How to Choose the Right Mobile Apps for Your Business

Enterprises are relying on mobile devices to perform more critical business tasks than ever – typically in the form of mobile applications. Your IT team needs to choose the right mobile apps for your business to ensure that these tasks are being accomplished efficiently and securely. There are tons of mobile apps available for download as well as resource for your development team to design apps of their own. How do you decide which apps your business should use?

There’s a lot that goes into choosing the right apps for your enterprise. You can’t just pick an application at random and start using it; you need to verify that the app has a business purpose and will add value to your enterprise. Even if an application will have a use for your company, it might present issues that your business shouldn’t have to deal with. What are the factors that go into selecting mobile business apps for critical workflows and tasks?

Publicly available vs. internally developed mobile apps

First things first: you need to decide whether or not you want to stick with apps developed by your enterprise or try out apps that are publicly available. If your enterprise has a software development division, you have the ability to create internal business apps – but is this always the best option? Apps take time to develop and refine, and fully deploying them for corporate use might not be worth the cost to build. In addition, thanks to BYOD policies becoming more common, your development team will need to build the app for multiple platforms. However, by keeping your apps internal, your enterprise can better guarantee the safety and security of your application data.

By contrast, public apps can be integrated into your infrastructure almost immediately – all you have to do is download them onto your enterprise devices. Many of these apps are built for both Android and iOS devices, reducing compatibility issues. However, you don’t have control over what features a public app has, making it more difficult to find an app that will solve all your business needs for a particular task. Also, your enterprise needs to check the app for security issues before integrating it company-wide; you don’t want an unsecure or hazardous app infecting your company or gaining access to corporate data.

Integrating with other business software

While some mobile apps stand on their own, a solid app will be able to connect with other technologies in your business infrastructure. This connection could be through common file and data types or full integration between apps developed by the same team. Mobile app integration may not be necessary for every situation, but it can expand the possibilities of what your organization can achieve through mobile devices.

Supporting mobile business communication and collaboration 

When you think of mobile devices, you think about communication. That applies to using mobile devices in our personal lives and in the workforce. Mobile apps allow for workers to communicate and collaborate with each other on business tasks, even when they’re in different areas of the enterprise. Apps like Skype and Slack give employees a shared ground to talk with each other and share files and information, and they can easily keep in contact about pressing business matters even when out of the office.

If you want to learn more about the benefits of enterprise mobility management, you should check out our free 2019 MDM Buyer’s Guide. We profile the top vendors in the mobile device management field, their key capabilities, and our Bottom Line for each.