It’s hard to escape the frantic activity in the mobile space these days. In addition to the thousands of consumer apps being created, organisations are steadily delivering mobile functionality for their customers and users.

Within organisations, mobility for staff is also becoming a major consideration. This is being driven by a number of factors:

• the rapid spread of ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) policies that allow personal devices to be used for work purposes
• the growing recognition that staff must be productive away from their desks
• the obvious opportunities in field and frontline environments to streamline how staff work
• the rise of ‘activity-based working’, where staff no longer have a permanent desk and instead work in a more flexible environment
• the chance to better engage with staff, to provide corporate services and news

Early adopters have already produced remarkable solutions, as seen in the recent years of the Intranet Innovation Awards (www.steptwo.com.au/iia).

As more enterprise mobile solutions are created, however, their diversity becomes apparent. Some provide simple day-to-day features such as a mobile staff directory, while others are rich mobile apps that automate complex business processes.

What is the best way to deliver these solutions? Should they be native apps? Or is mobile web the way? Is there a third option?

[November article by James Robertson, read the full article]