Enterprise mobility specialist, Antenna Software, released the findings from its second annual Mobile Business Forecast, the sequel to its landmark 2012 survey that probed into the state of the mobile applications development and management marketplace among 1,000 US and UK enterprises. Both IT and business executives alike were interviewed for the 2013 report, which revealed that more than 1 in 3 enterprises (37%) now have their own app stores – a dramatic increase over the 14% of businesses that claimed they were working on or planning to start work on their own apps stores last year.
Other top-line findings from Antenna's 2013 Benchmark show that:
Mobile apps for employees are growing priority for enterprises: 60% of respondents indicated they are currently working on a mobile app for employees, up from only 42% last year.
Don't worry, customers aren't being left in a lurch – 67% of companies also said they are currently working on mobile apps for their customers, which is up incrementally from 43% last year.
Business process improvement through mobile is the top priority (for now): Two thirds of the executives interviewed told Antenna that either all, or the majority of their deployed/planned mobile projects addressed 'current' business processes, rather than 'transformative' or innovative initiatives.
Cost and speed are still a major point of frustration when mobilizing the enterprise: When asked what the most frustrating aspects of mobile projects were, almost half of the respondents (48%) reported "cost," followed by speed to market (43%), security (39%), and integration (36%). So it was no surprise when asked what three factors 'most influence their choice' of technology/technology provider, cost came in on top again (56%), followed closely by security (35%), speed to market (33%), and the ability to integrate (32%) with backend systems – indicating a strong correlation between past experiences with mobile deployments and future plans and priorities.
"The findings from this year's Mobile Business Forecast indicate that as mobile apps spread across the enterprise – to enable both employees and customers, alike – there appears to be a growing concern over the lack of control and management businesses seem to have with this mobile tsunami," said Jim Somers, chief marketing and strategy officer for Antenna. "While public app stores certainly serve a purpose for consumer apps, we're seeing a growing number of businesses deploying their own app stores as part of a broader need for cost, speed, security, and reusability."
The Antenna report has also revealed that enterprise investment in mobile is quickly on the rise, despite the fact that many enterprises report they are getting little to no reuse from previous mobility investments:
Close to 20% of enterprises are rewriting or will have to re-write between a quarter and half of the apps they have deployed to date, and 1 in 10 organizations have already retired 25-50% of their apps.
In 2012, the average amount companies had 'currently' invested in mobility projects over the past 12-18 months was $422,000, compared to $510,000 in the 2013 report – a 20% increase.
Businesses are planning to spend $565,000 on mobile projects in the next 12-18 months, with US companies planning to invest almost twice as much on mobile projects as their UK counterparts in that time.
1 in 5 of the IT and business executives interviewed by Antenna reported that their companies have spent between $750,000-$1.5M on mobile projects in the last 12-18 months – up from 14% as reported in the 2012 report.
