Predicts 2015: Mobile Apps and Development Robert P. Desisto Charles Smulders Richard Marshall Adrian Leow Jason Wong Van L. Baker

Transcription

1 Predicts 2015: Mobile Apps and Development Robert P. Desisto Charles Smulders Richard Marshall Adrian Leow Jason Wong Van L. Baker This research provides insight into short application development cycles, the use of mobile analytics to gain greater context and the increased use of voice-based interactions. They also describe why 50% of the currently deployed applications will be completely rewritten and replaced and how lightweight Web- and mobile-style integration will gain dominance over traditional approaches. Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 1 Based on Insights from

2 This presentation will provide an in-depth analysis of the predictions made in the report. We will explore the predictions made by each Analyst and the related Market Implications and Key Recommendations. Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 2

3 Prediction 1 By 2017, the average update cycle for internally developed mobile applications will be less than two months Analysis by: Charles Smulders, Van Baker Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 3

4 Mobile application development is still in a nascent stage in most companies According to a recent Gartner survey study, the average number of custom apps per company that have been developed so far is less than 10, despite huge internal demands to mobilize As IT departments are unable to meet internal demand, lines of business are taking the initiatives to choose external resources KEY FINDINGS Unlike PC applications, mobile apps can't be left untended for very long because of: Fast pace of the underlying platforms and technology Users' short attention spans, particularly with consumer applications Nature of mobile app development is entirely different than traditional application development and relies on continuous delivery based on real-time usage pattern feedback from a growing set of app analytics tools Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 4

5 MARKET IMPLICATIONS New skills, tools, measures of success and methods of working will be required in the development, operations, management, procurement and finance of mobile apps In Development: o o o Waterfall methodologies will no longer apply Agile methodologies need to be used both in developing the app and in the subsequent lifetime of the app Need to keep the developed app portfolio current In Information Technology: o IT operations will need to update its testing and release methodologies to deploy more minor releases, more frequently Procurement and Finance: o Change of mindsets from fixed-timeline- deliverable-based projects to open-ended projects Management: o o Must invest in and build up app analytics competencies-decision frameworks to determine which features are business drivers versus nice to have Change management undertaking, requiring re-training, bringing new skills into the organization, the use of outside resources and retooling Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 5

6 RECOMMENDATIONS Create a separate app-focused team as part of your mobile center of excellence to develop your mobile app development skills base Invest in analytics tools and associated skillsets to drive an app's impact throughout its life Create a decision framework to determine ROI on app development and updates Use external app development resources to accelerate your learning Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 6

7 Prediction 2 By 2018, 25% of mobile enterprise apps will incorporate voice interaction for data presentation and capture Analysis by: Jason Wong Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 7

8 Currently, use of voice interactions for B2E mobile apps today is fairly limited to dictation and data capture, and in healthcare, legal and warehousing use cases Current generation of mobile voice offers vast improvements in the natural user interface for better speech recognition and learning of different accents Key factor to improved technology is the combination of back-end cloud services that offloads the necessary processing from the device KEY FINDINGS The use of voice interaction for mobile apps is increasing at a significant rate in the consumer world: 10% of mobile search on Baidu (China) is voice initiated Google says-more than half of teens and more than 40% of adults use voice interactions with their phone each day Primary drivers for usage of voice inputs are safety, efficiency and ability to multitask. Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 8

9 MARKET IMPLICATIONS Consumer influence from voice-enabled apps and voice-activated virtual assistants like Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana and Google Now will lead to employees becoming more comfortable with mobile voice interaction and demanding its use in their mobile business apps Enterprises should explore how mobile app voice interactions can be used to benefit mobile worker segments that need to quickly enter or search for information while on the move or workers that need to systematically collect standardized data, like product or customer details. The impact of voice interactions can apply across nearly any B2E app to achieve the following main benefits: o Improve accuracy by eliminating mistypes, especially for standardized entries like numerical values o Increase data input efficiency because voice is a much faster input mechanism than typing for most people on mobile devices o Improve worker safety by permitting hands-free data entry or retrieval Field service, field sales, direct store delivery (DSD), merchandising, data collection and warehousing (picking, receiving, stocking, etc.) mobile apps are all great use cases to inject voice interactions to make complex or repetitive workflows much more intuitive. Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 9

10 RECOMMENDATIONS Incorporate voice input into mobile apps where end users require handsfree operation Use voice interaction in apps for simple tasks like calling a contact, entering notes or finding a location to ingrain usage Use caution when deploying voice services in the cloud because they could potentially store sensitive corporate information or become unavailable within wireless connectivity Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 10

11 Prediction 3 By 2017, 90% of enterprise mobile apps will gather usage analytics, but less than 5% of organizations will use the data Analysis by: Adrian Leow Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 11

12 Enterprises are not consistently leveraging intelligence from mobile apps to identify opportunities for new workflows and methods of engagement, particularly for business-toemployee (B2E) apps Most enterprises do not use any form of post-deployment operational analytics of their apps to understand the ongoing needs and behaviors of users Most enterprise apps are treated as stand-alone projects specified, made and released with no budget or time set aside for improvements later KEY FINDINGS Enterprises struggle with understanding how to apply an optimal mix of mobile app analytics tools to significantly improve poor app performance and adoption Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 12

