All posts by [x]cube LABS

[x]cube LABS is a leading digital strategy and solution provider specializing in enterprise mobility space. Over the years, we have delivered numerous digital innovations and mobile solutions, creating over $ 2 billion for startups and enterprises. Broad spectrum of services ranging from mobile app development to enterprise digital strategy makes us the partner of choice for leading brands.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility, Weekly Insights

[x]insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 09-15 February

February 16, 2016 [x]cube LABS

Enterprises need to work with startups for digital transformation & innovation Share on X

Enterprises are struggling to leverage digital tech for transformation and innovation. Even when they have sound strategies, intent and resources to do so. Mark Raskino, VP & Gartner Fellow, in this blog for Gartner, notes the problem lies in risk-taking ability and culture, and advises enterprises to partner with startups. Startups built on minimum viable product development, design thinking and exploratory culture, which digital transformation & innovation projects so require, can help an enterprise in leveraging digital to the core. Read More

The key to enterprise mobile app success Share on X

Enterprises are building mobile apps to streamline processes, gain efficiencies and boost productivity. However, the success of the enterprise apps depends on employee adoption. Unless there is higher usage, enterprises will struggle to get RoI from their app. So how to boost employee adoption of apps? Employee empowerment is the key.

The secret to Digital Transformation in Enterprises Share on X

Digital is here and happening. Almost all enterprises, big and small, are looking to leverage digital technologies to gain new efficiencies and execute disruptions. However, enterprises needs more than embracing technology for digital transformation. In this article for itbusinessedge, Arthur Cole, gets us expert insights and tips on how enterprises should go about managing digital transformation.Read More

Data Not Just Design the Key in Creating Personalized User Experiences Share on X

User experience is key to the success of any digital product or digital driven service. The new-age user expects not just awesome experiences but also highly personalized to his needs. In this opinion piece for Wharton, authors not that good design has become table stakes. However, the secret for creating delightful user experiences lies in data-driven personalization.Read More

GSMA Announces First Internet of Things Security Guidelines Share on X

GSMA on Tuesday published its first security guidelines to promote secure development and deployment of Internet of Things services. The guidelines, backed by mobile industry leaders and infrastructure partners, aims to ensure best practices in data security and mitigating cybersecurity attacks.Read More

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

The Why, What And How In Creating Your Enterprise Mobile Strategy?

February 12, 2016 [x]cube LABS

A Recently Published Survey Of Over 400 Global Executives Reveals That

» 73% agree that mobility will impact their businesses as much as or more than the web did in the 1990s.
» One-third of the participating executives cited mobility as one of their top two priorities, while 75% put it among their top five.
» 59% say that their company has implemented a centralized company-wide strategy, while 58% say that their mobile strategy is moderately developed.

Mobility has become very big. It has transformed how businesses interact with customers and is now disrupting the way people, processes and the technology infrastructure interact within the ecosystem. What is really compelling though, is the speed and scale at which mobility is being adopted and its emergence as a key strategic initiative. Businesses, at whichever adoption stage they are at, know that there is massive potential with mobility ready to exploit. But, they need a clear mobile strategy that can provide solutions that best fit their needs and that can help them realize their business goals, transforming them into a lean, agile and innovative digital enterprise.

In this blog post, we discuss the need, key elements and major challenges in designing and implementing a long-term, sustainable mobile strategy.

What Is An Enterprise Mobile Strategy?: An enterprise mobile strategy is a framework that encompasses business, technology, projects, people and processes into one unified sphere. It integrates mobility as a technology with the rest of the ecosystem to allow organizations to define and practice its mobile engagement. A mobile strategy aligns mobility efforts with business goals, lays out a roadmap for its successful implementation, enables achieving near and long-term goals, provides policies and best practices for governance and helps in accurately measuring its success. Moreover, it also gives you flexibility to tap future technological advancements and adjust your strategy in accordance with the shifts in the business environment.

The Need For An Enterprise-Wide Mobile Strategy

As per a survey by Netcentric strategies LLC, around 92% of participants find developing an enterprise wide mobility strategy very challenging to somewhat challenging. Why is this so? Most organizations consider mobility solutions as an extension of their IT infrastructure. Moreover, we also see many adopting a need-basis approach rather than a holistic approach with a well-defined strategy. The lack of an enterprise-wide mobile strategy, ultimately, limits their ability to realize the full potential from their investments in mobile devices and apps. Lack of a robust mobility strategy can lead to poor adoption rates, lower engagement, higher hidden costs and failure to achieve a desirable ROI. Whereas, creating and executing a mobile strategy offers numerous benefits, such as:

Leveraging your existing enterprise technology like ERP, CRM, etc., and integrating the existing IT infrastructure to derive optimum results
Improving adoption rates by focusing on user-centricity Enabling enterprise-wide adoption–connecting people, products and processes
Maximizing productivity by speeding up responsiveness to employee needs and process requirements
Making the organization more agile and responsive to customer needs and, thereby, boosting brand perception
Maximizing results and returns from investments on mobility solutions by widening its scope and coverage
Allowing businesses to create sustainable and clear policies for mobile engagement
Bringing dexterity into the ecosystem to absorb dynamic shifts in the business environment

Enterprise Mobility Adoption Stages

The need for an enterprise mobile strategy is required when businesses transition from stage 2 to stage 3.

