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Essential Guide to Becoming A Mobile App Rock Star - part I - Consumer-facing Apps
1. The Essential Guide to Becoming A
MOBILE app
rock star
Part 1:
Developing an actionable
mobile app strategy
2. Introduction
Mobile devices and apps are changing the way businesses and consumers communicate. This
shift brings new opportunities for enterprises, from a fresh approach to customer engagement to
streamlined internal business processes and change management. If implemented thoughtfully,
mobile technologies can not only drive real change, but also drive real business value.
This 3 part series will guide you through:
1 Developing an actionable mobile app strategy
2 Creating a business case for mobile apps
3 Choosing the right partner for your apps
Source: Symantec 2012
The essential guide to becoming a mobile app rock star (Part 1)
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3. Developing an actionable
mobile app strategy
Many companies spend months developing strategies that do little more than justify what
they wanted to do in the first place. That’s not a good strategy, nor is a high-level plan that’s
developed without thinking about implementation. We’ve developed a five step fast-track
process for developing a thoughtful, actionable strategy that will guide you through the spider
web-like process of developing an actionable mobile application strategy. Best of all, this
process will take you weeks, instead of months, to complete.
The process consists of 5 simple steps that almost every company can deliver in about
4 weeks:
1 Evaluate how your customers use mobile devices and apps today
2 Benchmark competitors and companies in adjacent industries
3 Interview key stakeholders and identify use cases where mobile can transform your internal
and external relationships
4 Prioritize the use cases based on opportunity size, complexity, cost and commonality
5 Look for opportunities to maximize impact
We will explore each of the action items listed above in more depth. In the end, you’ll be ready
to get started developing your actionable fast-track mobile app strategy.
The essential guide to becoming a mobile app rock star (Part 1)
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4. 1
Evaluate how your customers
use mobile devices and apps today
Whether you realize it or not, your customers are already making mobile devices and apps a big
part of their shopping experience. In-store, shoppers call friends and family to ask their advice,
they use search, scan barcodes or use photo-based apps to look up reviews and compare prices.
24% of shoppers say they use their devices to find coupons or deals.
In a recent study, 75% of consumers said they would switch brands if offered real-time
promotions delivered to their smartphones. To develop your own mobile app strategy you need
to understand how your customers are using mobile applications now.
Some practical steps to discovering what’s going on now:
1. Gather info from inside your company. Is your team currently running mobile apps to
market to customers? Are other teams? What are the apps? What do they do? What
features do they offer? What features do customers use?
2. Ask your customers. Primary research is invaluable. If you have a big research budget,
good for you – do surveys and anthropological studies. If you don’t, that’s ok. Research
doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Just go ask. Ask about how they’re using apps now. Ask
about cool things they wish they could do.
Mobile phone owners
when shopping in store:
46% call a friend or family for advice
28% look up reviews of a product
27% do price comparison with other
stores
24% have used their device to find a
coupon or deal
The essential guide to becoming a mobile app rock star (Part 1)
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5. 2
Benchmark competitors and companies
in adjacent industries
The good news is it’s probably pretty easy to find your competitors’ apps in app stores if they’re
designed for use by consumers. It will be harder to find out how the apps are performing, but
you should be able to see how many downloads there are, and you can read comments. Here
are some other things to try:
Look for online news coverage about competitors’ apps
Look for market research on apps in your industry
Check out case studies in your industry by the major vendors
Identify companies from adjacent industries and look online to see what they are
doing
How have others
succeeded or failed?
Benchmarking is the best way to inspire and get buy in from management (especially when they
are skeptical about deploying apps), but the most valuable information you’ll gather from this
exercise is identifying a “working knowledge” from other companies of:
1. Strategic successes: There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by – and improving
on – your competitors’ successes.
2. Strategic failures: Most often, an app fails when it does not meet the objectives that
were established before its release.
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6. 3
Interview key stakeholders and identify use
cases where mobile can transform your business
“The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.”
- Fred Brooks, author, The Mythical Man-Month
The best way to understand business needs is to ask those that would benefit most from
the proposed initiatives. Ask your internal stakeholders—C-level executives, heads of R&D,
sales, operations, and, of course, marketing—what they’d like to gain from a consumer
app. Would they like more insight into consumers’ buying processes, feedback about your
company’s products or services, input about preferred buying incentives, established customer
communication channels, etc?
What use cases can
transform your business?
transformative
A good way to get the information you need is to ask your internal stakeholders to complete
this sentance: As an [actor] I want [action] so that [achievement].
This use case model is an excellent tool to use to communicate with stakeholders about mobile
services in a language they can easily understand. This will also set you up for the next two
actions of your enterprise mobility strategy:
1. Break down a system into manageable pieces.
nice
to have
useful
2. Begin to define the functional requirements.
no way
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7. 4
Prioritize the use cases based on opportunity
size, complexity, cost and commonality
Using the methods above, most companies easily identify hundreds of potential use cases for
mobile applications.
The challenge now is to focus on the ones that will have the biggest impact and result in a
few quick wins. Start by taking all the use cases and rank them from 1 to 10 in the following
categories:
Opportunity size: How much could it cut costs, improve productivity or increase
revenue? (Where a 10 means it is a big opportunity)
Complexity: How difficult or simple is the implementation? (Where a 10 means it is an
easy implementation)
Cost: How much is this puppy going to cost you? (Where a 10 means it is a low cost)
What will have the
biggest impact?
Commonality: Is the use case applicable across multiple lines of business? (Where a
10 means it is applicable across the entire business)
Calculate and...
1. Identify the top scoring use cases as well as a few quick wins to focus on.
2. Develop a roadmap for the next 12-18 months (Expect it to change over time as
you’ll be learning from the initial development and user feedback).
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8. 5
Look for opportunities to maximize impact
Many companies have multiple lines of business, and may sell a variety of different brands
to different audiences. Your mobile app might be shaping up to be something very similar
to what another brand or marketing team could use. Looking for opportunities to pool
development resources and share development efforts could help you get more bang for your
buck, and ultimately deliver greater value to the organization.
Any company planning to deploy more than three enterprise apps should consider a Mobile
Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) as part of the strategy to share technology, minimize
time to market and cut development overhead across business units.
What use cases should
we provide centrally?
Use the results from the use case prioritization exercise in Step 4 (“Commonality”):
1. Identify what use cases, if any, would make sense to provide centrally in the
organization and start mapping out the requirements.
2. Set aside budget for a MEAP which centralizes global functionality but allows
individual business units the freedom to develop their own apps (more on MEAP in
Part 3 of this series).
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9. Conclusion
Now that you have a mobile app strategy based on REAL business needs, it’s time to get buy in
and convince stakeholders to spend the money needed to succeed with execution.
Coming Soon: More information on becoming a mobile app rock star is coming soon in Parts 2
and 3 of the series:
Part 2: Creating a business case for mobile apps
Part 3: Choosing the right partner
The essential guide to becoming a mobile app rock star (Part 1)
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2
3
4
5
Evaluate
How are your customers
using apps today?
benchmark
How have others
succeeded or failed?
Interview
What use cases can
transform your business?
Prioritize
What will have the biggest
impact?
MAXIMIZE
Are there opportunities to
maximize impact?
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