Despite the growth in the sophistication of mobile device technology, the gap between what consumers can experience on their personal mobile devices and what they can experience at work is widening, because many companies’ IT systems and business processes are unable to keep up.
With real-time access to a wealth of information and the ability to make a purchase with just one click, consumers are now looking for mobile apps to react to their desires instantly, and if they don’t recognize those abilities in their company’s app, they will move on to a competitor. “The gap is an open invitation for competitors to fill the void,” Kevin Benedict of MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com wrote in a recent blog post. “If you don’t fill, others will…. I guarantee it.”
Providing a seamless user experience is considered by industry experts to be crucial for enterprise apps to thrive. Design and functionality play a big role and must be brought up to the same standards as personal mobile devices.
“Professionals are accustomed to the ease of use and sleek design that they get from the apps they use in their personal lives, and want to carry that same kind of experience into the apps they use for the office,” Paul Steiner, general manager for EMEA at Accellion, told Information Age.
Even of larger concern is that employees are using apps on their personal mobile devices to fill the technology gaps they experience at work, which could cause security issues. To protect the company, it is up to the CIO to either provide employees with comparable apps of its own, or depend on a third-party provider to provide a secure platform where employees can use existing apps safely.
Whether companies decide to rebuild their IT systems in order to support more sophisticated apps or they rely on vendors to allow their employees to use the existing apps that are most useful to them, industry experts believe that 2014 should be the year of mobile collaboration.
“Your IT environment can either be a springboard for success or an anchor that drags you to the bottom,” Benedict wrote. “Which is it?”