategy and have a clear understanding of what your customers want when dealing with your company.

Here are some important factors you need to consider as you develop your mobile app strategy and development plan:

How many people are you trying to reach?  If you are trying to reach your maximum available customer base then there are still a large number of people that don’t have smartphones that are capable of running apps. On top of that, those who can run apps on their phones may each have a different type of phone (e.g. iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry) so you need to evaluate how many of your customers (or potential customers) are using these devices and if they are, which platforms they prefer.

Do you need a mobile app or mobile website?  If you are not planning on tailoring your mobile app to your business or your customers then there may be little value in proceeding and a mobile website may deliver much of the functionality you need. There is no sense in building an app just for the sake of doing it, without providing any added value to your customers.

Can you provide fresh content to engage your users?  The most successful mobile apps provide ongoing engagement with their customers that encourages them to come back time and time again. If you are not able to provide new content or ways to bring your customers back again and again then you might not see the returns you expect.

Having a great idea for an application is only a small part of the puzzle. It is important to remember what you are trying to achieve with your app and not just focus on the look and feel. The best apps don’t just look good, they actually solve a problem or make life easier for the mobile consumer.

Keys To Designing An Engaging Consumer App

What actually defines a successful app will differ by business and goals however there are three fundamental ways that apps can appeal to consumers:

• Make Life Easier - As people become increasingly busier and work more hours they are often turning to technology to ease the burden of the overwhelming number of tasks that they have to accomplish in a single day.
• Make Life Cheaper - In the current economic climate, cost is everything for many people mobile deals based on geo-location, time of day or interests provide value and drive purchasing.
• Make Life Fun - With the constant connectedness we have today people appreciate a break from the serious and games present a unique way to add something light and refreshing into your app. You don’t have to develop the next Angry Birds however there are lots of ways to offer consumers a bit of light hearted fun.

Measuring Your Apps Success

There are a variety of ways to measure the success of a mobile app. The total number of downloads is a common measure of success however it often doesn’t tell the whole story and additional metrics that track user engagement are just as critical as the download numbers.

Here are four simple ways you can measure user engagement in a mobile app:

Frequency of visit - This shows how often your app is being used by comparing the number of visits to number of users over time.

Duration of visit - Looks at how much time a users is spending in your app and compares how many pages they are viewing versus the number of visits.

Depth of visit - Simply the amount of time spent in your app

Bounce rate - Shows how many users have only used the app once and never returned.

There are a number of mobile app analytics products on the market and your developer can help you to setup the proper analytics within your app.

Measuring The Cost of a Mobile App

As with most important business projects, the decision to build an app or not comes down to cost. The more complex your app becomes, the more it is going to cost to develop however you can start out by developing the minimum viable product that you need to get your solution to the market and test your assumptions.

You should understand all of the costs going forward and look closely at how the app intends to drive new customers to your business, increase the frequency of visits and purchases from existing customers and how to increase the overall sales and profits for the business without incurring any additional costs.

Mobile apps have the potential to deliver on all of these objectives and deliver a rapid return on investment for your business – but it has to be the right solution and there has to be a defined purpose and objective in order to really succeed.

The modern website has evolved from the “brochure-ware” sites that we saw in the early 1990′s containing nothing but static information to the dynamic, interactive, service-delivery driven websites we have today that include digital shopfronts and even dynamic, location-based pricing adjustments.

Just as websites evolved over the years, so too are mobile apps and those companies that have already seen the potential of mobile have not only launched their first brand app, but are already making second-generation changes that leverage the power of the platform to maximise return on investment and increase profits.

Users are already spending more time interacting with mobile apps than they do browsing the web and App Analytics company, Flurry, predicts that app engagement may soon overtake even traditional television viewing.

For brand apps to ensure they can grab the users attention, there are a number of features that could be included:

Intelligent Push Notifications - These unique alerts delivered straight to the user can be tailored to take account of the user’s behaviour, preferences and even location to ensure that the notifications received are relevant and that the user can take immediate action if they desire. It is important not to over-use push notifications in apps as you may end up annoying the users who ends up turning them off or deleting the app altogether.