13 MARKET IMPLICATIONS Top Reasons Why Mobile Apps Impacted Organizations' Success For B2E apps, few implement mobile analytics to understand scenarios, such as why an app may be getting poor adoption or low usage rates Specialty vendors such as New Relic, Microsoft, Crittercism and AppDynamics offer software development kits (SDKs) that can be embedded within mobile apps to collect, correlate and analyze live performance data in post-deployment scenarios MADP products offer performance logging and analytics as part of their server and client runtimes, including Appcelerator, Pega, Telerik and Kony Gartner inquiry has shown that, once implemented, the analytics gathered are largely ignored by most organizations Organizations should focus on increasing ROI and business value from mobile apps by leveraging embedded operational mobile analytics to identify what features of an app can create benefits such as mobilizing a part of their business process to increase productivity Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 13

14 RECOMMENDATIONS Employ operational and performance analytics for all mobile apps to create a feedback loop that ensures constant iterating of the apps Treat the mobile app like a product, not as a project, with ongoing analysis of the app's business metrics derived from the mobile analytics gathered Determine the optimal mix of analytics tools based on the type and number of end users in order to maximize ROI without negatively impacting app performance Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 14

15 Prediction 4 By 2017, 50% of today's deployed mobile enterprise apps will be completely rewritten or replaced Analysis by: Robert DeSisto Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 15

16 Two driving factors will cause currently deployed mobile applications to be completely rewritten or replaced: The first factor is companies taking shortcuts and using the application containers provided by their business application providers. Most business application providers offer a standard mobile application that provides accessibility to objects in their core business applications The second factor is a high rate of change in the underlying mobile app infrastructure and device characteristics that could enable more capabilities such as: Improved inter-application sharing More screen real estate Device hardware proliferation (in terms of new form factors and features like Touch ID on ipads, which means new ipad apps) Increased APIs to enable integration with the Internet of Things KEY FINDINGS Mobile applications might also be rewritten to take into account more omni-channel considerations such as an employee starting work on a laptop and transitioning to a smartphone or tablet or vice versa without losing any progress in their work Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 16

17 MARKET IMPLICATIONS New rapid-development tools are emerging both in stand-alone fashion and as part of business application vendors' development and configuration platforms These tools will enable less sophisticated developers or business analysts to quickly create task-driven applications that will, in many cases, replace monolithic application containers that often are neither easy to navigate nor oriented to the user flow of an employee These tools leverage a WYSIWYG approach to laying out the user interface, and they leverage forms to lay out relevant data elements to be rendered Companies can now leverage an ideation process to brainstorm new processes and concepts without having to entertain complex mobile development projects Native mobile application coding will not go away; instead, experienced mobile application developers can shift their focus from more complex scenarios such as integrating with the Internet of Things or more complex integration scenarios Better tools and freed-up development resources lead to the ability to create more mobile applications focused on specific use cases and are the key reason why currently deployed mobile applications will be completely rewritten or replaced Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 17

18 RECOMMENDATIONS Do not be content sticking with currently deployed mobile enterprise applications if ideas or new apps emerge that will make them obsolete Be prepared to build and deploy situational applications that may have short-term or mediumterm relevance and deployment life such as new product introductions Leverage rapid development tools for developing and delivering simple to moderately complex mobile applications Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 18

19 Prediction 5 By 2020, lightweight Web- and mobile-style app integration will have completely displaced traditional approaches Analysis by: Richard Marshall Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 19

20 Traditional approaches to integration are designed for high-volume transactions over permanent, secure connections Modern apps are designed to run outside the firewall, with intermittent, relatively lower bandwidth communication concerned with interoperation, while deep integration will remain in the data center and be hidden from apps Modern app integration around lightweight APIs, small payloads, and automatic service discovery enable much greater agility in deploying apps KEY FINDINGS These techniques are ideal for responding to digital business requirements and will become the dominant approach to integration Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 20

21 MARKET IMPLICATIONS Current vendors in the data integration space have not embraced the mobile market Current integration tools address niches where high-performance server-to-server data interchange remains a necessity or complex data mappings must be performed App-facing services will be isolated from these systems via another layer, the mobile app integration layer New, mobile-native platforms are emerging that provide the agility needed by app builders while satisfying the needs of data governance These platforms typically use RESTful APIs with JSON payloads and offer RESTful API Modeling Language (RAML) for service discovery Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 21

22 RECOMMENDATIONS Build a flexible mobile app integration framework and use it for all new app projects Migrate existing apps to the mobile app integration approach over time, allowing them to operate outside the firewall Ensure that API development projects are driven by business requirements, not technical completeness Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use 22

23 Based on Insights from Report Link: Created by: -Please do not share this report with any external contact- Endeavour Software Technologies. Only for Internal Use