Mobile App Backlog Is Directly Damaging Revenue in the EnterpriseOct 2014

Only 6% of Enterprises Have All the Mobile Developer Talent They Need

New research conducted by Opinion Matters reveals that 85% of enterprises have a mobile app development backlog because they can’t cope with business demands. With the average application taking anywhere between three and 12 months to get out the door, this slow approach to app development is resulting in competitive disadvantage.

THE SURVEY

The survey, which polled more than 200 US and UK enterprises, found that organizations are currently struggling with a significant mobile backlog. 85% of companies surveyed noted that they have a mobile backlog of between one and 20 applications, with half (50%) having a backlog of between 10 and 20 apps. The primary goal of these new mobile app initiatives is either to generate revenue (64%) or to improve the mobile experience of existing apps (58%).

The research was sponsored by OutSystems, the open, rapid application delivery platform (PaaS) provider. The results provide a compelling snapshot of the mobile application development landscape within enterprises and the challenges that organizations face when delivering such projects to the business.

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

Today, mobility is a core requirement for any business. In fact, Cisco recently published statistics that demonstrate how user demand is driving every enterprise down the mobile route whether they like it or not.

The Cisco study found that 90% of American workers use their own smartphones for work. Meanwhile between now and 2018, the number of mobile users will grow by 20% annually to 4.9 billion. Additionally, in a study undertaken by Enders Analysis leveraging data from comScore, by early 2014 mobile devices already comprised 55% of Internet traffic.

This explosive growth is driving a deluge of mobile app requests with multiple platforms to support, hundreds of change requests, and complex backend integrations. As demand for mobile apps grows, companies will increasingly find it difficult to hire developers with the right skills. The industry is already dealing with a considerable developer skills shortage, which is also borne out in this survey.

The research found that 63% of the respondents had between 11% and 25% open vacancies for developers as a percentage of their current team size. Over one quarter (29%) had somewhere between 26% and 50% open vacancies as a percentage of their current team size. Of those that had open mobile app developer vacancies, the top three skills respondents had major challenges hiring for were Java (31%), JavaScript (19%) and .NET (17%). A very small percentage (6%) advised that they have no open

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vacancies due to a shortage of developer skills which means that 94% do.

This survey was undertaken to understand firsthand the role that mobile is playing in enterprise IT strategies and some of the challenges that businesses are struggling with today. It’s no surprise that 99% of respondents recognize the importance of incorporating mobility into their IT strategy. However, how easily and quickly this can be achieved is another story altogether. The survey also looks to establish whether business is demanding change at lightning speed when it comes to mobile app development and if users really understand what is required to develop mobile apps. The survey investigates the top challenges enterprises are grappling with, how easily these challenges can be overcome, and ultimately whether mobile app dev is a bottleneck in businesses today to the point that it is damaging revenue and creating competitive disadvantage.

What follows is a window into the state of play of mobile app development in the enterprise.

KEY FINDINGS

Mobility - A Top Priority99% of respondents recognize the importance of incorporating mobility into current and future applications in their organizations.

Growing Demand for Mobile AppsIn the last 12 months, just over half (51%) of respondents have undertaken between one and five mobile app projects and 44% have undertaken between six and 10. This means that over a 12 month period, 95% of respondents have undertaken somewhere between one and 10 mobile app projects.

Money Spinner for the EnterpriseWhen asked about the goal of new mobile app initiatives, the top three cited were to generate revenue (64%), to improve the mobile experience of existing apps (58%), and to improve customer experience (52%).

Big ChallengesThe top two challenges when building mobile apps are budget (53%) and time (50%). Only 4% of those surveyed admitted to having no challenges when buildingmobile apps, which means that 96% are grappling with issues of one nature or another.

(64%)

(99%)

Dealing with Growing Backlogs85% of companies surveyed noted that they have a mobile backlog of between one and 20 applications with half (50%) having a backlog of between 10 and 20 apps.

Losing Competitive AdvantageOver half of the respondents surveyed (51%) stated that it was taking them on average between three and six months to build and deliver a complete mobile application. Amazingly, 6% of the survey respondents advised that it was sometimes taking up to one year to build and deliver mobile applications.

Increasing Demand for Mobile App Developer SkillsNearly three quarters of the respondents reported to have between six and 15 developers working on their mobile app initiatives, and 21% are using somewhere between 16 and 30.

Hybrid versus Native versus HTML5When asked about their preferred type of mobile app development environment, one third voted for hybrid (33%), while 29% preferred native and 22% opted for HTML5/responsive design. 16% stated that this would vary on a case by case basis.

