Mobile Network Marketing Strategies - Summary of Options

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1 Mobile Apps: Moving Beyond 1.0 Don t Build Dead Ends Into Your Mobile Strategy Verivo Software 1000 Winter Street Waltham MA sales@verivo.com

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 3 Updating Mobile Apps is Harder Than It Looks 4 Continuous Governance Is Essential 5 Scalability Is Critical For Success 6 Success Starts on Day 1: The Request for Proposal (RFP) 7 Conclusion 7 Page 2

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Mobile devices offer the ability to create direct connections with customers and empower a distributed workforce. With this opportunity has come a wave of mobile apps, as well as a competitive pressure to deploy those apps quickly. In the rush to get to market, the teams developing these apps are not planning for life beyond 1.0. However, a minimal amount of effort early in the development lifecycle can make the difference between an app s 1.0 being the beginning of great things or the end of the line as natural evolution calls for tweaks and changes. As too many enterprises are finding out, expenses mount quickly and inflexibility kicks in far faster with mobile apps than with traditional apps. Development teams lean on IT operations to secure and maintain apps, and IT is often burdened with the challenge of maintaining an app that has often been built with proprietary tools and suffers from weak back-end connectivity. The result is a push-and-pull between different teams in the same organization and a mobile app that ultimately ends up dead-ending after version 1.0. Subsequent version releases are necessary to meet changing business requirements, governance policies, and scalability requirements, and there are several reasons why mobile apps never see 2.0: 1 Many development teams rely on system integrators When apps are outsourced or developed with a vendor using proprietary tools, it is nearly impossible for the owner of the app to update the functionality without incurring huge expenses. 2 Every user has to update his or her device Most users employ their own device, and IT does not easily have control over what apps individuals are downloading, using, and updating or when. 3 Governance over all versions is imperative New app versions need to be secured and managed, and IT typically runs into challenges when trying to keep up with schedules desired by the Line of Business (LoB) managers. Chris Marsh, a principal analyst for enterprise mobility at 451 Research, said, Enterprises need an open and extensible platform that, rather than just sitting as another silo, can work with existing IT infrastructure and scale policy, security, and compliance across mobile assets. At Verivo, we couldn t agree more, and we believe that enterprise leadership should take this future-thinking approach when embarking on building and deploying mobile apps to position their companies for the long term. Page 3

4 Verivo, a mobile app company with over 15 years of experience building enterprise apps, has worked with large organizations to help them develop, deploy, and maintain mobile apps. Having helped large enterprises build more than 500 apps, we have observed a tendency for companies to ignore long-term considerations. That s why we work with large organizations to help them develop a mobile strategy that works for version 2.0 and beyond. UPDATING MOBILE APPS IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS Technology is a moving target. Standards are immature. Platforms are numerous. Distribution is a challenge. So what is an organization to do? 1 Preserve your software development lifecycle (SDLC) You have spent years refining the SDLC inside your organization, and you do not want to abandon it for mobile apps. You have your processes and tools including source control, continuous integration, bug tracking, etc. and you should make sure you can continue to use them when you build your first mobile app, otherwise 2.0 and 3.0 will be delayed, expensive, or nonexistent. 2 Think twice about outsourcing System integrators are a convenient vehicle for adopting new technology, but they approach apps in an ad hoc manner, often introducing proprietary tools and writing custom code in non-standard languages that are often difficult to maintain. Proprietary tools are an impediment to progress, as it is difficult to get new people up to speed, and developers do not like investing time in learning skills that are unlikely to be useful for future projects. Custom code is another form of vendor lock-in and leaves you at the mercy of another organization any time you want to update an app. 3 Centralize mobile services One of the best ways to minimize the impact of updating mobile apps is to update them less often. Mobile middleware addresses this need, as it allows you to host more functionality server-side and build less into the app itself. By centralizing services services that may be used by multiple apps you can update just one service without having to rebuild and redeploy any mobile apps. This dramatically reduces the number of times a mobile app needs to be updated. Page 4

