BYOD, MDM and End User Driven Apps? All in two Berlin days’ work!

For the first time, Apexon Corporation attended the Enterprise App Revolution conference hosted by We. Connect in Berlin, Germany. Our team found themselves in the midst of enterprises with a variety of challenges. To overcome these challenges, it is necessary to first understand the mobile ecosystem within the scope of enterprises. Enterprise Mobility is a multifaceted ecosystem. Within this ecosystem, there are specific spheres, such as Mobile Backend as a Service, Bring Your Own Device, Mobile Device Management, Mobile Application Management, Mobile Application Platform Tools, and customized Enterprise Applications. In our experience, a guided approach to mobility makes the transition easy and seamless. A Mobile Platform that can build configurable mobile solutions is the key to transition, however, it was important for us to understand more of what specific issues were being faced by European enterprises.

We were happy to gain exposure to the requirements of enterprises in the above spheres. Within Enterprise Mobility, there is a great deal of room to grow. The different types of apps, personal life apps, both personal and professional apps, or purely professional apps, have created opportunities for enterprises to connect with not only their customers but also employees.  For an enterprise, security and easy integration are of the utmost concern. Ensuring that mobile apps updates and releases happen in a bug free timely manner is a concern of equal importance as well.

Our team noted that the European Enterprises that attended this conference were further along the mobile maturity curve than many domestic enterprises in the US. This meant that they had already established a mobile app platform and apps. They were looking to finesse and grow their targeted user base. They have been the early adopters of B2E apps, enabling their employees to use their own devices for work. While this has led to an increase in productivity, there are corresponding risks.  Bring Your Own Device and Mobile Device Management were among the chief concerns of enterprises. Our observation was that within this domain, IT and App Security were of the utmost importance to protect private content. An enterprise requires ease of mobile integration, ensuring mobile security, quick delivery of proprietary apps, and accessibility on the mobile cloud.

The Apexon Corporation Best Practices recommendation is that, within this process, a quality strategy must be established to guarantee that the app will function flawlessly in the manner it was created to. When devising an Enterprise Mobile Strategy, it is vital to have a comprehensive testing infrastructure, agile testing practices and monitor the application in the marketspace. (Please see below for presentation SlideShare.)

Our team also noted that many companies that were represented at the conference were from different verticals, such as travel and banking, but what they had in common was their end user first approach. What we found the most interesting was how deeply enterprises had researched their own employees’ likes, dislikes and preferences. They had conducted this research in various ways, but at the end of it, wholeheartedly agreed that within a year or two of adoption, productivity and morale and increased greatly. One method of adoption was encouragement using gamification techniques to engage and retain their talent. Research conducted by Gabe Zichermann, founder and CEO of Dopamine and Gamification Co., states that “If employers can find a way to make work feel like a fun game, they can increase their employees ability to learn  new skills by 40%.”* Enterprises drove adoption of newer operating systems and devices by limiting the versions available for download. This also addressed the additional costs of creating multiple apps for multiple devices and carriers. In this case, enterprises directly influenced their employees for particular mobile device adoption. A B2C application based on an enterprise mobile platform deployed by a large financial institution had the added gamification aspect to engage with their current and future customers. They were able to successfully drive user engagement of their technology and as a result, increase their services significantly.   These were just two of the many presentations our team saw. It seems that the very concept of mobility has been flipped on its head. The European enterprises represented at this conference had influenced their employees and customers to adopt particular mobile operating systems and devices, rather than spending time worrying about the proliferation of devices and operating systems. Their applications were enchanting enough to keep the users attention and engagement! It’s a powerful thing.

Returning back to our story now. As newcomers, we were not sure what to expect. To our elation, our technology was greeted with open arms! Quality Assurance is the cornerstone of our technology and was exhibited widely. Apexon Corporation CEO, Rutesh Shah presented on the Importance of Quality for Enterprise Mobile Applications.   We demonstrated our product SYNCHRO, which replicates real conditions and performs testing on multiple geographically distributed devices.   For enterprises, our testing knowledge prowess proves to be extremely helpful.

We were thrilled to be in the EU, and learned a great deal about the needs of enterprises located there. Enterprise Mobility Strategies must have quality within the foundation of the plan to launch successfully.  We hope to return there again next year!

To  see what we presented Click here!

To learn more about Apexon’s product, SYNCHRO, click here.

To lean more about Apexon Corporation’s QA Services, click here.

* http://www.businessinsider.com/gamification-techniques-increase-your-employees-ability-to-learn-by-40-2013-9