A Growing Developer Skills Shortage63% of the respondents had between 11% and 25% open vacancies for developers as a percentage of their current team size. 29% had between 26% and 50% open vacancies. A very small percentage (6%) advised that they have no open vacancies due to a shortage of developer skills.

Top Skills in DemandWhen asked if they have any open mobile application developer vacancies, the top three skills respondents had challenges hiring for were Java (31%), JavaScript (19%) and .NET (17%).

FULL RESEARCH FINDINGS

Independent research company, Opinion Matters, surveyed 228 Application Development Directors/Managers in the US and UK during August and September 2014 to understand the challenges organizations face around mobile application development. The split between UK and US respondents was about equal with around 50% from each territory (111 UK versus 117 US). Results were also segmented by industry sector, role and company size. Here are the full findings from this study:

How important is mobility to your organization?

With mobility very much on the agenda, nearly all (99%) respondents recognize the importance of incorporating mobility into current and future applications in their organizations. In fact, the vast majority (81%) ranked this as very important and 18% stated that mobility was quite important. 94% of senior software developers surveyed graded this as very important and likewise 94% of application development directors also considered this to be very important. Interestingly, 7% of mobile application development leaders ranked this as not important.

The financial services and insurance sectors were the top two industry categories that placed mobility highest (87%) followed by manufacturing (86%). Large organizations with between 1001 and 5000 employees considered this very important (88%). However it was the smaller organizations (250-500 employees) who rated lowest with 71% stating that it was very important and nearly one third (28%) stating that mobility was quite important rather than very important.

There was a 10% difference between UK and US respondents with 86% of US respondents ranking mobility as very important versus 76% for the UK.

What is the goal of new mobile app initiatives?

When asked about the goal of new mobile app initiatives, the top three cited were to generate revenue (64%), to improve the mobile experience of existing apps (58%), and to improve customer experience (52%). Other key initiatives driving mobile application development included building brand awareness, making employees more productive, targeting either new geographic markets or new demographics.

(21%)

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(85%)LOADING...

(63%)

“99% OF RESPONDENTS RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF INCORPORATING MOBILITY INTO CURRENT AND FUTURE APPLICATIONS”

Senior software developers were primarily taking on these new projects to generate revenue (82%) whereas mobile application development leads were more focused on improving the mobile application experience of existing apps (76%).

When we looked at these initiatives across industries, the retail sector scored highest (76%) for using new mobile app initiatives as a means for driving revenue, whereas the financial services sector was most focused on improving the mobile experience of existing apps (74%). Interestingly the manufacturing sector scored very high (55%) on using new mobile app initiatives to target new geographical areas.

From a company size perspective the 501-1000 employee sector scored highest on generating revenue (70%) while the larger enterprises (1001-5000) cited improving the experience of existing mobile apps as their number one priority (66%).

The US is far more focused on mobile app initiatives as a means for driving new revenue - 70% in the US versus 58% in the UK.

Do users understand what is required to deliver new mobile apps?

88% of those surveyed felt that users did understand and were totally in sync with what is required. A startling 12% of the survey sample felt very strongly that users either often or completely underestimate what is required to deliver these new projects.

87% of the US respondents versus 89% of UK respondents stated that business users recognize what it takes to deliver mobile applications and are totally in sync with what is required and understand. Interestingly, software solution architects are significantly more likely than web application development leads to state that business users are totally in sync with what is required and understand (55% versus 14%), which expresses a deeper level of understanding.

In the industry sector, 19% of corporate business respondents consider that business users rarely understand what it takes to deliver mobile applications.

How many mobile app projects have you undertaken in the past 12 months?

In the last 12 months, just over half (51%) of respondents have undertaken between one and five mobile projects and 44% have undertaken between six and 10. This means that over a 12 month period, 95% of respondents have undertaken somewhere between one and 10 mobile app projects.

The manufacturing industry had the highest percentage of more than 10 projects on the go in the past 12 months (10%), and both the insurance and pharmaceutical sectors

had the highest proportion of between one and five mobile app projects, both reported 63%.

Companies between 250-500 employees had the highest number of projects between one and five (60%) and larger companies between 1001-5000 had the greatest number of projects between six and 10 (62%). In the 250-500 employee category 5% of the survey sample had undertaken more than 10 projects and 33% of respondents had undertaken between six and 10.

What are the major challenges faced when delivering mobile apps?

Only 4% of those surveyed admitted to having no challenges when building mobile apps which means that 96% are grappling with issues of one nature or another. The top two challenges when building mobile apps are budget (53%) and time (50%). Other challenges ranged from a gap in skills needed to undertake mobile (36%) to both business (25%) and users (33%) having unrealistic expectations to not enough developers with the right level of skills (19%) to the development environment not currently being right for mobile (17%).

