Study Finds Mobile App Use Provides Results For Your SMB IT Clients

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

As we enter the “Mobile App Age,” enterprises are quickly figuring out how to leverage their use to drive productivity and ROI. That’s the conclusion of a new report from CDW, The App Age: How Enterprises Use Mobile Applications, which surveyed more than 370 mobile app decision makers regarding how businesses use, select, and deploy mobile apps, and how mobile apps impact overall business mission and strategy.

“Mobility is changing the way work gets done. Companies of all sizes have discovered the value of mobile apps to increase productivity, and we’re starting to see the use of mobile apps to drive revenue growth and increase customer engagement and intimacy,” Andrea Bradshaw, CDW vice president and general manager of mobility solutions, says in a press release.

With the market for enterprise mobile apps anticipated to reach $61 billion by 2018, according to the research firm Strategic Analytics, it is quickly becoming evident that mobile apps are a valuable tool to help organizations boost efficiency and reduce costs. This new report demonstrates that businesses are leveraging mobile apps to support innovation, create business value, and engage partners and customers in new and different ways.

Small businesses, in particular, have found that investments in custom mobile apps have produced tangible benefits to their enterprises, according to the report, increasing efficiency (44 percent), increasing productivity (38 percent), and supporting remote work (32 percent).

The study also found that custom mobile apps are driving ROI; on average, mobile apps saved employees roughly 7.5 hours per week, with an average additional revenue gain of 16 percent, demonstrating the positive impact mobile apps can have on the financial bottom line.

And more than 70 percent of organizations surveyed anticipate future investment in custom mobile apps, a clear indication that custom apps are not a passing fancy. In fact, 20 percent of businesses anticipate increasing their app budgets by more than 10 percent. And 25 percent said the custom apps are driving competitive advantage in their field.

And while currently, more off-the-shelf apps than custom mobile apps are in service, the study reveals that custom apps have the ability to deliver higher business value because they target a company’s unique needs and processes.

Custom mobile apps in use by enterprises currently figure into support communications (36 percent), sales support (35 percent), and data access (34 percent), while companies are overlooking the potential to enhance other areas of work like vertical integration (13 percent), and to support competitive advantage (25 percent).