Over half of smartphone users grab their smartphone immediately after gaining consciousness in the morning.
———
Mobile devices have opened up an entire new access point into our lives and work, and the rise of enterprise mobile applications has made these two different concepts virtually indistinguishable. Separately, mobile application “enablers” are helping development become more efficient and securing funding at a similar rate as mobile application companies themselves. These two types of companies make up the ever-expanding Enterprise Mobile environment. Ultimately, the mobile enterprise application opportunity is over $100 Billion annually [Source: Emergence Capital].
The two major trends deciding which direction the billions of dollars from large corporations will flow are:
1) The Extended Desk
As Millennial work-styles and their tech-saviness continue to climb up the corporate ladder, the desk has become more of a concept than a physical object you can touch.
This technological change has been a rapid process that will only increasingly gain momentum. With only a third of the oldest baby-boomers in the US still working, a massive paradigm shift lies ahead – when the oldest millennials are leading departments populated by a team who learned to absorb information in a completely different way. The departure of an entire generation of workers will undoubtedly push out the ‘how’ of traditional work.
New Workplace Environment: One of the dynamics of workplace environment undergoing change is ‘BYOD’ (bring your own device). Almost all workers say their mobile device is very or somewhat important for their work. As a result, major corporations are allowing workers to use their own mobile devices for work. In fact, 74% of organizations have or plan to have BYOD policies in place [Source: Tech Pro]. The new workplace environment is also more fluid and flexible, creating demand for technology to facilitate accessibility, collaboration, and telecommuting efficiency.
Horizontal Apps Focused On Productivity: The growth of mobile usage across the entire workforce has opened an opportunity to capitalize on mobility needs across specific functions. The top horizontally-focused categories include Sales & Marketing, Analytics, and Payments – again, with a large emphasis on productivity improvements.
Strategic Keys To Success:
- Blending mobile and web to accommodate the needs of a new workforce that is deskbound at times and mobile at others
- Utilizing mobile native access while maintaining security of sensitive information
- Providing efficient access to email, calendar, and contacts to make integration with key data sources easier
Most Well-Positioned Leader
What They Do Well: Slack, mainly a messaging application, has raised $540 Million in VC funding. In ‘one way or another’ Slack touches all key productivity pain points felt by employees who are frustrated by a multitude of communication channels. It does everything all the other productivity apps do (integrations, reminders, direct messaging, etc.) but by focusing on messaging Slack has built a truly different platform that fundamentally changes the way we create & process conversations – making it much more than a “me-too” productivity product. The user interface skillfully achieves a free-flowing feeling of accessibility while still maintaining security and privacy of sensitive information via appropriate private channels and permissions. Slack brings mobile and web together with a user-friendly and functional browser extension and mobile app for iOS, Android, and Windows (beta).
2) Deskless Enterprise
The deskless enterprise opportunity is about capitalizing on non-desk jobs, which make up nearly 80% of the entire global workforce. A survey of leading HR executives revealed that only 27% of companies surveyed have the ability to measure the reach and effectiveness of their communications to employees.
Applications in this space will continue to aid in creating context for accessing and analyzing key communication information, especially data related to customers and/or operations. Mobile gives industries like healthcare, restaurants, and construction the unique opportunity to give employees a connected voice in the form of a device. The company itself benefits from much needed control while improving service and delivery efficiency. As non-desk workers can have a tremendous impact on the customer experience, many companies are increasing their budget to create or improve their application for the first time.
Strategic Keys To Success:
- Deep, deep expertise in an industry that is dominated by deskless workers
- Making apps easy to use for workers in the field
- Robust offline functionality so that the app is functional when online access isn’t possible
Most Well-Positioned Leader
What They Do Well: Launched in 2011, Doximity has used the power of social mobile to make a major splash in the normally dull healthcare space and has well over half a million users (as of August 2015). Doximity is a physicians network for both connecting doctors to careers and improving their day-to-day work. However, the application is much more than a LinkedIn for doctors. What makes the company a leader in the space is the application’s field usability and functionalities that cater to very specific user needs – such as allowing physicians to send, receive, and sign faxes on their mobile device. Doximity also features job listings, enables earning and tracking of medical education (CME) credits, and relevant medical literature. All of these medical-related technological barriers built by the company make it extremely difficult for a competitor to enter the space. The mobile application is also functional offline which makes it even more useful in the field.
—
Follow the Switch Company Page on LinkedIn for updates and access to blog posts.