Interestingly, nearly half (46%) of software solution architects and 47% of senior software developers believed there was a gap in the skills needed to undertake mobile. This is probably why 77% of senior software developers felt that time was a major challenge in delivering mobile applications. More than half of the web application development leads (57%) and 40% of the application development leads felt that the expectations of users were unrealistic.

The pharmaceutical industry had the highest percentage of respondents (50%) who felt there was a gap in the skills needed to undertake mobile. Just over a quarter (26%) of those from the manufacturing sector felt that there wasn’t enough stakeholder buy-in and the same proportion felt that the development environment wasn’t right. Budget was particularly an issue for those with between 501-1000 employees with 60% citing this as a major challenge to delivering mobile apps.

There was a significant difference between the US and UK with regard to time being a challenge – 43% (UK) versus 56% (US).

Is there a mobile app development backlog?

85% of companies surveyed noted that they have a mobile backlog of between one and 20 applications, with half (50%) having a backlog of between 10 and 20 apps.

Specifically two thirds (66%) of mobile application development leads had a backlog on current projects.

Among the different industry sectors, retail had the biggest

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backlog in the between 10 and 20 range with 58% of projects stacking up, while manufacturing had the greatest number in the one to 10 range (45%).

Surprisingly, the 250-500 company size felt that their organization could cope with the current level of projects and had no backlog (21%). In the 501–1000 category however, nearly 60% were struggling with a backlog of anywhere between 10 and 20 projects.

The US respondents reported slightly more projects on backlog than the UK (89% versus 82%).

How long do mobile apps take to build and deliver?

Over half of the respondents surveyed (51%) stated that it was taking them on average between three and six months to build and deliver a complete mobile application. 43% stated that it was taking between one and three months. Amazingly, 6% of the survey respondents advised that it was sometimes taking up to one year to build and deliver mobile applications while only 1% suggested that it was taking less than one month.

21% of web application development leads state that it takes up to a year to build and deliver a mobile application, whereas 57% of application development directors advised that it takes somewhere between zero days to three months.

When it comes to industry sectors, both financial services and insurance had a high percentage of respondents (over 70%) stating that projects take between three and six months to deliver.

It would appear that the UK is building applications faster than the US with 49% taking between one and three months and 43% taking between three and six months, whereas 37% of US respondents are taking between one and three months and 58% are taking between three and six months.

What are the different ways to approach development?

When asked about the different ways or sources that respondents were using to approach or aid the development of mobile apps, the vast majority (72%) were using in-house development versus just over half (52%) who had outsourced IT. 29% were using some form of cloud services, be that SaaS, PaaS and so on.

From an industry perspective, the financial services market had the highest level of outsourced IT (58%), while manufacturing (38%) followed by insurance (37%) showed the highest level of adoption of cloud services.

The US appears to be using cloud to aid the development of apps more than the UK (35% versus 23%).

How many developers are being used to build mobile apps?

Nearly three quarters of the respondents reported to be using between six and 15 developers on their mobile app initiatives, and a further 21% are using somewhere between 16 and 30.

Financial services (86%), insurance (86%), and pharmaceutical (85%) industries all had high numbers of developers (between six and 15) working on mobile app projects.

Over one quarter (27%) of 1001-5000 sized organizations have between 16 and 30 developers working on mobile app projects.

While the UK respondents had a higher percentage in the six to 15 category (75% versus 69%), the US respondents reported higher percentages in the between 16 and 30 category (17% versus 26%).

How many application developers do you have in total?

Well over half of respondents (60%) have somewhere between 11 and 25 developers in their business. Just over a quarter (27%) have between 26 and 49, and a small number (10%) only have up to 10. However only 11% (19) of these developers are actually qualified mobile app developers.

The insurance sector (73%) has the greatest number of developers in the between 11 and 25 category, closely followed by pharma (70%) and retail (70%).

69% of 250-500 sized companies had developers in the between 11 and 25 category, while the 1001-5000 company

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size sector had the greatest number of developers (38%) in the between 26 and 49 category.

From a country perspective, the UK had the greatest number of developers (63% versus 57%) in the between 11 and 25 category while the US had more developers in the between 26 and 49 category (29% versus 25%).

What is the preferred mobile app development approach?

When asked about their preferred type of mobile app development environment, one third voted for hybrid (33%), while 29% preferred native and 22% opted for HTML5/responsive design. 16% stated that this would vary on a case by case basis.

Hybrid is definitely preferred by application development directors (49%) whereas application development managers prefer native (35%) and application development leads prefer HTML5/responsive design (40%). The highest category for software solution architects was to look at this on a case by case basis (36%).

