While developing a mobile web app affords legacy carryover, you need to consider a native/hybrid app if you require access to device-specific features. Your Challenge Businesses realize the perceived value of implementing mobile applications in improving productivity and reach of day-to-day business and IT operations. As a result, business strategies and objectives are being directed towards mobile as seen in large initiatives. Mobile technologies have matured to a point where mobile devices and platforms can be used to execute key enterprise processes. Mobile devices are in your workplace and employees are actively looking for ways to integrate traditional enterprise apps with their device. Outsourcing mobile development to agencies has often been considered when internal skills, processes, and technologies were not readily available. Our Advice Critical Insight Incorporating mobile access with your existing traffic can stress your existing back-end infrastructure. The increased traffic will introduce new network scalability and security issues. Enterprise mobile applications require support from legacy applications and systems to operate. End users need the ability to view and access back-end data which presents integration and security challenges. Use a mobile web platform to minimize disruptions to your existing development process and technical stack while addressing business needs. If you have to go native for hardware access, then select a a hybrid development model to abstract away from coding language differences. Always map your future trajectory. Your mobile platform needs to grow lockstep with non-mobile initiatives to avoid architecture fragmentation. Impact and Result Implementing mobile development on any platform requires analysis of the current technical stack to assess reusability with mobile technologies. Development teams must look for ways to leverage existing toolsets and mid-tier and back-end support in order to minimize costs and maximize ROI. Lessons learned from traditional web development can be applied to mobile development, maximizing reusability and operating within constrained budgets. Selecting the right development, testing, and deployment tools for mobile development can help reuse existing processes and technologies to catch and fix bugs and defects early in the SDLC.

1. Choose the Right Development Platform for Your Enterprise Mobile Application
While developing a mobile web app affords legacy carryover, you need to consider a native/hybrid app if you require access todevice-specific
features.
Application development managers need to address the key business problems with the development of mobile enterprise apps:
workforce mobilization, bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and long-term architecture misalignment. They are looking for a technique to
select the most appropriate mobile platform and a comprehensive plan to implement Start with what you have: begin with a mobile web
platform to minimize impacts to your existing development skill sets and technical stack while addressing business needs. Resort to a
hybrid application only if you require device access.Look for people with deep skills in your legacy dev and acquire skills in mobile. This
combination of legacy and mobile skills will help you address potential integration issues. Reach out to individuals who have experience
with web dev in your company as they can provide key process and technical insights.
Remain platform independent for now and avoid device-dependent use cases. Otherwise, it could lead to a default native platform and
impose new skills or tools, driving up costs. You want your mobile platform to accommodate changing priority functions, use cases, and
user stories at this stage.
If you don’t align with your user stories and IT drivers, you risk fragmenting your development environment which will increase future
maintenance costs. Your previous experience with the web, user stories, and IT drivers will make the transition to a mobile platform easier.
Evaluate your existing development toolset to determine if it can be modified to accommodate mobile. Look for vendors who offer
integration capabilities with your current toolset in order to minimize the impact on your existing development process and skills set.
Ensure your metrics address platform-specific criteria in order to determine success. Any metrics that are highly technical will need to roll
up into platform selection objectives. Leverage your metrics from your experiences with web development as a starting point to gauge the
success of your mobile web platform.
Gauge the execution of your mobile platform to determine its overall success. Realize that mobile development is an iterative process and
your people, process, and technology must be capable of accommodating changes. Web technologies give you the flexibility to quickly
make modifications and redeploy them to all devices.