Enterprise application store breakthrough: This is merely the start of a prosperous era
Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to develop an employee-friendly application policy and improve the skills of their IT departments to better understand relevant applications. One solution gaining traction is the implementation of enterprise app stores.
The Rise of Enterprise App Stores
Mobile-first and wearable-first enterprise app stores are being rapidly embraced as the ideal solution to address the balance between access and control in a simpler, more manageable way. A trend for the future is companies shunning custom app development and buying more off-the-shelf apps.
Industry analysts predict that the popularity of enterprise app stores will continue, with a quarter of all enterprises worldwide expected to have one by 2017 according to Gartner. Enterprise app stores are evolving to become universal, used for desktop, virtual, and mobile apps, and this universal concept is likely to be pushed across the enterprise landscape.
Key Strategies for Building and Managing a Successful Enterprise App Store
The best strategies for building and managing a successful enterprise app store focus on ensuring excellent app performance, seamless integration, user-centric features, security compliance, and continuous optimization based on user feedback and data analytics.
- Ensure high performance and compliance with guidelines: Apps should have smooth navigation, fast load times, and minimal crashes (less than 1% crash rate). Adhering strictly to app store policies covering user privacy, security, intellectual property, and content guidelines is essential to avoid rejection.
- Integrate with internal systems: Making the enterprise app store compatible and integrated with a company’s existing internal tools and platforms streamlines workflows and eases access to critical resources within the organization.
- Focus on essential enterprise app features: Include features such as robust support, push notifications, cloud storage, offline usage, real-time analytics, calendar functionality, and easy file management. These features improve productivity and communication for enterprise users.
- Leverage user feedback and data: Continuously gather feedback from employees and measure app usage analytics to refine app functionalities and features that provide the highest value to users.
- Optimize app store presence: Conduct thorough market research, competitor analysis, and understand your target audience to enhance discoverability. Use localization, app store optimization (ASO), and coordinate paid campaigns to maximize visibility and downloads within your enterprise environment.
- Implement business-driven monetization and retention strategies: Use targeted offers, such as App Store Offers with segmented targeting and integration with CRM, to lower customer acquisition costs, increase retention, and optimize revenue from enterprise users.
- Maintain security and privacy standards: Prioritize data security by ensuring proper handling of user data, transparency in data collection, and compliance with relevant legal requirements to protect enterprise information.
Overcoming Challenges
Keeping up with changing system infrastructure is a hurdle for many organizations building custom app stores. To address this, the enterprise app store should be designed to be flexible and adaptable to accommodate future changes.
IT teams should also have change management skills as the changes within IT are large. The enterprise app store helps in maintaining proactive license compliance, reducing compliance risk, improving service delivery for IT as a Service, and cutting out IT involvement in obtaining and installing apps.
IT teams are facing challenges in getting the right apps to end users across the enterprise. The enterprise app store should be modelled on a consumer app store for simplicity and intuitive use, and CIOs are stepping up to enable apps in a way that's centrally governed, as a response to the consumerization of IT and the expectation of employees to work from devices that empower them.
In certain sectors, enterprise app development is remaining in-house as a source of competitive advantage. However, consumer applications set a high bar in terms of design and user experience, and internal products need to meet these expectations.
Vincent Smyth, SVP EMEA of Flexera Software, points out that the enterprise app store allows IT teams to reduce spending on new software licenses by engaging with users and automatically reclaiming unused software.
The Future of Enterprise App Stores
The wearable revolution is going to take enterprise app stores to the next level, with 68% of executives considering wearables a priority. Building a seamless user experience into the enterprise app store is crucial for high user uptake. A de facto industry standard for showing Time to Value (TTV) and Return on Investment (ROI) of a new software solution is the use of dashboards.
In conclusion, a well-designed and managed enterprise app store can greatly enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and provide a central hub for accessing and managing business-approved applications. By following best practices and staying up-to-date with the latest trends, organizations can build a successful enterprise app store that meets their unique needs and empowers their employees to work more efficiently and effectively.
- Technology plays a significant role in the development and management of a successful enterprise app store, as it enables the implementation of features such as cloud storage, offline usage, and real-time analytics.
- Finance is essential in the deployment of an enterprise app store, as it allows organizations to invest in the development of app store capabilities, while also reducing spending on new software licenses through user engagement and automatic license reclamation.