Localisation - For many companies that have physical shopfronts, location is critical to the customers ability to take action. Mobile apps allow you to provide customers with recommendations and offers based around their location in the store. Geo-location features even allow you to identify users who are close to the store where you can present offers to draw them inside

Social Integration - Most apps these days include capabilities for social sharing. Many integrate with Facebook and Twitter however there are also other social networks which may suit particular companies. Social sharing doesn’t happen by itself and there are lots of ways that creative offers can be integrated into a mobile app.

Mobile Payments - There are a variety of ways that mobile payments can be integrated into an app, from simple to complex there is a solution to suit just about every business. In order to generate direct revenue from a mobile app you need to be able to capture the user’s credit card details and provide them with a frictionless path to purchasing. Many of the major brands are developing or have already rolled out mobile payment solutions and users will soon have an expectation that these facilities will be available.

There are certainly a variety of ways that companies and brands can leverage mobile technology and these features are just some of the ways you can develop an innovative mobile app for your business.

Only time will truly tell, however there are already numerous reports of companies experiencing productivity increases and improvements to employee morale on the back of implementing a BYOD policy.

The demand for BYOD in the workplace will only continue to grow and the recent holiday season would have only increased the number of employees who own mobile devices.

Many have predicted that 2013 to be “The Year of BYOD” however this still means that companies will need to perform a balancing act between protecting company data and ensuring BYOD users’ privacy isn’t being trampled.

As more and more mobile devices make their way into the workplace, security and user education will become increasingly important.

With BYOD expected to be the rule, not the exception within a few short years we are interested to know what you think about the rise of BYOD in 2013 and how your company is addressing the security risks involved with BYOD.

Click Here to share your thoughts in our short survey.

]]> http://appconsultants.com.au/blog/enterprise-it/the-effects-of-byod-in-the-workplace/feed/ 4 http://appconsultants.com.au/blog/business-apps/nfc-vs-qr-codes-the-battle-for-consumer-engagement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nfc-vs-qr-codes-the-battle-for-consumer-engagement http://appconsultants.com.au/blog/business-apps/nfc-vs-qr-codes-the-battle-for-consumer-engagement/#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2013 01:25:14 +0000 Brad Davidson http://appconsultants.com.au/?p=1155 Mobile payments are predicted to continue reaching record levels, year-on-year for the foreseeable future and the most successful brands will be those that are able to best engage with users on their mobile devices to drive sales.

Until NFC enabled smartphones reached a critical mass, QR codes (or other 2D bar codes) were the most effective option however these required the additional effort for the users of having to download special QR code reader, scan the QR bar code and tap on a link in order to access the content.

Many felt that NFC would emerge on the back of inclusion in the iPhone 5 with early rumours indicating it would be there however Apple chose to go in a different direction at the time and it will be interesting to see if Apple will include NFC on the iPhone 6.

As time has passed, Apple’s grip on top spot as the leading smartphone manufacturer is starting to loosen with Android powered phones winning market share across the World giving NFC the critical mass that it requires to become a consideration for marketing companies and brand promotions.

The added simplicity of NFC engagement will also increase its appeal, despite the added cost of including the RFIC chip on the marketing collateral. As a frictionless technology, when the user sees a piece of media with a call to action, they can simply tap or wave the phone across an area approximately 8 inches away and the chip will automatically interact with the phone. There is no need to download an app or visit a website, all of the content is passed via the NFC chip.

A recent article on Mobile Commerce Daily reported on NFC program pilots undertaken by Kraft in the USA which showed significantly higher engagement levels compared to QR codes.

For their NFC pilot, Kraft used RFID chips that could be read by NFC-enabled smartphones and placed these on shelf signage right in front of their Kraft cheese and Nabisco cookie brands. The shelf-talkers presented a call-to-action which invited consumers to tap their smartphones to access dynamic recipe content, share their experience on Facebook or download the i-Food Assistant app.

