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By: Gregory Lawson

So, you want a mobile app! It has been decided. It needs to be done and you know exactly what you want, kind of, you have an idea, you have a feeling. In fact, you want the mobile app because everyone has a mobile app, and you don’t want to be left behind. But you do see potential for some processes to be automated. This can be a good thing; it can also be a bad thing if not done right. Not doing it right can lead to adding your workload rather than taking away from it and can hurt your business in the long run.

So how do you build a mobile app, that seems to be the tricky part. There are development houses out there that do this for other businesses and that’s where you start looking, who has done what, who has built what? You want your app to stand out, be unique, groundbreaking and revolutionary. There is your second mistake. The simple answer is it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to work right, do what it’s supposed to do when it’s supposed to do it and most importantly, inform the end user when it can’t do what it’s supposed to when it supposed to in a nice way.

Building a mobile app sounds easy, some companies make it look easy, but it’s not as easy as it looks. There is a lot of thought, trial and error and revisions just to get your first version out there. Most development houses talk about MVP, POC and other fun acronyms that sound important and while they are they can confuse what’s really going on. This is when costs creep up, the functionality of the app gets expanded indefinitely and you start missing launch dates as everyone wants there five cents input and the process isn’t managed and slowed down.

So how do you build a great app for your company? Great question, you have taken the first step. The answer is simple. You need to look out for a very specific list and there is an order in which this list should be completed in order to achieve the desired goal of being the proud owner of an app in the app store.

The list is this:

  • Finding the right development house for you
  • Design, play, adjust
  • Communication is key
  • Understanding the development process.
  • Rolling out to a few select clients
  • Return on investment

Finding the right development house just for you.

This is the most important step of the process, you know you want an app, you need one, you feel that you have a great idea and clients will benefit from. So how do you go about finding the right app developer or development house for you. There are a few things to consider. Track record, have they built other apps before? Have those apps gone to the store? How long did it take them to develop these apps? How much did the apps cost and how much will your app cost? You need to talk to the developers and ask questions about these things. The ones that know what they are doing and who built enough apps will be able to answer your questions and give you the right advice.

Design, play, adjust

The first thing any reputable developer should do is give you a design. It starts out on paper, and they will spend hours asking questions. What features do you want? What happens if something goes wrong? Does it need to store information? Where will you store this information? Does it need to integrate into existing systems? These are all important things.

After that you should get a demo, the best option is to get a dummy demo app. This app doesn’t function and do data transfer but is rather the user facing screens that provide the functions. The reason for this is simple. What looks good on paper and what you think will work sometimes doesn’t work exactly how you thought it would. This way you have something to play with, to get a feel for and to adjust before a lot of work has gone into developing the functionality. There should be at least a couple iterations of this process. Once you and the developer are happy that this dummy app will serve the users’ needs you will have done two things. One, you. Have ruled out any misconceptions about what the app does, and your developer has a clear path to follow when moving onto coding the functionality. And two, you have inadvertently found and corrected any potential pitfalls in functionality so the developer can now go and code their heart out and build and app that has functions that mean something.

Communication is key

Communication with the developer is a vital process. Not only do they need to explain the potential pitfalls that they see they also rely on you to be able to help solve any problems that may arise from the development process. You are after all the one that has the idea for the app. Yes, they can design and code, but you need to guide them. So often companies hire developers with the preconception of, “You’re the expert so expert”. Which is not a false statement, but you are also an expert in your field, and you need to show and guide them how things should work so they can apply their expertise and deliver what you want.

Understanding the development process

All too often companies have great ideas and long-term plan for the mobile app that they want. However, the pitfall of not being an app developer they are often left with a sense of misconception as to what developing an app entails. As a brief example you want your clients to register via email or cell number. Seems simple, they type it in the app verifies the information and registers them. For you it’s simple, for your developer it goes more like this. Has the user put all the required information in. If not, how do we tell the user in a nice way. The does the email exist on the system already. If it does is the device a new device or a second device? If it’s a second device, is it allowed? If it’s a new device does the existing data need to be overwritten or, do we stop the process? If we overwrite does the client need to be informed? Do we need a one-time pin to overwrite?

As you can see a simple registration from the business perspective involves multiple scenarios from the developer’s perspective and they will need guidance and will also need to advise you on best practices.

Rolling out to a few select clients

Now that you have your app and you have tested it and played with it and have done things via the app and confirmed it works like you want it to its now time to see what your clients think. Often, companies do a blind roll out, “Just publish it and we will see how it goes”. While this works it’s not ideal and can often do a lot of harm if the app has not been tested properly. Also keep in mind that the app was designed to work for ninety percent of your client base, The ten percent are what you need to check as well. For this, it’s generally a good idea to have a small pool of clients that you invite to download and use the app. This group should generally be broken up into fifty percent client who love you and fifty percent clients that often are the more difficult end of the spectrum. These clients will give you a good balance of what works and what doesn’t and if you need to adjust any screens, features or functions to be more friendly or clearly defined.

Once that’s complete you should then be in a strong position to roll out your app.

Return on investment

Return on investment is always a concern for companies. Did you just pay a lot of money for a white elephant? This is always a concern and apps are always a gamble, but they can be a calculated gamble if done right. Most companies work on return is how much was spent versus how quickly they can recover those costs. Return on investment for an app works slightly differently. While the underlying principle is the same the period is longer. Your app may be adopted quickly, and that period could be shorter than anticipate but generally a return on investment for an app should be measured out over at least a twelve-month period. Again, return should not be calculated based solely on new business but also how much time and in turn money was saved by automating processes for existing clients. These two primary factors should be able to show that the money spent on the app was worth it and should be able to be forecast and tracked monthly to keep a view on how the app is fairing.

Developing an app shouldn’t be a painful exercise if done correctly and with the correct development partner. The process may take a bit of time and there will be times where it seems nothing is actually happening or progressing forward but at the end it can be a very rewarding experience and you will have created something that not only benefits you the business but your clients and should allow you to pave the way to ongoing innovation and automation.