ENTERPRISE MOBILE APP 7DEVELOPER

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Annabel Sparks
8 years ago
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1 QUESTIONS WHEN HIRING AN ENTERPRISE MOBILE APP 7DEVELOPER Published by:

2 If you don t have a mobile strategy, you don t have a future strategy. -Eric Schmidt of Google

3 In the self-proclaimed year of mobile, truer words than Eric s have not been spoken. Hopefully, your organization has adopted a solid mobile strategy, if you haven t, you might be losing customers or clients. But starting your strategy can be a daunting task. Recognizing that you and your team don t have the capacity to create a strategy from scratch, maybe you ve decided to hire a mobile app company. Another vendor, another vetting process, another set of overly complicated sales calls? No thanks! That s where this handy dandy ebook comes in! We ll map out the top seven questions to ask a mobile company to help speed up the vetting process and bring your organization into the golden age of mobile. And with that, a sales renaissance.

4 What apps have you developed?

5 That way you can begin to gauge whether or not they have the skills, experience and vision to produce the type of mobile app you re looking for. -Chad Mureta, author of App Empire: Make Money, Have a Life, and Let Technology Work for You Almost any mobile company can give you a list of apps they ve developed. If a suite of apps with case study-esque descriptions isn t available on their website, that should raise a red flag. Qualified developers will be eager to hand over a list of apps they ve had a hand in completing. Make sure to follow up with how much of the app they were responsible for, whether it be the design, development, or the initial strategy or the whole thing. Depending on the type of apps they ve produced, they should be able to provide you with at least a handful of links to the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and Windows App Store. The only reason they wouldn t be able to provide you with a link is if the apps developed were internal facing. Should that be the case, ask them for a demo of an enterprise app. While many sales, tracking and analytical apps are internal facing, the company should be able to provide a video of how the app works. For example, Myriad Mobile created a video to showcase an internal enterprise app for Asphalt Drum Mixers.

6 Where are your developers located?

7 Tricky companies will place a sales person locally, but have the development team and key team members in places like India or Bulgaria. Despite the advances we ve made in developing a global marketplace, it s going to be much harder to contact members of the development team and get timely responses to questions and concerns by not having the whole team based in the same country. If your outsourced team isn t online when you re doing business, you ll often find yourself waiting a full day for issues to be resolved. If one of your team members asks a question, the answer may not come back until the next day. In bringing a development company on to partner with your team, you need to have an easy/open flow of communication back and forth. Something that is much easier to do if the company you re working with is in your country. Geography Matters Developing an app for your audience is a highly personal process. Accounting for social trends, expectations, and geographical nuances is necessary to ensure your app is not only used, but loved. If you use a company located overseas, they likely won t have the intuition for design that will relate to your clientele. Freelancers working in other countries may have comparable code, but if they re using customs, workflows and interfaces unique to their local area, this can create major problems for your end user. Look for designers who ve worked on projects aimed at demographics similar to yours.

8 What kind of smartphone do you have?

9 While not the most obvious question to ask, this will give you instant insight into how knowledgeable, passionate and invested a potential developer/company is about specific mobile platforms. How can you approach a user experience challenge if you can t place yourself in an iphone user s perspective? If you re an Android development shop, you should use Android, and same with Apple and Windows. If the organization develops for all three, do they have different teams for each? Much like single use apps have the highest use rates, single platform developers and engineers know their platform inside and out.

10 Who will own the mobile app?

11 Get an answer to this question early in your vetting process. For custom development, the individual or company paying will (typically) own the finished product. Make sure that is the case and sign work made for hire contracts or copyright assignment. Ensuring the ownership of your app s design, source code and content will put your executive and legal team s minds at ease. Another reason to put emphasis on finding a U.S. based development shop? Often U.S. companies assume patent and trademark laws, as well as the outsourced company s contract, are enough to protect them. However, that is rarely the case. Places like India have no patent laws, which will keep your legal department up at night.

12 What projects are you most proud of and why?

13 Often mobile development companies will show off their prettiest/flashiest apps. They do this because most consumers are only looking at the surface. If the app is pretty but not user friendly, it s likely because it s easier to design a fancy looking app than it is to create an effective user experience. Many app companies avoid showing their not-so-pretty apps because of just that they re not as pretty. The straight-forward, functional-looking apps are often the ones that transform how a business operates with an actual effect on the bottom line. So ask what their favorite app was from different perspectives strategy, design, and development.

15 What does your ideal partner look like? A true partner in app development will not take on any client just because they possess a checkbook. Good partners will try to focus on fit. By hiring a mobile development company, you re investing in a long term relationship. Avoid thinking of your mobile development company as a vendor, and think of them as a partner in your mobile journey.

16 How will we communicate during the development process?

17 Your app will be a direct reflection of how effective the communication was between your team and the mobile company. A development sweatshop may be a cheaper solution, but look for a comprehensive shop that includes strategists. These people know the questions to ask and can fluently translate your needs to design and development teams. If your team uses a system for communicating like Asana, Basecamp, JIRA, Slack or a myriad of others, ask if the development company is able to adopt your communication style/tools. If they can t, make sure to outline how communication will work.

18 Thank you! The client is our fuel. The engine that Myriad has built may be a Ferrari, but without the fuel, it might as well be a 1971 Ford Pinto. Clients need a powerful engine to take their content, ideas, data into the mobile ecosystem. We re the engine, you re the fuel. Contact us for a free consultation contact@myriadmobile.com

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