Manufacturing scored highest out of all the industry sectors for hybrid (43%), closely followed by the financial services sector (39%). Pharma, insurance and retail all scored highest on native (33% each).

The 501-1000 employees scored highest on hybrid, whereas the 250-500 employees scored highest on native.

The US prefer to use a hybrid development environment (37%) while the UK is more comfortable with native (32%). Use of HTML5/responsive design was the same (22% each).

How many open vacancies are there for developers?

63% of the respondents had between 11 and 25% open vacancies for developers as a percentage of their current team size. 29% had between 26 and 50% open vacancies. A very small percentage (6%) advised that they have no open vacancies due to a shortage of developer skills. Therefore, only 6% of the survey sampled have all the mobile app development skills they need.

A staggering 91% software solution architects had between 11% and 25% vacancies. 40% of application development leads had vacancies in the between 26 and 50% range of current team size category.

Insurance and pharma had the most vacancies (70%) in the between 11% and 25% current team size category. Bio and energy had the highest percentage of vacancies (43%) in the between 26% and 50% sector, and financial services had the highest percentage (10%) in the ‘we don’t have any open vacancies’ category.

The 1001-5000 employees sector had the highest number of vacancies in the between 26% and 50% category (48%).

Both the US and UK were very similar in the between 11% and 25% category (each with 63%), but the US had more vacancies in the between 26% and 50% category (33% versus 24% in the UK).

What is the average time it takes to recruit?

For 70% of respondents it is taking on average anywhere between three to six months to recruit and over one fifth (23%) claimed it was taking between six and 12 months.

The survey also shows that it is taking longer in the US than the UK (27% versus 18% take between six to 12 months to fill their requisitions).hat are the top skills in demand?

“70% OF RESPONDENTS TAKE ON AVERAGE THREE TO SIX MONTHS TO RECRUIT”

What are the top skills in demand?

When asked if they have any open mobile application developer vacancies, the top three skills respondents had challenges hiring for were Java (31%), JavaScript (19%) and .NET (17%). Other skills cited were HTML5, CSS and UI/Design.

Java (43%) was the most sought after skill for the web application development leads, whereas HTML5 was high (21%) for the mobile application development leads. JavaScript (35%) was the most sought after skill for the senior software developers.

From an industry perspective, outside of Java, HTML5 is highly sought after in pharma (27%) and .NET scored high in corporate business (22%), financial services (23%) and insurance (20%).

Outside of Java, .NET scored high for the UK (23%) versus the US (10%).

CONCLUSION

With only 6% of respondents clearly stating that they have all the mobile app development skills they need, it is clear that this issue is only going to become more challenging as demand for mobile app dev projects continues to grow. Eventually it will outstrip the supply of mobile app developers. Add to this the growing skills shortage for more general app developers and it becomes clear that enterprises need to find a fast and efficient way to deliver enterprise mobile and web applications otherwise they will very quickly lose ground. In particular, the skills that are critical for mobile app development such as Java, JavaScript and .NET comprise a significant percentage of the current vacancies. So what can organizations do about this challenge?

There are a number of approaches that IT departments and operations teams can take. These include:

• Understanding where and when to automate – with 80% of IT spend still focused on ‘keeping the lights on’, freeing developers from low level, low value technical tasks will raise productivity, improve business efficiency, and may well free up resources to undertake those new mobile app dev projects.

• Leveraging outside resource where it makes sense – while at the same time ensuring that you don’t become dependent on outsourcing relationships where you can be held to ransom. Today it’s critical that organizations retain the ‘brain side’ of IT, especially when it comes to mobile app development. However again, low level, low value tasks could be outsourced.

• Investing in staff training – ensure that your staff are equipped and able to cope with business demands and have the skills to build innovative mobile applications.

• Develop once – your mobile app dev strategy should focus on developing once for all devices with apps that can be easily integrated into existing systems which are effortless to change. In fact, your approach should be multi-channel from day one.

“IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS, 44% HAVE UNDERTAKEN BETWEEN SIX AND 10 MOBILE PROJECTS.”

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ABOUT OUTSYTEMS

OutSystems provides the open, rapid application delivery platform (PaaS) that makes it easy to develop apps once and deliver seamlessly across iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Web - deeply integrated with existing cloud and on-premises databases and systems of record. OutSystems Platform enables the rapid delivery and effortless change of large application portfolios and is available as a public cloud, private cloud and on-premises solution. Over 400 enterprise organizations in 25 countries across 22 industries use the Platform to deliver beautiful mobile and web apps in record time. For more information visit us at www.outsystems.com or follow us on Twitter @OutSystems.