Does building a mobile app make more sense than buying an off-the-shelf solution and customising it for your business?
There’s no clear-cut answer to the question, but it’s important to understand the differences between the two approaches as part of a broader mobility strategy. Unfortunately too many companies only ask the question after they’ve gone too far down the road with one or the other, spending time and money without getting a desirable outcome in return.
Exploring what your business needs from an app should always be the first step to deciding which way to go, and yet too few do the due diligence before calling the developers. Need CRM? Field service and facility management? BI dashboard? Chances are it has been built already, white-labeled and available for integration into your own hybrid environment without too much fuss.
Building a custom solution tends to be more expensive than retrofitting a ready-made app. The question then shifts to - what do you want the app to do for your business that is different to what’s already out there?
The point here is that the real purpose of a great mobile app is to provide the end user with the best possible experience of your company through their device. A banking app, for instance, becomes the primary interface with a bank, and in some cases becomes the primary way you do business with that organisation.
Looking at your app through your users’ eyes: what do you want them to see and experience, what do you need them to access, how do your want to transact with them? Is the app going to be little more than a static information portal, or will it give them access to dynamically changing content? Will they be able to generate reports and interrogate your business systems, or will they be limited to one-way communication with your support teams?
These are just some of the questions that derive from considering how your app fits into your broader business strategy as part of comprehensive mobility strategy.
Build versus buy is a decision that often somehow doesn’t factor much into the procurement process, and without sufficient research a convincing argument can typically be made for a bespoke application to be built. However, a solid R&D exercise in the investigative phase of a project will go a long way in addressing suitability and quality concerns. Look for apps from a vendor with a solid reputation, and license those accordingly where it makes sense to do so.
What’s not in question is whether or not you need to go down this path in the first place. It has largely become accepted that every company is a software company in one way or the other. If you’re not in software, if you don’t have a mobile app or a good web presence, you’re going to be ignored. Not every company necessarily needs its own app, but even asking ‘how mobile friendly is our website?’ could be a good starting point.
About DVT
DVT provides tailor-made software solutions and related professional services to clients throughout South Africa. DVT’s technology solutions include. Net and Java, enterprise mobility and data & analytics. Its range of professional services includes project management, business analysis, business process analysis, software quality assurance as well as Agile consulting and training. DVT’s product based solutions include Agile team management (Axosoft and Rally), performance testing (NeoLoad) and practice management (Thomson Elite). Visit us at www.dvt.co.za.
Editorial contacts:
Karen Heydenrych, Communikay, 083 302 9494,
Christopher Dawson, DVT, 011 759 5930,
Clients are often surprised by the cost of ownership of mobile applications.
That’s not really surprising, since most organisations don’t specialise in product development, and the ‘hidden’ long-term costs of maintaining mobile apps could easily be overlooked.
Some may have dabbled with their own ad-hoc web development, and have come to appreciate – and expect – a similar process with their mobile apps. The problem, of course, is that mobile apps are a throwback to the ‘bad old days’ of fat-client development, as opposed to the efficiency of the thin-client web model.
To better understand the real cost of owning mobile apps, and how to manage them, we need to consider the main sources of the costs. These are the costs that follow the initial capital investment to develop the app, and assume you’re building a multi-platform mobile application that is live on all the relevant application stores.
Development costs
The impact of platform fragmentation has an almost immediate effect on the balance sheet. Depending on your business scenario, you’ve probably built two or three versions of your app as ‘native’ applications for different platforms – iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry – each assigned to a group of people with two or three different skill sets.
Since labour is often the most expensive line item, this is where the first major cost comes in. For the life of the apps, you will need developers with the appropriate skills – Java, Objective C, Android – and since you probably won’t find one person with all the skills, you’re hiring two or more developers. Moreover, depending on your organisation’s business continuity and redundancy policies, you possibly need more than two of each. That’s a minimum of three or four developers, continuously, for the life of the apps.
While it’s true that cross-platform development platforms alleviate some of this burden, the reality is that you still need native plugins to enable certain features for almost all the cross-platform frameworks available today. On top of that, you need people that specialise in each platform when it comes time to compile and submit the app to respective app stores.
But that’s not all. You also need a web developer as the front-ends associated with these frameworks are generally based on HTML 5, CSS and Javascript code. Either way you’re back to a headcount of three or four developers, which is not always feasible unless you have some other reason to employ these people.
Testing costs
While mobile fragmentation becomes an issue at the development stage of an app, it’s during testing that the real cost of fragmentation comes to the fore.
Consider, for example, that you develop an app for three platforms, each with multiple OS versions, and intended for use on a large variety of devices, from tablets, to feature phones, smartphones and mobile kiosks. Let’s assume further that you have to implement new features regularly, because you subscribe to best-practice agile methodologies.
For each iteration you then have to complete regular regression tests before proceeding with app store submissions. Just consider the number of regression tests that need to be completed: application test scenarios, platforms, OS versions, form factors, device manufacturers.
It’s obviously impractical to test everything, so a sensible sub-set of test cases has to be prepared, probably based on a fixed group of devices that you feel provides you with an adequate cross section and covers your risk (remembering that you have to test on physical devices, and to get pre-paid SIM-cards to test over each network, because not all issues will be identified testing in virtual environments or over WiFi).
In a typical development environment you’d invest in test automation technology to reduce delays and costs. However, automation is notoriously problematic for mobile app testing. So unless you own all the devices you need to test, you may find testing costs can spiral out of control.
Support costs
If your intention is to make your application available to your customers (as opposed to private, internal-facing apps), they will expect you to support them when the application doesn’t work as intended on their particular device.
That means someone has to be available to answer a phone, respond to emails, or monitor a chat service. That someone has to be trained and empowered to respond appropriately, as would be the case in any dedicated support centre environment.
You could always limit the type and number of devices you support, but this would still demand time and cost to manage appropriately.
The bright side
The real cost of mobile apps is spread over an app’s shelf life. Decisions made early in the development process can and will make a difference to an app’s TCO, and there are numerous strategies you can follow to minimise costs in the long run.
For example, you could start with web apps, then expand. It’s always easier to have your app well defined and targeted, and using existing resources to do so. Building an app based on a successful web app is always easier – and less costly – than building it from scratch.
You should also address policy management upfront. For example, do you have a defined BYOD policy? If so, this will simplify your development choices. If possible, confine BYOD to a narrow set of devices and base configurations.
Define a strategy and roadmap, so you know whom you’re building for and your intended outcomes. Enlist focus groups for each app, so you know if you’re hitting the mark. And, if possible, take your app beyond the confines of your business. Scale helps drive ROI.
Lastly, consider partnering with specialists that can guide you through some or all of the process. App development is rapidly evolving, and it pays to have people around you with experience, skills and insight to develop your apps to their full potential.
This article was published on ITWeb on the 14th August 2013: