10 Key iOS App Development Takeaways from SAP Projects 2012

SAP Projects and Mobile App Development

If you were at the SAP Projects 2012 conference and had a chance to attend some of the app development sessions, you may have heard some of this.  If not, I wanted to share some insights I took away from the various sessions.  

Mobile Inbound Marketing Strategy

I do a ton of Inbound Marketing, and a big part of it involves a mobile marketing strategy, in fact, 25% of all our YouTube videos are viewed via mobile devices!  What I found most interesting though was that the White House has ordered all agencies to join the app revolution within 12 months!  In addition, 71% of surveyed CIOs expect mobile to be transformational, yet only 18% have a mobile strategy.

What are the 10 Key iOS and Android app development takeaways you should be aware of?

1. Mobile is huge!  Many people only access the internet via their mobile device.
   
   
2. Strategy is important but agility is critical.  You must have a strategy when it comes to mobile, but the data should drive your strategy and you must be able to quickly change directions.
   
   
3. User-Centric design is even more critical when it comes to mobile than it was with desktop design.  This means you must design apps that work simply and reliably.
   
   
4. 6 Months Life Span.  Most apps have a 6 month life span.  In the marketing world, this can be even shorter.  But you can and must learn from each ‘At Bat” app you put out there.
   
   
5. Performance is critical but the wireless networks make it a challenge.  So keep it simple.  Keep the footprint light.
   
   
6. Technology and Infrastructure are critical components.  From an enterprise perspective, you must have the technical infrastructure in place and tested to the point of failure.
   
   
7. Risks and Security must be managed.  Your users will not be behind the firewall and will Bring Their Own Devices (BYOD). 
   
   
8. Governance and Transformation.  You will need to have a thorough, far reaching plan to identify and manage all stakeholders, including executives, company employees and potentially, partners and customers.  This will be an-going process and don’t forget the part about agility.
   
   
9. Business Cases are Still Required and Difficult to Build.  It may be very difficult to build a business case, but SAP has a Value Engineering offer, in conjunction with their Value LifeCycle Manager online tool to help with it. 
   
   
10. Many Business Areas are Potential Beneficiaries of SAP Mobile Apps.  Some are obvious, like field service technicians and Time and Attendance.  Others, though, may not be so obvious but nevertheless, may prove the be the most valuable.  I recommend you build mindmaps of each process to help you explore the possibilities. 

Inbound Mobile Marketing App

I mentioned we do a lot of Inbound Marketing, and in fact, we are partners of Hubspot and offer that as a service.  They recently deployed a very useful iPhone app that is an excellent example of a very useful ‘use case’ for mobile, which they have already iterated several times and delivered even more useful functionality.  It is very simple; providing us with our primary performance dashboards, while telling us about our recent conversions.  Coupled with our vast social media presence, we are now getting ‘conversion’ updates right on our iPhones as they happen. 

You can imagine how you might use such information.  For instance, when coupled with information from Hoover’s or Onesource, our sales teams now have very segmented data along with some insight of what our prospects are looking at. 

What interesting app are you thinking of?  Our SAP app development team might be able to help you quickly realize it.  In the meantime, we have prepared a checklist of our Top 10 Enterprise App Development tips for you to keep handy.