Every year Adobe conducts its annual Enterprise Mobile App Survey in order to gain insight into the current state of adoption and use of mobile apps by firms, in addition to any opportunities or challenges faced by those looking to leverage mobile applications as a competitive advantage. Their most recent survey revealed, although not surprisingly, mobile app usage is on the rise, with 69% of enterprise departments utilizing anywhere between 2-5 mobile apps, on average. Even better, 56% of those surveyed expect their investment in the space to increase over the coming year.
The survey also revealed some other interesting findings. For example, most (61%) believe support applications to be the most immediate necessities over the next few years, followed by those centered around messaging and collaboration as a means of increased productivity and enhanced task performance. All in all, these top two goals center around the same concept. That is, connection. First and foremost, facilitating real time connection between enterprise and customers through mobile apps. And secondly, connectivity between internal employees to ensure access to all tools and information needed to be successful. So, it would seem, those mobile apps and services which can best facilitate these kinds relationships will be the big winners in the next few years.
Another finding revealed the biggest driver behind rapid adoption and frankly, it’s not what you might expect. For example, we might expect the sheer exponential benefits of modern technology to streamline the workplace to be the biggest catalyst behind adoption, but in actuality it is fear. Fear of being left behind by competitors when it comes to modern technologies. In fact, 60% of respondents clearly indicated their belief that any firm still lacking mobile app based resources are disadvantaged due to reduced efficiency. The way they framed it is so telling. It is not that having them increases efficiency (it does), but that they don’t want to miss out on increased performance. I suppose, fear is an ultimate driver.
Regardless, the necessity is real and recognized. Now is the time to harness the power of mobile app technologies to transform your enterprise, not just given obvious internal and external advantages, but even more as a means of competitive advantage. If you haven’t already, work to modernize your strategies and execute on them before your major competitors do and ensure those new technologies are scalable in order to grow with you.