AN Accenture Plc. survey based on a combination of online and telephone interviews revealed companies are not taking mobile applications (apps) seriously.
“We found that too many companies are neglecting to continually improve their existing apps,” executive Abhijit Kabra said.
“So, they risk wasting their investment.”
The survey conducted in December and January among 1,925 senior decision-makers for digital strategy and technologies finds that apps are becoming business critical, but app management is not keeping pace.
Here’re the top 9 results of that poll by Accenture of companies that represented 15 countries and nine industries:
- The vast majority of executives recognize the value of mobile apps for their business (87 percent) but very few are well prepared to successfully deploy and maintain those apps.
- During the design and build stages of app development, only 52 percent employ a testing program that includes user feedback. Only 48 percent carry out usage reporting or analytics to understand any user pain points in live apps.
- Half the survey respondents (49 percent) cited security as the greatest challenge faced in managing and developing mobile apps.
- The second biggest challenge cited was performance issues, such as crashing and bugs (37 percent). But just over half (55 percent) make use of any bug fixing or tracking tools to help overcome this.
- Many respondents (82 percent) see apps as integral to their organization
- Majority (85 percent) believes that apps are the dominant user interface of the future
- Nearly nine in 10 believe apps to be a portal to the digital business (87 percent).
- Less than half of respondents are taking advantage of apps to improve their business efficiency. Just 46 percent reported using productivity apps and only 44 percent are using apps as a channel for sales, customer service or information.
- Other apps that could represent major operational benefits to enterprises such as mobile learning and collaboration apps are only in use in 35 percent of businesses, although a further 38 percent of respondents not using them today intend to adopt them in the next two years.
“Businesses are not keeping a close eye on their apps,” Kabra said. “Nine out of 10 respondents told us that they see high customer demand for effective mobile apps, but despite that half of respondents felt that mobile apps cannot be appropriately secured for business purposes, and only 45 percent of them have crash reporting in place.”
Kabra recommends that “businesses must do rigorous testing before launch and robust app management once deployed to get the best results from apps.”
“Not only does this help to provide the best possible user experience, but it will also help make sure that security challenges are addressed as an ongoing priority.”