Enterprise Mobility: User Adoption Is Key To Success

Jayas Damodaran

Organizations have been quick to adopt the Mobility trail.They are aware that by encouraging workers and executives to go mobile, the gains are immense in terms of employee productivity, customer satisfaction, cost control and revenue growth. Multiple surveys have highlighted such benefits. A recent report of Boston Consulting Group spoke about two times the growth in revenue among the top 25% of Medium enterprises when they adopt Mobility.

However, there is an important assumption being made here.And that assumption has led many an enterprise to experience less than expected returns on their Mobility investments. The assumption being that users – employees, associates, partners and customers will identify, install and go on using the enterprise mobile apps just as fish would take to water!!! User adoption determines in a big way how enterprises will realize the benefits of embracing Mobility. A recent survey showed that nearly 65% of the enterprise apps get deleted or under-utilized for multiple reasons.

Here are 5 tips to ensure higher levels of user adoption:

1. User Experience:With a plethora of consumer apps available today for the user, most of them with very high levels of UX, unless the enterprise apps create experience that comes close to such apps, adoption is bound to suffer. Remember, only 16% of users will give a bad app a second look. Getting the user experience right matters, even in the enterprise.
   
2. Align to “How the User works”:The flow of the app has to follow the logical manner in which a user actually does her work. Mobile can’t lead them on a different path. The app may include several features that may eventually be useful – but if the paths – basically the flow of screens – don’t match with how the user has been logically working, then the adoption takes a hit. Users will find such apps confusing and inconsistent with other modes of doing the same process.
   
3. Relevancy and Usability of Information:In their rush to “go mobile”, many enterprises quickly convert their desktop or web app into a mobile app and think they are doing their users a great service. Often the results are quite the opposite – with users abandoning the apps in no time. A “Mobile First” approach is what is essential – apps being built with mobile in mind right up front.  Keeping information that is of absolute need should only find place on a mobile app. Using the “user profiles” to identify the relevant and useful information is key to higher adoption.
   
4. Integration with the back-end: IT departments often look at the data elements, business logic, and the workflow between data fields at the source system to drive the design of the mobile app.This leads to the mobile app experience being dictated by the work flow and data relations at the back-end and the app ends up looking like an extension of the enterprise business transaction – and not utilizing any of the device benefits that could have enhanced the user benefit greatly.  Apps which will see high level of user adoption will be the ones that are built with the user and device in mind, with integration to the back end designed in a selective manner.The app should drive the integration with the back end, rather than the other way round.
   
5.  Ability to Act on Information: Often enterprise apps provide users with very useful information but lack any means to execute a task based on that information.A good enterprise app allows users to pick up from a set of options as to what can be done with the information provided by the app and allows the user to execute that option.For example,when a sales managers gets to know on his Sales App that a certain product is doing badly this quarter, he should have the ability, with a couple of clicks on the same app, to send an email with the relevant data to the concerned product manager requesting his immediate action.Just getting the information and not being able to do anything with it would have been frustrating and would have led the user to abandon the app.

With the world moving fast from websites to mobile apps, enterprises have to focus not just in adopting mobility but have to ensure that the enterprise apps get built in such a manner that users will see significant value and will use them in the larger interest of the enterprise.Only such enterprises will not only survive but prosper big time in the long run!

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