Critical Factors For Success In Enterprise Mobile Application Development

Forrester recently surveyed more than 50 executives who had used a third-party services partner for B2E or B2B mobile application work. These interviewees were all provided as references for our 2015 Forrester Wave™ evaluation of mobile enterprise applications services — and so they should have been more successful in their mobile application services projects than the norm (because they were given to us as reference work). But, reflecting the developing state of the market, we found a long list of challenges among this group. Overall, provider expertise is still limited, capabilities are fragmented, and best practices are still evolving. Interviewees cited issues with cost and timeline — which is not surprising given that most mobile app projects have a custom and often undefined end-state. Amid the gripes about cost, innovation, and overall project success, we found that the most successful partnerships were the ones that yielded hard business outcomes — in the form of efficiency, customer experience, and employee engagement. This report shares key takeaways from these interviews and identifies what to watch out for when picking a partner for mobile enterprise application work.