Mobile technology and apps have come a long way since Apple launched the App Store in 2008 with a modest 500 apps. Today, there are around 1.8 million apps. In 2022 the industry was worth a whopping $207bn, and is estimated to grow by 13.8% every year until 2030.
In this mobile-first world, where public and business use of mobile is ever-expanding, it makes sense that companies big and small would want to expand their existing web products or website, and launch their own mobile apps.
However, as an SME ourselves, we understand the unique growth issues many small- and medium-sized businesses face, and recognise how difficult it can be to deliver digital innovations when these businesses are so stretched as it is.
It is one of the many reasons why I am an alumni member of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses UK programme, which launched in 2010 specifically to support SMEs and develop business leaders. It is increasingly supporting female leaders, which is great to see; having been through the programme I understand the fundamental benefits of creating mutually supportive environments, particularly for underrepresented groups.
In the spirit of this, I’ve pulled together some key considerations for anyone looking to create a mobile or digital tool for their business – with some additional insights from one of Calvium’s talented developers, Fernando Sanchez. I hope it will be a particularly helpful resource for small business leaders and their teams.
Barriers
We are increasingly seeing many of our clients on mobile, both for personal and business use, which is being driven by hybrid working and on-the-go meetings. They get to a place where they know they would benefit from adding an app to the mix but they have no path to deliver it, usually for the same few reasons.
First, internal capacity may be maxed out so there is no time to understand how to ‘do’ mobile, let alone implement it well. Even if there is some knowledge in the company, it might not be enough to get the ball rolling and, due to those capacity issues, there is no time to learn or upskill.
This is further compounded by all the rapid advancements in mobile tech and changing regulation across different countries, which makes it difficult to keep up with.
That is no fault of the company; there is specific expertise and know-how in creating mobile apps for app stores, as opposed to much simpler straight web-responsive apps. It is rare that the internal product team will have experience with that, and why it often makes sense to ‘inject expertise’.
What I mean by this is contracting a partner to develop the initial roadmap and establish a workable approach. Once the foundations are in place, you have a much greater chance of being able to accelerate a project from idea to concept. Let’s explore this in practice.
In practice: Mindset Practice
This is exactly where business consulting group, Mindset Practice, had got to in their journey. They recognised their clients would benefit from having services on an app but their internal teams were at capacity with their hands full delivering the website.
Unsure where to begin, they decided it would be most effective to ‘inject expertise’, which is when Calvium came on board. We designed and developed the core of the app, and got it in good shape before handing it over to the internal teams to maintain and manage. As always, we are on call whenever they have a question or need a hand with anything.
We developed the mobile app for Mindset Practice in two sprints. The first sprint involved building the foundations of the app including sign in, navigation between screens, data persistence and the submission to app stores, along with some training so the company would know how to proceed from there. The second sprint took place over the course of a week. While the company had made some progress on their own, they needed some help with some more complex tasks such as implementing push notifications, a robust solution for data syncing and fixing some tricky UI issues. We first had an onboarding meeting to prioritise tasks. Then, a daily meeting to show progress and answer any questions from their developers (although we were in constant communication in a Slack channel). As I had access to their code repository, I could also suggest improvements to their existing code.
Mutual benefits
In our experience, and through conversations we have had with other SMEs, partnerships like this have myriad mutual benefits to both the client and project partner.
For the client, rather than commissioning a full app with maintenance, this route keeps the project management overhead to a minimum. This is because the expert partner can facilitate for short periods of time and there is no overhead in the handover. The app is quickly embedded in the team but experts are available if anything goes wrong, allowing clients to carry on with day-to-day business operations.
Experienced external developers also have deep knowledge beyond the codebase. They can anticipate changes further down the line, nuances with mobile tech, accessibility considerations, app store processes, regulation such as GDPR. The list goes on, meaning it is a huge time-saver for already time-pressed clients.
At Calvium, we always see projects like this as a welcome excuse to break up longer projects for developers. Our team enjoys being exposed to different situations and learning how others run projects. It’s a great opportunity to share best practice.
It is always refreshing stepping out of a long-term project for a few days. I had been working on Envirocrops for a long time when we began working with Mindset Practice, so it was nice to have a chance to do something different. As I was working on something we are experts in (mobile development), I was motivated by the fact that the company was benefiting from our help. Receiving positive feedback is always a nice bonus too!
An additional benefit we see, particularly for larger companies, is that smaller project partners are often built to be agile and can move quickly. One of our longstanding clients, Rolls-Royce, often brings us in when time and resource is tight or specific skills are needed. We can deliver projects and prototypes quickly and they can learn from us while we do, so they have the skills and know-how to do it in future.
Accessibility, for example, is a fundamental requirement for mobile apps these days – particularly public-facing apps like Met Office, another of our larger clients. While there are simple things all businesses can do to improve accessibility, meeting necessary rules and regulations demands specialised knowledge and technical expertise.
WCAG 2.2 standard is what you have to aim for in terms of accessibility these days. The standard is created for web, but most aspects can be adapted to native mobile apps too, e.g. things like colour contrast or font sizes. And, as every phone has a built-in screen reader, it is important to have all content properly labelled with the appropriate accessibility tags.
Final thoughts
While the mobile landscape has changed beyond recognition since the first apps were launched almost two decades ago, the core purpose of a good mobile app remains the same: to delight users and/or solve a particular pain-point. No matter where new and emerging tech takes us, this must always be the starting point and end goal.
As technology inevitably becomes more sophisticated and complex, mobile apps will require more time, resource and expertise. ‘Injecting’ expertise can provide agile, cost-efficient solutions to many mobile app roadblocks – particularly those incurred by SMEs – while also enabling knowledge-sharing and learning. It may even uncover some surprising and exciting solutions along the way.