Increased Engagement Levels

The Kraft NFC pilot, which was run for one month, was developed to explore the “tap and engage” experience that was on offer with NFC vs QR codes.

The results from the pilot showed that the overall NFC “tap” engagement level was 12 times higher than with QR Codes (which were also included on the signs). More than 36 percent of consumers who tapped the NFC chip, converted into an action, such as downloading the app, saving a recipe or sharing with friends.

Additionally, NFC increased brand engagement with consumers spending 48 seconds engaged when NFC was involved compared to the traditional 5-10 seconds of brand engagement at the supermarket shelf.

NFC chips present a great opportunity for brands to increase engagement using mobile devices.

When compared to QR codes, over 92 percent of the interactions were with NFC during the Kraft NFC pilot which clearly shows that even though NFC isn’t yet supported on the Apple iPhone, it still represents a viable avenue for mobile marketing.

While it is important for an enterprise to carefully weigh the options before deciding whether a BaaS solution is right for them however with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement continuing to pick up seam, BaaS appears to provide a suitable balance where IT or non-IT staff can have access to critical data while continuing to meet the required data security standards.

BaaS should, at a bare minimum, provide fully managed IT departments with a more efficient model for deploying apps within the company, allowing them to develop apps faster and more efficiently, while also potentially using a lower-cost programming resource to “construct” the required apps using the existing infrastructure as opposed to a high-end, high-cost app developer.

For those enterprises who have opened their minds to the possibilities that the mobile revolution presents and adopted standards for BYOD, BYOS and BYOF etc, BaaS can present even greater opportunity to leverage the skills within the company to develop apps which will deliver improved access to information along with improved productivity and collaboration.

Although some programming expertise is required to develop apps using BaaS, the provision of pre-built APIs can quickly add features such as login systems, social integration and push notification, greatly simplifying the process for anyone with the necessary knowledge.

While BaaS will certainly receive considerable resistance from traditional IT departments that are threatened by this technology, Enterprise IT is evolving to the point where IT might not be the only ones capable of developing corporate apps and may lead to companies developing their own Enterprise App Stores where IT serve as the gatekeepers to the store, undertaking the process of QA on apps before release to employees, much like Apple and their App Store approval process.

One of the important questions is whether companies what their non-IT workers developing apps. Employees certainly have the best understanding of what information they need and how it should best be presented, there needs to be a level of control exerted over how much time employees may spend during business hours developing these solutions to prevent this opportunity from becoming a black hole.

Marketing departments could present a perfect use-case for Baas as they most likely go outside of IT already to build promotional mobile apps and there is a great benefit to being able to create a lot of apps quickly and the move to BaaS could allow them to even build consumer-facing apps around brand campaigns or events.

While it is true that BaaS is in its infancy when it comes to Enterprise IT however companies such as Cloudmine, Parse, Kinvey, FatFractal and Stackmob are already providing solutions to mid-size and Enterprise businesses with each offering different price-points and feature sets that would suit most businesses starting out with BaaS.

The survey was conducted on behalf of Samsung by IDG in November 2012 and this report provides a fresh look at the drivers behind the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend from both the IT and end user perspective and outlines both group’s perspectives while also benchmarking the growth of BYOD programs in the United States.

I am going to share some of the valuable statistics in this article however you can Click Here to download the complete Samsung Mobile BYOD Index PDF.