Key Aspects Of An Mobile Strategy

The process of creating a holistic mobility strategy for your business will involve five key aspects: Objectives, Users, Technology, Governance and Measurement.

Objectives: It is important to define from the very beginning the objectives, both short-term and long-term, for adopting mobility in your enterprise. Every objective should be laid out in as much detail as possible. Some of the popular objectives behind adopting mobility are boosting productivity, reducing response-time, faster resolution to customer complaints and cost-efficiency, etc.
Users: Businesses need to identify the target groups for mobility implementation. Who are your users? Customers or employees? What are their expectations? What are their training requirements? How will you integrate mobile technology with your existing processes to meet the expectations of the target group?
Technology: The trickiest part to enabling mobility is to select appropriate and accurate technology architecture. The challenge is to create a technology plan that not only serves your present requirements but that will also potentially evolve for tomorrow. What is your device policy? What about your UX/UI design policies? What are your backend requirements? How can your existing technology be leveraged? And most importantly, how do you robustly secure the newly built system?
Governance: The governance or management policy can be the difference between a failed and a successful mobile implementation. Therefore, it is important to clearly spell out the management policies and procedures, ranging from devices to application building and usage rules, to be followed in the new mobile regime. Which devices will be allowed? How will access to sensitive data will be controlled and monitored? What is your app development approach?
Measurement: A good strategy should provide you with the right tools and metrics to evaluate or assess its deliverables. How much money have you been able to save after your mobile initiative? Which channels are adding to profits? What is the customer satisfaction level? How much additional work-time your employees are getting?

Each aspect when considered separately will require you to answer many questions. Each answer will inform the next step towards a holistic mobile strategy.

Steps Towards A Mobile Strategy

Define Business Goals: State the purpose of enabling mobility in your enterprise. What are your high-priority business goals? What type of apps will help you reach those goals? Look outside as well as within your organization to identify opportunities for mobile.
Prepare Mobility Roadmap: Once you have a set of business goals that you wish to achieve through mobility, the next step is to find desired mobile devices and apps that will help you reach those goals. For each mobile solution, you need to build a case summary that lists key benefits, functions, target users and target beneficiaries, etc. Prioritizing these mobile solutions based on your set business goals will evolve into a mobility roadmap.
Do User Workflow Analysis: Any mobility solution will replace an existing workflow process. Therefore, it is important to do a comprehensive analysis of the existing process before it is mobilized. This will not only help you improve the existing process but will also help you measure the impact of mobilizing the particular process and justify the costs.

Key Questions to Answer
Mobile Platform/Device/OS selection	MDM or MEAP? Smartphones or Tablets? Company sponsored or BYOD? iOS or Android or BlackBerry or All?
System Integration	How will mobile apps overlap or be distinct from existing channels? How will it connect with the back-end?
Mobile App Development	Full client, rich client or thin client? In-house or outsourced development? Native, HTML5 or Hybrid? UI and UX specifications, etc.
Security Policy	What are your policies and procedures for securing mobile applications, user authentication, data protection and server applications?
Supported Devices	What are your supported devices? Can you create a charter for handling supported devices and future devices?
Wireless Connectivity	Do you have access to steady, high-speed connectivity for all users and security for your wireless networks?

Prepare a Technology Blueprint: Designing a technology blueprint has several facets, including deciding on a mobile platform, OS and device selection, device procurement strategy–company sponsored or BYOD,–core mobility architecture, mobile app development strategy, security policy, app and device management strategy and wireless connectivity requirements, etc.
Set Out A Budget For Mobility: Many organizations make the mistake of combining a mobile budget with IT, which often results in confusion and at times pushes mobile investments down the priority ladder. You need to create a separate budget for your mobility efforts. What are you planning to invest today, in the next six months and in the next few years? Breaking up the budget for processes, departments, etc., will enable you to build an accurate ROI model.
Draw An Implementation Roadmap: The mobile implementation roadmap will allow you to assess the current state of mobility in the organization, to compare it against the business goals, and to set up the timeframe and work process to realize it. Since an implementation roadmap requires the identification of risks and dependencies and the entry and exit criteria of each mobile project to be well defined, it can help you to monitor and manage each project effectively to achieve the overall strategic goals on time.
Build A Mobile Center Of Excellence: Mobility serves the requirements of various stakeholders of the system. To accomplish this, build a Mobile Center of Excellence with people from diverse domains and expertise to unify and centralize the many voices. . The MCOE will institutionalize best practices for mobility, bring consistency into the integration process, define policy and procedures for use and access of mobile solutions and look for opportunities for further adoption of mobile initiatives, etc.
Do Test Deployment: Pick a particular process or mobile opportunity to test your mobility plan. Implement it and see how it turns out. Analyze and document the deployment to understand success and failure points. Fine-tune your mobile strategy based on the test deployment experiences. Then,expand it to an organization-wide rollout.
Monitor, Evaluate and Review: It is important to constantly monitor and assess your strategy based on the feedback collected from various sources. Any deviation has to be immediately corrected. There should be a calendar for the review process for each element of your mobile environment.

