Developing a mobile app isn’t as cut and dried as some may think, since this sector is influenced by numerous factors and trends.
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As more organizations hop aboard the mobility bandwagon, three specific trends have appeared, and if businesses don’t heed these best practices, then mobility investments could fail.
One: Cloud services are the standard in mobile application development and support. As Tech.Co reported, cloud environments keep back-end systems connected to front-end apps with simplicity, making it easier to develop and support more apps in less time.
Two: Rapid development is required. With the popularity of mobility in all industries, from equipment rentals to construction, organizations can expect all employees to demand apps for their workflows. Rapid development platforms make it possible to meet those needs.
Three: Development platforms are popular. This year alone, 35 percent of large enterprises will use mobile app development platforms to create mobile workflow solutions. These tools allow for less coding and quicker deployment.
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Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
Between Amazon’s promises of same-day delivery, the hype surrounding delivery drones and the amount of trucks we see on the roads every day, you think it would be hard to argue that the logistics industry is about to experience a rapid increase in costs. After all, the past decade was one of the most successful periods for this sector.
However, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ annual State of Logistics report paints a different picture. The Wall Street Journal reported that the steady increase in demand for products and goods as well as the growth of industrial manufacturing have caused shipping volumes to skyrocket, and as a result, the logistics industry will face capacity problems.
Further compounding problems in logistics, a driver shortage is currently underway, and the source noted that when the Federal Reserve raises the benchmark rate, logistics businesses will struggle to hold onto inventory as it becomes more costly to store and procure necessary equipment. So while in the past, devoting a budget to storage wouldn’t be much of an issue, now, there aren’t enough employees to deliver products and capacity problems will have a larger impact on monthly and yearly revenues. Therefore, logistics firms must come up with a solution or risk riding the trending curve downward with their competitors in 2015.
“The logistics industry will face capacity problems in 2015.“
Amazon’s last hope
And so, with impending budget deficits and capacity problems on the horizon for logistics companies, it should come as no surprise that some organizations take bold steps. Amazon, for example, recently introduced a new delivery service – similar to Uber, but for packages, not people – Forbes reported. This is the business’s contingency plan for driver and truck shortages, and it relies on a mobile app. Time will tell if Amazon’s solution pays off for the company, but Forbes’ point was clear: With capacity concerns reaching the tipping point, logistics firms need to find a cutting-edge method for managing inventory on the road and back at headquarters.
Mobility’s role
Logistics mobile apps are exactly the solution that the industry needs. For one, with a tour planning app or a task management app, drivers can become more efficient, covering more ground with less gas utilization and making up for a shortage of employees. Logistics companies can cut spending while improving their delivery efficiency, and all it takes is a mobile app or two. However, over time, and as capacity costs really start to hurt organizations, they will obviously need new mobile solutions – and that’s where Mobilengine’s rapid development platform comes in.
After experiencing success with turn-by-turn navigation apps, task management apps and the like, logistics companies can deploy more mobile solutions that allow drivers to collect invoices and send them back to headquarters in real-time. These proof of delivery and freight task management apps will be critical to managing capacity in the coming months and years.
Back at headquarters
Of course, mobile apps will also help shore up any inefficiencies back at headquarters as well, especially since driver shortages aren’t the only problem.
“Warehouse utilization rates are north of 95 percent right,” Walter Kemmsies, chief economist at Moffat & Nichol Inc., told The Wall Street Journal.
With a history of saving clients as much as 30 percent on their logistics and the ability to reduce back office administration by up to 60 percent, Mobilengine’s freight management apps and other customized mobile apps can help administrators and managers gain a better, more complete outlook on current stock and capacity limits. It will be critical in the coming months to ensure full visibility on all inventory, as well as guarantee that trucks are taking the right products and goods from the warehouse.
Mobility has the capability to reinvent logistics and Mobilengine can help, providing both truck drivers and back-office administrators with enough mobile apps to reduce capacity costs and improve delivery efficiency.
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of GPS-enabled mobile devices and modern networking capabilities, tracking fleets in the construction industry has never been more cost-effective.
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Fleet tracking solutions continue to evolve, and now with mobile devices in every employee’s hands, construction firms are integrating mobile apps with these systems and seeing savings appear everywhere.
From safety and vehicle inspection apps to site stock management and resource allocation apps, construction workers and managers can prevent transportation breakdowns, provide project status updates and supervise equipment. And once construction teams hit the road, navigation apps and site induction apps ensure that employees get to sites on time and already informed.
This directly results in cost cutting. Businesses that use fleet tracking systems can reduce labor and fuel costs by up to 20 percent, according to Construction Executive. This means that the ROI on mobile app projects is achievable in just under a month.
