The plight of a mobile application developer today is the increasing number of new smart devices such as smartphones, tablets and other wearable devices. The diversity in make, model, shapes and sizes is what poses new challenges for development. It gets increasingly difficult for a business to analyze what devices to target and how to go about it. Cross platform and multiplatform development methods are hence becoming very popular.

Corporate users demand apps that can seamlessly connect them to their office environment and help them work from anywhere, anytime. Well, this poses a great security challenge. Developers need to create applications with excellent security features. Another important aspect that businesses look out for is customer relationships. Mobile apps have become a vital element when it comes to customer relationship building. Developers hence need to pay attention to a number of aspects of mobile development while creating enterprise apps. Some of these include remote data access, security, offline capabilities and backend integration. Enterprise mobile apps should be able to transparently synchronize data with backend systems.

Data Access

Enterprise data access via mobiles is crucial for the smooth functioning of today’s modern businesses. Well, where is this data located and how is the access provided? Will there be a web application or a native mobile app that can pull this data. Is the wireless connectivity provided by today’s mobile data providers strong enough to access data from backend databases? Should the data be stored on the mobile’s file system and then uploaded when the connectivity is better? Should the data be available real time? Mobile application developers need to develop apps that can support all the above and make the app highly usable for the user.

Security issues

Every mobile operating system has its own architecture and security varies from one OS to another. The level of security offered by various systems is different and mobile developers need to develop applications that work well with each and every operating system. Enterprises cannot afford a loose end where security of their business data is concerned. Another security element to consider is data encryption. Well, your business data is going to be accessed via external networks and mobile data connections provided by the mobile operators. Hence building tight security with encryption for data that will be accessed via the internet is very important.

User Experiences

Since the screen size, device types and architectures vary to a great extent, developers need to evaluate their options before they select a platform for development. Cross platform frameworks are steadily gaining popularity. Keeping clear and simple interfaces for apps is the key to develop highly usable apps. The difficult the app is to use, the less popular it is amongst the users.

Mobile app development is an ever evolving field and developers need to constantly innovate and apply their skills to create innovative apps that improve the efficiency and productivity of large enterprises and provide it’s employees with seamless and secure access to their enterprise data. All this adds up to create a successful mobile app for an enterprise!