5 CONTINUOUS GOVERNANCE IS ESSENTIAL Data breaches and compliance violations are constant concerns with mobile apps, and maintaining a consistent level of governance is a challenge over the lifetime of the app. IT organizations typically take on the responsibility for securing, managing, and maintaining mobile apps. If there is a change in policy, or in the event that a merger or acquisition demands an additional Active Directory be included in the authentication process, IT will be responsible for making it work. Success depends on how the mobile platform works with existing systems and infrastructure. A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) layer solves part of this problem it makes back-end functionality available through standard interfaces but SOA alone does not fully meet the needs of mobile. Mobile devices require additional security, data synching, and management services that have to be handled by the platform or hand-coded. ( USE EXISTING IT MANAGEMENT TOOLS If you use Tivoli or CA, continue to use them with your mobile apps. Your IT operations need visibility into mobile apps if they are to manage them, and they need the ability to use the tools already installed and used in the enterprise. Doing so requires your mobile app tools to have an open architecture capable of accommodating existing infrastructure and your organization s unique requirements. THE SAME HOLDS TRUE FOR YOUR SECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE A considerable amount of work has gone into securing your enterprise, and you should leverage that infrastructure in any mobile platform. Some solutions either replicate directories or require custom code, but both of these approaches are accidents waiting to happen when you update an app. n Make sure that your mobile infrastructure and tooling gives you the level of access control and granularity you need. If your security infrastructure uses groups and roles, you need this level of granularity supported on mobile devices. Page 5

6 SCALABILITY IS CRITICAL FOR SUCCESS Managing scalability is often considered a champagne problem, but often it is an impediment that prevents an organization from ever seeing the 2.0 release of its app. Planning early for 2.0 can mean the difference between a short-lived app and a game-changing app. 1 Look for growth-friendly cost structures Mobile infrastructure and tooling are often priced nicely for initial usage to help close the deal, but can wind up cornering you into paying exorbitant fees in subsequent years. Capital cost, license fees, and training costs should all be considered for year one and beyond. Fees based on the number of apps will add up quickly, and if any proprietary training is required, costs will balloon as the team scales and additional training is required. 2 Keep deployment options open Similarly, the deployment model that makes sense initially might not be the right model for 2.0. On-premise, cloud, or hybrid? You may want to use your own servers at first, but scale out in the cloud. You may deploy in the cloud, but future functionality must remain on-prem. Will the platform be able to accommodate future needs? 3 Use your existing infrastructure to scale horizontally You have invested time and resources in an infrastructure that scales to meet your needs, and you should not have to reinvent the wheel for mobile apps. Not all mobile app platforms support horizontal scaling, or the ability to use the infrastructure already in place. Most platforms support some ability to scale horizontally, but it may not be in a way that is compatible with your existing infrastructure. It would behoove you to research the scaling architecture and what standard components are required to create a load-balanced cluster before launching into development of 1.0. Page 6

7 SUCCESS STARTS ON DAY 1: THE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) The time to think through these issues is before developing a mobile app. When you are considering different approaches to building mobile apps, development tools, and infrastructure, take the time to put together a comprehensive RFP. Verivo has a few resources available to help. You can visit to download the whitepaper titled Is Your Mobile App Platform RFP Asking the Right Questions? or watch our webinar of the same name. CONCLUSION The mobility industry is changing rapidly, and it requires foresight to envision and balance what you need initially vs. what you will need in the long run. The perspective presented here is a result of our involvement with hundreds of large corporations as they designed their mobile strategy. As Chris Marsh of 451 Research said, Winners will be companies with a comprehensive mobile strategy rethinking their application architecture. only open mobile application platform that empowers teams to centrally secure and govern their enterprise mobile apps rapidly and across multiple devices. If you have any questions about Verivo, Akula, or building mobile apps in general, please don t hesitate to contact us. To reach us or to download any of our other resources, please visit With our 15-year track record, Verivo has helped companies accelerate the development and deployment of mobile applications. Verivo s Akula is the Page 7