With Mobilengine’s solutions, construction firms can start on the road to mobility and begin reducing fleet tracking costs.
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Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
With a worldwide focus on improving cybersecurity strategies and solutions, it should come as no surprise that the manned security services industry is similarly expanding rapidly. A report from Daedal Research found that on a global scale, business is booming, while an industry forecast about this sector in the U.K, – conducted by Apex Insight – discovered similar data indicating an increasing reliance on private protection. New technologies make security and guarding easier than before, but rapid expansion isn’t necessarily a good thing for some security firms.
The immense increase in security services spending is leading to competition. Apex Insights’ report noted that market consolidation of smaller security firms caused larger enterprises in this sector to steal a big portion of customers. Security service providers need to set themselves apart from the competition. This calls for more productive employees, error elimination, enhanced security measures and cost reduction.
In fact, many businesses in the security services industry are turning to mobility in order to improve their company at the foundation, as indicated in a Group 4 Securicor case study. After all, employees are the organizations, and if they have the ability to perform their jobs and tasks more efficiently with less errors and at a lower cost, customers will be more satisfied and better protected.
“Enterprise mobility has the potential to reinvent the way guards work.”
Enterprise mobility in the security services sector has the potential to reinvent the way employees work, and it all starts with creating mobile workflow applications based on existing daily tasks and jobs. Businesses can get started with a mobile app development platform easily by signing up for Mobilengine, but what are the tangible benefits of adopting an enterprise mobility strategy in the security and guarding services industry? And furthermore, why would a security firm need mobile apps?
Improving productivity in real time
In the security services and cash management industry, employees are often out and about and away from computers and other technologies. So, when they return back to the office or headquarters, they need to manually enter information and tasks into their respective applications and systems. Administrative duties, therefore, make up a large portion of the work completed every day.
Obviously, with a mobile device and workflow app, those staff members can enter data from their current location. With a platform like Mobilengine, security and guarding service providers can empower their employees to even work offline. These capabilities alone will reduce field administration by up to 60 percent while mitigating the need to perform as much as 40 percent of back-office jobs.
The key is the real-time communication capabilities of mobile workflow apps hosted by Mobilengine such as security tour planning apps and cash management apps. As soon as employees in the field submit data, that information makes its way back to headquarters, mission-critical databases and applications. This saves employees from having to manually enter data and allows administrators to work in real time and stay in-sync with guards and security personnel who are on the job.
Eliminating errors
Without mobile devices, security professionals and guards rely on manual, handwritten data collection; long, task-filled checklists and obtuse sets of rules. Those aspects of working without mobility can lead to errors in information, employees could complete jobs incorrectly, and some staff members can forget certain steps when securing locations and equipment.
The Mobilengine platform eliminates the chance of making an error on-site. For example, a security tour planning app provides employees with their tasks for the day as well as areas to input specific data, ensuring that the appropriate information is collected at every ATM stop. In fact, with Mobilengine, security and guarding professionals reduced errors by up to 70 percent.
Enhancing security
In the security and cash management services, employees must protect assets at all costs. It is quite clear that paper documents provide a minimal amount of security compared to digital solutions, as all it takes is simply misplacing a piece of paper and a company can become compromised.
Cash in transit monitoring apps grant an extra layer of security to already secure practices, as administrators can track activities in real time. ATM visit apps are equally secure.Take G4S, for instance. If a guard must assess ATMs, Mobilengine allows businesses to implement unique PINs for each unit or worker. With this solution, organizations can ensure collected data matches internal records in real time, as well as keep unwanted eyes from accessing certain workflows or forms.
“Data transmits over secure channels to the Mobilengine cloud.”
Furthermore, Computing, U.K.’s leading business technology publication, explained that mobile backend-as-a-service models – such as the one provided with Mobilengine – employees can securely connect to backend systems without any additional coding or infrastructure. Data transmits over secure channels to the Mobilengine cloud, then travels to business applications. The source noted that this singular entry point is the key to being secure.
Cutting costs
Cost is perhaps the most important aspect of mobility in the eyes of business leaders. After all, going mobile shouldn’t put a drain on IT budgets, but rather improve productivity, reduce overall spending and therefore boost revenue.
With mobile workflow apps that allow these companies to track assets and employees, security and guarding service providers were able to lower the cost of their insurance plans by as much as 40 percent. Furthermore, with employees working harder, getting more done and saving time in the process, earnings will improve, and security worksheet apps ensure that no one works overtime.
However, businesses also need to reduce costs related to mobile app development in order to see a good return. Mobilengine can enable security firms to lower their total spending by between 10 percent and 30 percent.
