Partner Article

The rise of the Enterprise App Mashup Part1

We’ve been programmed to believe that whatever task we want to do, “there’s an app for that.” However, that’s in our personal lives, not necessarily our professional ones. Businesses that are creating custom apps, launching enterprise app stores and investing in mobile development are changing that.

The global mobile app market is expected to generate $25 billion in 2012 and grow to $92 billion by 2018. In a recent Good Technology survey, 27% percent of companies reported that they are already developing custom mobile apps. As this trend continues, Gartner predicts that 25 percent of enterprises will have a full app store by 2017 (Enterprise App Stores Can Increase the ROI of the App Portfolio, April 2013).

There are – or will be – enterprise apps for almost any task you can imagine. From sharing files, to editing documents to accessing data – name any work-oriented task and there is or will soon be an app for that.

Yet, business success doesn’t ride on the swift execution of isolated tasks. For enterprise mobility to be truly transformational, we need to start mobilising entire business workflows in a seamless, yet secure, way.

Enter the App Mashup: a fully integrated set of individual apps, both custom and third party commercial apps, which work together to effortlessly enable an entire business process end-to-end, all while ensuring an intuitive user experience and rock-solid security.

Mobilised processes

What does a mobile workflow look like?

A number of Fortune 100 organsations work with Good Technology to mobilise workflows, securely, through App Mashups. In doing so, these organisations are transforming their user and customer experience. For example, today in the insurance industry, adjustors typically have to carry multiple devices and heavy paperwork to evaluate claims. Using Good, adjustors now have an easy three-step process on their smart phone or tablet:

• Receive up-to-the-minute client appointments through a secure email and calendar
• Immediately download correct forms from Sharepoint, and securely edit and add photos with a mobile device at the client site
• Obtain customer signature on the spot and immediately upload to the claim system directly from a phone or tablet

With this mobile insurance workflow, customers now get their claim checks more quickly, adjustors carry around much less equipment and the insurance company can handle more clients without more staff.

The great thing is that many powerful mashups can be delivered using existing off-the-shelf apps from Good and leading ISV such as Box, DocuSign, Branchfire, and many others. It’s often more about the combination of these apps and how they come together securely and seamlessly to create a new workflow than it is about investing in expensive custom development. And for cases where some degree of customisation is needed, enterprise developers can focus only on the unique elements of their custom app and how it fits into overall workflow. They don’t have to ‘re-invent the wheel’ and spend energy on solving for security, compliance, policy management, and app interoperability. That’s the power of the Good Secure Mobility Solution.

Thursday, we will explore the path to mobile transformation and show how organisations can balance the security, functionality and usability needs to mobilise their processes.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Herrema .