Key Trends Shaping Enterprise Content and Collaboration

Major Points

• Over 70% of enterprises invest in mobile apps to increase productivity or to improve customer service, while 35% do it to remain competitive.
• Enterprise publishing has to deal with a wide variety of document and content types, which need to be processed for a very diverse set of users and a broad set of output channels.
• Enterprise app development is outstripping available development capacity by a factor of five.
• Code-free app development allows enterprises to bring development in-house.

The Mobile Juggernaut

Mobile devices have profoundly transformed almost every aspect of the modern enterprise. Trends like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) are forcing companies to deal with the uncontrolled variety of mobile devices and laptops employees want to use to get their work done. 61% say BYOD improves employee mobility, but security concerns linked to mobile devices are significant : 39% downloaded malware in the past, and 35 % say they aren’t sure, according to the same research.

Investing in enterprise mobility solutions has become vital, however: over 70% of enterprises investing in app development in 2016 did so to increase productivity or to improve customer service, while 35% did it remain competitive.

How Apps have Transformed the Enterprise

It is interesting to note that while in the consumer realm, productivity apps are playing a relatively minor role compared to games, social media and messaging, in the enterprise, apps have profoundly transformed the way we work, in areas as diverse as managing snow removal contractors or tracking the quality of vineyard buds. eWeek reports that at SAP “more than 60,000 SAP employees are themselves using in-house enterprise apps built by SAP IT to help them accomplish a wide range of work-related activities, from quickly filing expense reports, sending product details to customers during sales calls, or just finding out what’s for lunch in the company cafeteria before going to meet co-workers.”

This trend is gaining momentum on a global scale, and not only for large corporations with extensive IT departments: according to Enterprise Mobility Exchange, over 63% quote increased productivity and operational efficiency as key reasons for app development.

But developing an app strategy is complex business. “As mobile devices continue to pervade the workplace, IT must find ways to deliver and manage the applications and services that employees need to conduct business.”6 According to Gartner “Enterprises lack the tools and experience on how to gather and use analytics intelligence from mobile apps to identify opportunities for new workflows and methods of engagement, particularly for B2E apps.”

Enterprise apps have become a big market, yet most enterprises do not feel that they can develop the apps they require in-house. In 2017, demand for app development services is expected to outstrip available development capacity by a factor of five.

What all this boils down to is that there is growing need for code-free app development, that will allow the creative services in an enterprise to create apps in-house without relying outside expertise.

Key Content Trends to Watch

• Digital magazines 3.0: Digital magazines were among the first apps to appear when the first iPad was released. But the emerging generation of digital magazines have very little in common with the PDFbased print replicas of the early days. Watch out also for increased service integration.
• Endless scroll: The page-based model for delivering text is increasingly replaced by pages and even collection of stories where the reader just continues to scroll, rather than getting lost in complex hierarchical structures.
• HTML5 everywhere: HTML5 has been around for a few years, but with the latest generation of content creation tools, it becomes the go-to method for sophisticated interactive media, not only for browser-based content, but for apps as well.
• Digital storytelling:This new way to communicate a story using pictures and carefully crafted shorter texts has been triggered by the ubiquity of mobile devices, and made popular by social platforms and dedicated news apps. Digital storytelling is profoundly transforming online and social content.

Bottlenecks and Pain Points in Enterprise Content Creation

Major Points

• The rapidly growing diversity of platforms and devices is one of the major hurdles for remaining competitive in enterprise content delivery.
• Only development platforms that can automatically generate apps for a variety of platforms and devices, such as the Aquafadas system, will be able to significantly reduce the cost of app development.
• Customer-facing corporate publishing requires extensive creative control not all app development platforms provide.

Complexities on Every Level

Generally speaking, organizational bottlenecks tend to arise more often in secondary processes than in primary ones. If the core business of a company is in manufacturing, for instance, efficiency on the factory floor will be highest priority, and dealt with in the most cost-effective way, since the bottom-line directly depends on it; investments on secondary processes on the other hand, management of office documents for instance, are a lower priority and tend to be squeezed when cost reduction is important.

This well-known mechanism of course affects corporate publishing directly, but there is a twist: While very few companies doubt the absolute necessity of communicating well, the ever-increasing speed of digital innovation creates a disconnect between what could (and should) be achieved, and what can realistically be implemented.

Many bottlenecks in modern corporate publishing arise from a simple set of conflicting needs: the importance of automating document processing on one side, and the imperative of creative control over the documents that represent the corporation on the other. Remaining competitive in any field requires excellence, but unfortunately, excellence can not be automated.

File Management: A Major Culprit

Some problem areas have been around forever - but remain a major issue in enterprise document management. As one CIO of a Fortune 500 Company put it: “The biggest problem in Enterprise IT is ‘Where is that file?’”. File availability is a problem that skyrockets as mobile devices become dominant in enterprise IT. According to Gartner, by 2018, 70% of mobile professionals will conduct their work on personal mobile devices, but keeping up with this trend creates frequent problems. As a direct result, improving mobility and making content easier to find are the biggest drivers in new investment, according to research published by Docurated.

But not all problems are linked to file management: Some companies simply don’t have an app yet that would allow their employees to access corporate content when they are on the road. But even when this not the case, the fact that most apps require an internet connection to function can create very annoying situations, for instance when a sales rep cannot access product information because his tablet or smartphone cannot connect to his carrier inside a building.

Finally, app development itself very often constitutes a significant bottleneck: A complex and costly development and update cycle can result in an app that cannot keep pace with rapidly evolving requirements in the enterprise. Clearly, streamlining the app development process has become a top priority for corporate publishers around the world. We will discuss this in greater detail on the following pages.

Pain Points of Mobile Enterprise Content

• The right version of a document is not available:Finding exactly the right document at the right time can be a serious challenge, given the organization complexity of enterprise storage repositories.
• No internet access:This is an issue that is as annoying as it is frequent: a data-connection is not available, leaving a sales rep stranded with no access to a vital document.
• Outdated version of the app:A mobile app is available, but the content it contains or the app itself is outdated.
• No mobile app available:An app is planned, but hasn’t been developed yet, which means that the user has to find and transfer the necessary data and documents manually.
• Inappropriate app or on-line portal:An app has been developed, but due to the complexity of the development process it has not been updated to stay in line with the needs of employees.

The ROI of Streamlined App Development

Major Points

• The average cost of a mobile app can be anywhere between tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• While coding is one of the most costly aspects of app development, it is the nature of the development pipeline that makes it such a complex and costly endeavour.
• By significantly streamlining the app development process, Aquafadas’ technologies make it possible for apps to be created in weeks instead of months.

How Much Does it Cost to Develop an App?