Security professionals need mobile devices to improve the way they work. With Mobilengine, these organizations can take mobility to the next level with a complete platform-as-a-service solution that covers everything from development, backend infrastructure and management.
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
Doctors and nurses have been using technology for decades, but health care providers have yet to truly embrace the 21st century. At many hospitals and clinics, health care professionals rely on desktop computers and large immovable equipment. As a result, doctors and nurses must always return to a station or PC, collecting information on the next patient in their rounds tour before repeating the processes over and over again.
The good news is that mobile fever is catching on, and now many health care professionals demand access to mobile devices and apps. According to Research Now, only 16 percent of doctors, nurses and other health care employees currently use mobile health apps, but 46 percent of these individuals plan on using these technologies to provide better care in the next five years. It seems that medical professionals aren’t the ones that need convincing.
A demand and no capacity to meet it
Instead, health care providers are hesitant about developing their own mobile apps in house due to the sheer demand. Gartner reported that by the end of 2017, the demand for mobile apps will be five times bigger than internal IT teams’ ability to create new solutions for employees.
“Mobile app demand will be 5 times bigger than IT teams‘ development capabilities.”
Gartner principal research analyst Adrian Leow explained that the cost to hire developers is only one hurdle that organizations must clear, with others ranging from the difficulty to create mobile health care apps to a lack of strategic planning when it comes to development. Compouding the issue is the demand for apps for every possible task. Nurses want ward round apps, administrators crave mobile patient admission apps, staff members need patient feeding and calories apps and doctors demand ICU/ITU apps.
The challenges to developing mobile health care apps has resulted in some organizations releasing no mobile apps at all.
“This is an indication of the nascent state of mobility in most organizations, with many organizations questioning how to start app development in terms of tools, vendors, architectures or platforms, let alone being able to scale up to releasing 100 apps or more,” said Leow.
Working with professionals
Health care providers can overcome their confusion in the initial phases of developing a mobility strategy. It just takes a little guidance and some help from mobile app development platform providers like Mobilengine.
As explained by Gartner, rapid mobile app development tools provide a great way to “bridge the gap between mobile app demand and supply,” as those in business roles can use these platforms to create solutions to actual problems in their organizations. For example, health care providers can take the time to determine what workflows can be supported by mobile apps. Tasks such as patient admission and discharge are perfect for mobile devices, while nurses will definitely demand a ward round app. Taking stock of what apps which employees want is a challenge in itself, let alone developing everything from ICU apps to early warning scoring apps.
Developing those mobile apps in house is time-consuming and costly, but with support from Mobilengine, development will be more efficient and focused on improving core tasks in a hospital or clinic. Gartner noted that 55 percent of organizations work with companies like Mobilengine in a process called “mixed sourcing.” This is the best way to meet the demand of health care professionals, as the IT team has many other aspects of their internal systems to worry about. So, instead of spending a month developing a patient admission app, providers can spend a month working with Mobilengine’s experience developers and strategists to create a mobile health care app for every role.
Convincing the providers
It’s clear that doctors and nurses demand mobile apps, and solutions like Mobilengine’s make the development process for dozens of different health care tools possible to begin with. But health care providers need to see the value in allowing their employees to use mobile patient admission apps, ward round apps and many others that make their jobs easier.
So, let’s leave it at this: According to Research Now, 96 percent of health care professionals and mobile health app users agree that these solutions improve the quality of life – isn’t that what health care is about in the first place?
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
The construction industry is no stranger to innovation, but when it comes to technology, some firms are lagging behind on implementing cutting-edge solutions to problems that are far too common. While some organizations might fear the costs of upgrading, others are worried that deploying brand new systems could impede productivity, eating up valuable time that could be spent improving different processes.
Global Construction explained that some construction companies have certainly moved onto new and better technologies, but it isn’t rare for these businesses to still rely on legacy software and spreadsheets. These old systems are holding the industry back, and this is primarily due to the lack of real-time communication. In fact, the source highlighted the fact that the current reliance on archaic solutions only allows construction firms to collect data every four to six weeks.
“79% of construction firms said mobility is ‘important’ or ‘very important.'”
Saving the day with mobile
Construction companies might be surprised to learn that by combining the cloud and mobile construction apps, they will be able to communicate in real-time with little spending and far less development and integration time. The road to paperless administration is just around the corner for many firms, as mobile app development platforms such as Mobilengine allow construction businesses to digitize workflows with a mobile app to meet their every construction mobility need.
The good news is that many construction firms already have mobile strategies. According to a report from JBKnowledge, 72 percent of construction workers use a smartphone and around 50 percent use a tablet for work-related reasons. Their employers immediately noticed how useful mobile devices in the field can be, as over 79 percent of firms reported that mobility is “important” or “very important.”…
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
Fifty-six percent of mobile leaders said that it takes between 7 months and a year to build one mobile enterprise app.
Hi, and welcome to the latest Mobilengine video blog!
Common mobile enterprise app development techniques cannot keep up with the pace of business. Once a company identifies a problem that can be solved with a mobile app, employees can wait up to a year to be given a solution. But not with Mobilengine since it offers rapid development capabilities.
Here are three reasons why you need a rapid mobile app development platform.
One: Rapid mobile development platforms such as Mobilengine provide a simple SDK to design forms and workflows according to your business process. Once ready, you can launch them on your universal workflow app. This process requires 10 percent of the amount of the code when compared to native development solutions
Two: On the backend, the Mobilengine PaaS solution provides a fully functional management console, complete with monitoring tools and integration middleware. You don’t really have to code anything, instead only parametrize the backend to your organization and users. Instead of wasting time developing infrastructure, focus on your business.
Three: With a rapid mobile development platform like Mobilengine, once you are ready, you can immediately run your new mobile solution in the cloud, allowing you to scale your development.
Thanks for joining us, and stay tuned for more mobility news, tips and strategies from Mobilengine.
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
Some industries are just perfect for enterprise mobility, and field sales is a great example of this. After all, these companies rely on a mobile workforce day in and day out. While some sales professionals travel in local communities, others must traverse borders. Regardless of either situation, these individuals need to remain in contact with headquarters, and in the modern era, phone calls aren’t the only form of interaction. Nowadays, sales professionals need access to customer relationship management software and enterprise resource planning systems, as well as timesheets, task lists and invoicing platforms.
The good news is that organizations with field sales teams have been using smartphones for years. However, these companies merely adopted mobility due to employee demand, when they should be tackling mobility as a challenge to increase sales, revenue and the success of the business as a whole.
Now is a better time than ever to start deploying new and improved mobile workflow apps. So, here are some do’s and don’ts of enterprise mobility in field sales….
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
On Tuesday, June 30 Mobilengine’s CEO Adam Dalnoki will speak at the “Maximizing Mobile Customer Engagement and Workplace Productivity” event hosted by the Jacksonville Business Journal at the Omni Jacksonville in Jacksonville Florida. Adam appears along with the CEO of Auditmacs, David Hopper and the Senior Sector Specialist, Telecommunications at Deloitte, Mike Curran. You must RSVP by Friday June 26 to attend, tickets are available here.
Businesses today, have increased demands for both consumer engagement and workforce accessibility while maintaining ease of use on multiple mobile devices. Unlike traditional desktop operations, the mobile world uses a range of operating systems, cloud storage options and collaboration applications making security and compliance concerns one of the largest challenges for today’s IT professionals. As technology evolves and we enable multiple mobile apps, cloud servers, data and devices, we’ll show you how to optimize customer engagement, productivity, and user satisfaction while maintaining control over your company’s mobile computing environment.
This event is sponsored by AT&T, Auditmacs, BBVA Compass, Deloitte and PRI Productions.
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.
Boston, MA, (June, 2015) — Mobilengine, “the complete end to end mobility solution for your enterprise”, announced that UK based construction firm McGee Group will be featuring Mobilengine NFC inspection tags on its truck fleet. This is a continuation of a partnership that began last year and was highlighted by an award from the Construction Health and Safety Group (CHSG) this spring for this organizations’ use of innovative mobile applications. The McGee and Mobilengine team was presented with the Commended Award for the development of two innovative mobile applications that automate and digitize McGee’s site safety inspections and daily vehicle inspections.
John McGee, Director, said: “The Construction Industry as a whole is challenged by the significant number of paper-based forms, reports and other documents that have to be processed on a daily basis. We therefore decided to develop a series of bespoke mobile applications to enhance daily vehicle inspections and site safety inspections to revolutionize time consuming paper-based systems by ‘going digital’ and above and beyond the minimum requirements of law in relation to vehicle and road safety. The main goal is to fully mobilize a number of company processes and to merge several different management tools into one single application for enhanced safety, improved workflow safety and more visible and controllable processes.”
“With Mobilengine’s mobile technology know-how and McGee’s industry expertise, a solution has been created that enables McGee to enhance site safety and vehicle and road safety.” says Michael Kelly, McGee Group’s Head of IT. We could not have done this without our partnership with Mobilengine and their innovative solutions.” Mobilengine was uniquely positioned to help McGee as they specialize in helping companies create apps that mimic their business processes perfectly in order to improve them….
Adam Dalnoki, Mobilengine’s CEO, brings IT and telecommunications expertise as an ex BCG consultant. He made a previous exit in a mobile payment start up and has held sales executive positions at Provimi and Kraft Foods.