By Andrew Gazdecki, Published October 14, 2014
Mobile apps are definitely here to stay. Experts advise, however, that getting too comfortable with a mobile strategy and not adapting in the ever changing app market is a recipe for disaster. Below are a few predictions we have for 2015 at Bizness Apps:
1. Mobile Apps Will Become More Targeted.
Mobile apps used to be multipurpose, but as time goes on, experts predict that apps will become more targeted towards specific needs and services. People will begin using apps as tools, for specific functions. With app stores becoming crowded and users spoiled for choice, they’ll be choosing apps that are as specific as possible.
2. Mobile App & Mobile Website Debate Will Finally End.
Mobile accounts for 51% of all time spent online. Both are important! Even today there is still a debate amongst marketers as to whether a mobile website or a mobile app is best for small business’ marketing. And what do we think? We think both are extremely important! Mobile apps are great for customer loyalty and customer retention. For a small business, this is extremely important as 80% of their sales will come from their best 20% of customers. Mobile websites are also important for new customer acquisition through Google Searches.
3. Mobile Apps Will Have a Larger Role In Marketing.
Number of smartphone visits are nearly 2x those of desktop. As time goes on mobile apps will allow business owners to utilize them in a way that they can’t achieve through social media or the web, by targeting consumers based on their location, interest, and more. With functions like photo sharing, messaging, loyalty programs, push notifications, and other features, businesses can utilize mobile apps to promote their business like never before.
4. Mobile Apps Will Be More Plentiful.
With more mobile apps being developed for businesses of every size, and being used in marketing more often, it only makes sense that there will be more of them. In addition, the cost and time needed to create a mobile app has been drastically reduced due to app builders like Bizness Apps. Rather than a novelty or a perk offered by a business, apps are becoming an integral part of running a company, and customers are coming to expect all the businesses they work with to have an app.
5. Mobile App Communication Will Become More Frequent.
Mobile app developers are now working hard to find the right balance with it comes to communication with its users. No matter how many users you have, it’s important to communicate regularly with them, to find out what works for them, what doesn’t, and how you can best assist them. Push notifications are a great way to communicate with users and we expect to see more of this.
Mobile apps are changing the way we interact with businesses of every size and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. These predictions are all great ways to find out what the customer expects from mobile apps and more importantly, your business.
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Nearly 70 percent of companies are concerned about employees using third-party messaging and chat apps to communicate and send documents internally, according to a survey of 397 IT enterprise decision-makers by messaging and mobility specialist Infinite Convergence.
The study also found that 59 percent of IT decision-makers think third-party messaging apps and chat tools are insecure for enterprise communication, and 41 percent of companies ban the use of one or more third-party chat apps. Additionally, while 84 percent indicate that internal enterprise messaging systems are a more secure option, less than half currently use an internal messaging service.
When it comes to bring your own device (BYOD) policies, 41 percent of survey respondents indicated that more than half of their employees use personal devices for internal messaging and to access company information. "With BYOD, enterprises have to deal with a whole new realm of IT concerns that they did not previously face: the consumer's own device and the information exchanged on it," Anurag Lal, CEO at Infinite Convergence, told eWeek. "Enterprise IT teams didn’t have to contemplate that before BYOD was an option.
Not only do they have to deal with consumers' devices, but also the applications on their devices and the ability of those applications to transfer enterprise information or content." Lal explained that with the advent of BYOD and over-the-top applications, enterprises are finding it more difficult than ever to control employee messaging.
According to the survey, two out of three executives said they are concerned about employees using their personal devices to communicate and send business-related documents and information, and more than half are concerned about former employees still having access to company information on their personal devices after they leave.
The study found that at least a quarter of companies ban some of the most popular apps and chat tools for internal communication, including Google Chat (30 percent), WhatsApp (29 percent), weChat (27 percent), Skype (26 percent) and iMessage (26 percent).
Email is considered the most secure way to communicate enterprise information, according to the IT executives surveyed, with 89 percent considering it a secure medium. The study also found that only a third of companies mandate that internal communications outside of email go through a corporate-controlled messaging system.
More than three quarters (77 percent) of enterprise IT executives indicate a highly secure, simple and intuitive internal messaging service would be valuable compared to their current enterprise communication system. Of the respondents who said they currently have a regulated internal messaging system in place for employees, more than half said they cannot remotely wipe information sent through that system from an employee’s device. "Enterprises need to train their end users to exercise a level of responsibility when transferring enterprise information.
Employees need to be aware that their consumer apps are not secure and only use enterprise approved or mandated apps for internal communications," Lal said. "In today’s environment, where enterprise information is breached constantly, this is the only way companies can have control over how information is exchanged within the enterprise."
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As the rate of stolen mobile devices has increased, the average time for IT departments to respond to this security threat has also grown, according to a Kaspersky Lab survey of global IT security professionals.
The report found that more than one-third of employees (38 percent) take up to two days to notify their employers of stolen mobile devices, and 9 percent of employees wait three to five days. The percentage of employees who notified their employers the same day the incident occurred decreased from 60 percent to 50 percent from 2013 to 2014.
The cause of this delay is employees becoming slower to notify their employers of missing devices, with only half of employees reporting theft quickly. "I suspect there is some embarrassment and or fear of reporting a lost, or perhaps stolen device," Mark Bermingham, director of global B2B product marketing for Kaspersky Lab, told eWeek. "Employees will often spend time, which ends up being critical time searching for and hoping to recover the device before giving up and reporting to your organization."
Across businesses that experienced mobile device theft, 19 percent said the device theft resulted in the loss of business data, meaning businesses have approximately a one-in-five chance of losing data if a corporate mobile device is stolen.
The survey also found that the rate of mobile device theft overall has continued to climb over the years, with 25 percent of companies experiencing the theft of a mobile device in 2014, a significant increase from the 14 percent reported in 2011. However, as stolen devices become more common, employees appear to be responding more slowly, with only half of employees in 2014 reported a stolen device on the same day the incident occurred.
The growing prevalence of stolen mobile devices may be a contributing factor to employee apathy, since a stolen smartphone might now be seen as a somewhat common occurrence, and not a rare crisis that demands attention. "I’d hope the trend would improve, but to accomplish this more training and expectation setting needs to occur between organizations and employees when dispensing and or activating BYOD mobiles," Bermingham said. "Some of this training needs to focus on the importance of speed in reporting a misplaced device, which may actually be lost or stolen." He noted that often, with the right administrative tools in place, like remote lock and find and misplaced device can more easily be retrieved. "
Additionally, in the event of loss remote wipe becomes critical and in this case the sooner the better," he said. "Enforcing policies like required passwords can also help to bolster security for events where devices are lost or stolen by making it more difficult for data and or sensitive business information to be extracted from these devices."
When looking at behaviors of employees in specific regions, North American employees are the slowest to respond based on 2014 survey data, with only 43 percent of North American employees reporting a stolen device on the same day as the incident.
The Asia-Pacific region saw the biggest change year-over-year with only 47 percent of employees reporting same-day notification in 2014, a drop from 74 percent in 2013.
However, the rate of mobile device theft varied significantly across regions. The Middle East reported the lowest rate of mobile device theft by far, with 8 percent of businesses reporting an incident, followed by 15 percent in Japan and Russia.
