As Accenture's Growing the Digital Business Spotlight on Mobile Apps study found, most businesses have now identified mobile apps as a key technology on the road to successful digitization. In Germany, for example, the vast majority of decision-makers (83 percent) believe that mobile apps are important for successful digitization. And just under four out of five respondents (78 percent) believe that corporate apps are an integral part of their organization.
It is all the more astonishing how rocky the way to optimal use of this technology in many companies proves, reports Accenture: Apps for more productivity in this country, for example, less than half of the companies surveyed (45 percent). For sales, service or information apps for customers in the B2B or B2C area, the proportion is even smaller (42 percent). Only one in four companies (26 percent) have internal collaboration or training apps. After all, more than a third (34 percent) plans to set up such an app within the next two years.
Deficits in development and maintenance of apps
Accenture also identified deficiencies in the structures and processes required to develop successful apps. According to the survey, about 50 percent of respondents in Germany bother to test apps during development with the help of user feedback. And after the launch, only a good third (37 percent) use user behavior analysis tools.
A similar picture emerges after the apps are delivered to customers: 84 percent of respondents said to Accenture that their customers wanted good mobile apps. At the same time, 57 percent of decision-makers in German companies believe that mobile apps can not be effectively secured for business purposes. And only 35 percent of companies have a crash reporting that reports crashes to the developers. In fact, actively looking for and fixing errors in apps is only found in just over half of the companies surveyed.
"Companies have to take much more care of their apps, otherwise they give away a lot of business potential," commented Gabriel Seiberth, Managing Director of Mobility at Accenture Digital, the results. In order to really benefit from apps, companies would need to rigorously test them before launching them and then consistently maintain them. This ensures not only the best possible user experience, but also the security of the data.