Here are some of the vital statistics:

• 61% of all companies currently have some form of BYOD policy in place with only 15% explicitly prohibiting the use of personal mobile devices.
• Of the companies surveyed with no formal BYOD policies in place, 44% consider the need to create a BYOD policy a high priority.
• 39% of companies with BYOD policies also formally provide subsidies for the purchase of BYOD devices.
• 71% of companies with BYOD policies in place extend the option to all employees to use their own personal mobile devices to access enterprise applications and data.
• 76% believe that it is somewhat likely that their company will adopt a preferred standard for BYOD operating systems (e.g. iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry).
• 24% of employees reported that they used a mobile device as their primary computing device for work-related activities. Employees also predicted that these numbers would jump to 31% in two years and 49% in five years.
• 71% of companies with BYOD policies in place extend the option to all employees to use their own personal mobile devices to access enterprise applications and data.
• 72% of IT decision makers saw value in BYOD programs as a factor for attracting or retaining future employees.
• 55% believed that having a single mobile device helps employees balance personal and work lives.
• 47% believe BYOD programs are a cost effective way to increase employee productivity.
• 47% believe that companies without a BYOD program will be at a competitive disadvantage.

These are just a few of the statistics from the Samsung Mobile BYOD Index however, if you are involved in Enterprise IT in any way, we fully recommend you download the PDF to read completely.

Click Here to download the Samsung Mobile BYOD Index

As the Bring Your Own (BYO) revolution continues to expand, IT departments will shift their focus from simply managing back-end systems to focusing on how to make the people within their organisations more productive and collaborative. Those companies who best understand how to leverage the people-centric environment will increase their chances of success moving forward.

In the corporate business environment where Return On Investment (ROI) is everything, managers will go to great lengths to justify the ROI on software projects, often neglecting the true impact of the ROI from increased employee productivity.

While BYOD has received the bulk of the publicity, the BYO phenomenon is impacting all areas of IT, not just devices. Other forms of BYO include BYOS – Bring Your Own Software, or BYOA – Bring Your Own Applications as it is sometimes know. In addition, we also have BYOF – Bring Your Own Files which is being supported by services such as Box and Dropbox.

Users will no longer wait for their IT department to give them a software program or access to a file server, they will just find a way to do it all them selves, download the app, share the files on Dropbox etc, all of the time circumventing the companies security policies. Users now want IT-related issues handled on-demand and if they can’t get it from the company, they will find a way to do it themselves.

While BYOD is a remarkable trend, these other IT trends are remaking how Enterprise IT departments look, work and function – and they are all being done with a user-centric focus.

The consumerisation of IT is expanding the use of technology within organisations at a rapid rate, faster than at any other time in history. While the emphasis historically for Enterprise IT departments was on core business systems, today’s focus is on the people and how they can be made more productive and collaborative.

The one benefit for companies with this fast change is that those developing Enterprise mobile apps for business functions are seeing the ROI for mobile app development pay back at a faster rate than for traditional software projects, which should ensure that the technology revolution continues, to the benefit of all.

So What Is An Enterprise App Store? Often also referred to as an EAS, it is an online app store that allows companies to supervise and control the security, licensing, distribution and management of mobile apps for its employees.

An EAS can be accessed by the latest mobile devices across multiple platforms and can help a company to ensure that security policies are followed at all times while providing a good user experience, often having a positive effect on an employee’s respect for BYOD security policies.

By deploying apps via a secure company app store, the IT department can regulate availability and use while also having a level of control over mobile, web and cloud software.

The enterprise security team can monitor and review all app downloads to ensure adherence to licences and user rights while having full control over the type of apps that employees can download and use in the workplace. The store could contain a combination of both externally licensed apps along with those developed specifically for the company.

Enterprise App Store vendors are starting to appear with each catering to the different requirements of companies.

Some of the leading vendors at the moment are:

Cisco - Offering both external and internally licensed apps to users.

McAfee - Already well established in the anti-virus and internet security fields, they have now added basic features to their general framework.

Apperian - Have recently included an enterprise app store module for mobile.

iTunes App Store – Although this is not a true enterprise app store, Apple have started to add to their corporate purchasing capabilities by offering app licences in bulk for deployment to employees.

As more employees begin to use mobile devices in the workplace it is critical for companies to maximise the potential productivity increases that BYOD can bring while ensuring that security isn’t compromised.

Whether you have an in-house mobile development team or use a variety of outsourced app developers an enterprise app store can provide the required level of control over all aspects of the process ensuring better compliance and confidence that security policies are being enforced.