Many businesses are now using apps to help implement effective mobile solutions – particularly crucial following the recent rise in remote working.
However, our recent research showed that more than four fifths of CIOs’ teams lack the skills or resources to develop mobile apps in house. Over 38% of CIOs’ teams are overstretched and do not have the time, or capacity to develop their own apps, while 36% do not have the coding skills and expertise required to do so.
So how can CIOs overcome this barrier to in-house app development? And how can these businesses still enjoy the positive impact that employee-facing apps can have for productivity and efficiency, without breaking the bank?
Here, we offer our three top tips to making sure apps can still be a part of your business’s enterprise mobility strategy, even if specific expertise or capacity is lacking.
1. Employ an app-developer
As more than a third of CIOs have difficulties developing apps within a designated budget and 30% struggle to develop apps for a range of operating services and devices, it may be worth bringing in an external app developer.
App developers can be brought into your business for a particular project, allowing the app to be developed quickly and efficiently, leaving CIOs to focus on other key important issues. However, it’s worth noting this can be costly, and can cause ongoing expenses if an app needs to be tweaked or updated on a regular basis to meet the needs of employees.
2. Upskill your employees
The digital skills gap is a huge problem for businesses, so it’s unsurprising that 47% of CIOs said that they struggle to recruit employees with mobile coding capability.
Another option to ensure apps can be easily created and used in your business, is to upskill your current employees in app development. This can be done by bringing in an external app developer and asking members of your team to work alongside them. This exchange of knowledge can allow CIOs’ teams to learn the necessary skills that could contribute to developing another app further down the line.
Furthermore, sharing expertise and training up employees can be a good way of ensuring app creation skills stay within your business. As employees are trained, this expertise can be easily passed down to newer staff members at no extra cost to the business.
3. No and low-code technology
Finally, it is also possible for your business to invest in a no-coding mobile app toolkit as an alternative to developing apps in-house. In our research, over 64% of CIOs said that they would be interested in this option as it would help to reduce workload for their team and enable them to implement mobile solutions more quickly.
This toolkit is a service we offer at WorkMobile, enabling businesses to quickly and easily create specific apps with no coding knowledge or expertise necessary. Currently, with distancing still a key priority and the business landscape constantly shifting with very little notice, being able to produce mobile apps that are specifically tailored to the needs of your employees, makes no-code app technology a highly attractive option.
Apps can be hugely useful to employees of businesses. Whilst app development can be a struggle for many CIOs due to costs and potential lack of expertise, there are a range of opportunities available to you. Bringing in an external developer to train up your staff is one options but investing in a software that doesn’t require any coding expertise, may be a more efficient and low-cost option.