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Enterprise Mobile Apps: An Opportunity to Transform

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Enterprise Mobile Industry: An Overview

Today’s enterprises are under tremendous pressure to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive

market place. Trends such as social media, cloud services and mobility enable businesses to operate

with higher productivity, lower costs with increased customer satisfaction and engagement levels. The

benefits of mobility are now well established in many business sectors and mobile solutions have

positively impacted many businesses. In a 2012 Forrester Research survey of 1058 IT executives and

technology decision makers, 71% of the respondents felt that increasing use of smartphones and tablets

will have moderate to significant impact on their firms’ IT spending.

Source: Forrester Research Study, 2012

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Another study by IDC in 2012 reports that 10% of IT budgets are dedicated to mobile ERP solutions - and

increasing - and, that the roll out of mobile devices such as Smartphones and Tablets dominates the 3 -

year plans for most companies.

Opportunity for Enterprise Mobile Apps

Given the fact that mobile applications have been around for the past 5 to 7 years, why is there a sudden

uptake in the use of mobile apps? The single biggest reason is - improvements in 3G and 4G technology

have allowed the access of information to be available from anywhere. According to the McKinsey report

The Next Enterprise IT Shake Up, following are the key mobile enterprise uses:

Mobile as a channel for communication and collaboration: Mobile is enhancing the way employees

interact. Greater access to email, calendars, voice, and video chat are facilitating employee-to-employee

communication.

Mobile for core content productivity: Remote access to content and applications allows workers to

take full advantage of their out-of-office time. Providing mobile access to ERP, CRM improves productivity

in enterprise core business areas.

Mobile for administrative efficiency: Increasing the productivity of the employee on the go applies to

adjacent work activities as well. Expense report for example can be handled even before an employee

returns from the business trip based on electronic submission via mobiles.

Key Drivers for Mobile Investments

One of the top reasons why IT departments are increasingly investing in mobility is the fact that it has led

to improved employer productivity. Moreover, a successful mobile strategy has also contributed in growth

of sales, field service response and an enhanced competitive position for companies spanning across

multiple industries. Retail, manufacturing, professional services and public sector (education/government)

show the maximum interest in strategizing a mobile road map.

As far as B2E apps, the focus of each of the industry is different. For instance the manufacturing

industry’s top priority is sales, customer care and social, the healthcare sector is looking to leverage

mobile applications in the HR/Benefits function in addition to sales and customer care.

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A spilt of the industry and its corresponding priority in the B2E mobile apps domain is as follows:

Industry B2E Apps Domain

Manufacturing Sales, customer care, social

Healthcare Customer care, social, HR/benefits

Financial services Social, customer care, sales

Retail-wholesale Customer care, sales, multimedia

Professional services Social, sales, customer care, benefits

Public sector (e.g., education, government) Social, customer care, HR, ERP/SCM

The top two business functions and the respective application across industries are 1) social business

through collaboration apps and 2) customer care through CRM apps.

Hurdles in Effectively Implementing Mobile Strategy

Mobile strategy surely is promising but there are certain concerns that companies have that still prevent

them from adopting a strategy wholeheartedly. An IDC survey revealed that the top three reasons CIOs

cite for not having a set mobile strategy are:

• Security

• Cost of development and integration

• Work processes not adapted to mobile

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Given the explosion of personal mobile devices being used for work, the importance of data security and

privacy concerns is not lost on IT leaders. Over 77% of respondents stated that information security and

privacy concerns are the greatest challenge they expect to face when they build and implement their

mobility strategy. Also, a vast majority of CIOs (70 percent) said they believe that the cost of developing

or re-engineering enterprise applications for use on mobile devices is currently too high because of the

highly fragmented and complex nature of the mobile market. In fact, 65 percent claimed that mobilizing

enterprise application, such as adding touch and swipe support, is too complex. Lastly, many companies

do not have set processes in place as far as their mobility strategy is concerned. Currently businesses do

not have any clear rules about the use of mobile devices. Previously, it was clear who owned, managed

and secured devices but in a BYOD work environment, this has become less clear.

NiiD Technologies’ Value Proposition

NiiD is a natural partner for companies looking to leverage mobile solutions in support of their business

strategies. As business application vendor we not only understand the opportunities in the mobility

strategy but also the potential obstacles that can affect the successful implementation of the company’s

business objectives. Our solutions fit the need of the business while at the same time no compromises

are made on data security. Here are the cornerstones of enterprise mobile app solution offering of NiiD

Technologies:

Client Centric

Industry Excellence

Secure and Platform Agnostic

Low Costs

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Client Centric: Most of the times mobile projects end up becoming IT projects with the focus

shifting from solving a business problem to delivering a technological superior service. At NiiD we

believe that a deep knowledge of client’s industry and business processes are crucial inputs to

craft a tailor-made solution for its clientele. We take every possible step to ensure that we clearly

understand our client’s pain points and then come up with a solution to address them.

Consequently, our mobile solutions are known to delight the client base we have served in the

past.

Industry Experience: We have the scale across the lifecycle of services, from user

experience and design skills to business acumen to mobile technology expertise. With over 25

years of experience, we have had the opportunity to work with clients in a range of industries

such as manufacturing, healthcare, publishing etc. This experience enables to deliver deep

vertical expertise for clients seeking partnership in the mobility space.

Low Costs: Our development center is in India, guaranteeing a lower cost than other

competitors without sacrificing quality. Moreover NiiD’s cloud-based mobile deployments allow

organizations to build applications in the cloud for a much lower up-front cost at a much faster

pace. Cloud computing also provides organizations a way to enter the market with a smaller

deployment and yet allows the ability to scale for future deployments.

Secure and Platform Agnostic: NiiD solutions deliver multiple platform offerings that

provide the requirements expected in an enterprise offering, including broad back-end system

support, multi-device and multicarrier support, and full security at the device, application, and

network levels.

Conclusion

Companies world-wide are utilizing mobile platform to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Mobility

is seen as a business enabler to exceed employees’ expectations on business productivity and software

usability. Mobility is seen as a business enabler to exceed customers’ and employees’ expectations on

business productivity and software usability. To fully reap the benefits of all that mobility has to offer to

enterprises, companies need to be mindful of their current challenges and concerns in order to deliver a

set of secure and reliable services in the face of constant change and complexity.