How to create effective mobile solutions for enterprises

More recently, communication issues were resolved on paper, by telephone and in person. With the advent of personal computers, then local area networks, and then the Internet, the necessary issues seemed to be resolved: on the screens of our monitors we see emails, reports, tables, pictures, presentations and interfaces of various software.

But there is a very important point - we cannot be attached to the workplace and these monitors around the clock. We are dynamic. Business should follow us and in no case should it lag behind. We must not lose precious hours or days for making tactical decisions, wherever we are: on the street, underground, in the sky or on the water.

Everyday life will never be the same as before. Queues in banks will disappear, exhibition organizers will refuse from paper information materials, and a full trip to the store will replace a couple of keys pressed on a smartphone. The workflow will fundamentally change - managers will quickly receive tasks, get to know them and perform them on the screen of their devices. Friends, (pause) welcome to the era of mobility.

Mobile technology and mobile Internet have come into our lives, deeply penetrating its context. Mobile devices are always at hand, they almost always have an Internet connection, and the abundance of various applications allows us to use them for almost all occasions: at home and at work.

In almost any industry sector (both in small business and in large corporations), the question arises of automating business processes that can significantly reduce overhead costs while increasing production capacity. Accessible and convenient communication channels, management and operational analytics of business processes, as well as timely impact on them, are the key to effective work of companies.

In this regard, Business requires new features and tools for:

• remote control;
• continuous communication;
• process control;
• prompt response.

The use of mobile technologies in the corporate sphere allows introducing a corporate context into the context of employees' lives, predetermining an increase in the efficiency of business processes. Improving business efficiency depends not only on the intra-corporate use of mobile solutions, the provision of a mobile interface for external clients in the form of various personal dashboards also allows a user to quickly and conveniently manage the services provided by a company. Thus, it is a mobile platform with constantly evolving technologies and capabilities that can solve all the identified business requirements.

Technology does not stand still, everything changes. The market for various technological solutions does not have time to adapt to this pace of development. Many traditional standalone designs are already dying at the implementation stage. Such decisions entail high TTM (time-to-market) indicators, high cost of ownership, a lack of application management by the corporation, and a lack of analytics.

Adaptive solutions are needed with the ability to quickly and conveniently centralize the customization of the logic and functionality of the working interface in a mobile device. It is necessary to combine all existing services and business processes of the corporation into a single understandable interface, providing the ability to aggregate data. In the traditional development of mobile solutions, some difficulties arise, for example, ensuring the work of a mobile office on almost any mobile platform and device. When developing applications, it is necessary to take into account all these platforms, their versions, devices of various manufacturers, their models and types, various screen resolutions. Thus, each OS needs its own development team, both for development and for supporting mobile solutions.

Using the principles of building a service-oriented architecture in the creation of mobile services and applications solves the tasks without the disadvantages of the traditional development of standalone solutions. This approach allows you to build a high-quality and flexible business process management system on mobile platforms. The SOA (server-oriented architecture) paradigm allows you to integrate all existing independent services (for example, ERP, CRM, SCM, BPM billing, accounting) as a set of services that perform their specific functions into a single interface.

This approach allows you to get the following advantages:

Technological:

• fast and flexible scaling and development of services, including through external resources;
• platform independence.

Operating:

• reduced requirements for expertise (the company should not hire experts in areas that are often not relevant for the company);
• geographical and temporary independence of the business: it can be carried out from anywhere and anytime - the service is available everywhere and always.

Financial:

• Low cost of ownership solution.

How to effectively meet the needs of their customers by providing mobile application versions for all devices and operating systems? Well, there are three ways out:

• lay out and lay out a tidy sum for the development of mobile software for all devices and OS, as well as for their support and updates;
• save, but give yourself into slavery (literally) to one or two operating systems;
• or accept the SOA paradigm — the choice is yours.