Experts Speak

“For businesses which are exploring mobility for the first time with their employees, start by “building something which may not be mission critical, but is fun.” For example, providing employees with an app that allows them to order food from the cafeteria.”

Cimarron Buser, VP Of Business Development At Apperian

“The focus for businesses should be on questions such as whether the apps will be for internal or external use, and what platforms they’ll be using it on. “Remember that when you’re building an app, people will actually have to use it,”

Ken Daniels, Senior Director for Strategic Alliances in Enterprise Mobility at Samsung

“Whatever mobile apps the organization chooses to build for its employees or customers, it’s crucial to make the apps easy to use. Most people are already trained to use their mobile devices for consumer apps which have a high ease of use and they “expect their enterprise apps to be on par.”

Prat Vemana, Director Of The Velocity Lab And Global Mobile Strategy At Staples

Our Recommendations For A Successful Enterprise Mobile Strategy

Draw A Vision: Involve all stakeholders to draw a vision behind the mobile adoption. Determine the scope, allocate resources and establish policies to govern it.
Lay Down The Technology Blueprint: Clearly spell out the policies on device management, app development, system integration, security and compliance. Communicate the blueprint with others.
Keep Users At The Centre Of Your Strategy: The success or failure of your mobile efforts depends on your users. Their need and expectations must be met. You must provide them with a rich experience. A Center of Excellence will help you meet the requirements of users.
Get Ready For The Change: You are not only adopting a technology but also a practice. There will be resistance to change. You need to pick a bunch of people who will act as trendsetters and involve them at a very early stage. Communicate and co-ordinate your efforts, sharing initial success with others to help motivate them.
Monitor To Evolve: Creating a mobile strategy and implementing it is just the beginning. Monitor, evaluate and review to measure its performance. Revise in response to failures. Then, repeat it.

To Conclude

Mobility is no longer a choice; it’s a necessity for business. Implementing mobility in an enterprise involves substantial upfront investments and efforts. Given the amount of money and efforts involved, it makes perfect sense to optimize the deliverables and results through enterprise-mobility solutions to maximize ROI. A robust enterprise mobile strategy can help you achieve just that by engulfing and integrating processes, functions and people. Moreover, it also provides you with a long-term strategic vision and brings flexibility into your mobile efforts to manage any shifts in the business environment. In the words of Eric Schmidt, Former CEO and current Executive Chairman, Google, “Mobile is so important; put your best people on mobile. If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you are no longer relevant.” We couldn’t agree more.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility, Weekly Insights

[x]insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 01-07 February

February 8, 2016 [x]cube LABS

Successful Digital Transformation Calls For Comprehensive Organizational Commitment Share on X

Market disruptions are leading businesses to transform into digital enterprises. Now, on their way to digital transformation- should companies take a piecemeal approach or endeavor for an organization wide change? Tech Crunch’s Ron Miller in this story reports how enterprises are looking at big picture from the first day. Rich with expert views and industry cases, this piece touches upon on the need for clarity of vision, thinking the big picture, understanding digital trasformation as a people’s issue and how to get there.Read More

What it takes to be a successful digital enterprise? Share on X

Businesses are thinking digital. Not just as a technology but also as catalyst to disrupt markets and innovate. In future, every business will be digitized. But what it takes to be a digital enterprise? Management Guru Ram Charan, in this article for Economic Times, gives his take on characteristics of a successful digital enterprise. He lists a mindset focussed on ‘end-to-end customer experience’, platforms that solves unsolved problems and create opportunities and top leadership with ambitious imagination etc., among many things that businesses who want to be a leader in the digital world must imbibe.Read More

Internet Of Things: Moving from Hype Cycle to Useful Solutions Share on X

Internet of Things was a much talked about technology in 2015. Connected cars, smart homes, industrial IoT- there was enthusiasm all around connected. But how many enterprises have moved beyond the vision and deployed IoT in practical ways. Not many. This article from bestthenews.com offers you a roadmap and practical tips on converting IoT ideas into real solutions. According to the article, IoT vision is OK but applications are the real thing to push adoption. Secondly, IoT vendors must make it easy for enterprises to deploy IoT by cutting costs and making RoI attractive. and in the end, it asks businesses to go beyond analytics and look at actions and responses.Read More

What CIOs need to know to get started on an enterprise IoT project Share on X

Unlike other technologies in the past, experts say, CIOs will be treading in a new territory for IoT. There will new choices to make, understand new concepts and develop new relationships with vendors. Senior Writer Nicole Laskowski in this article for techtarget talks to various experts and puts forward a roadmap for CIOs to get started on their IoT initiative. She delves on IoT strategy, platform vs. point solutions and relationship between business & IT in deploying enterprise IoT project.Read More

Enterprise Mobile Apps Gaining Momentum in 2016 Share on X

Enterprise mobile apps have considerably gained huge traction in past few years. However, the growth has been less than expected owing to back end issues, security and privacy concerns. Todd R. Weiss in an exhaustive report for eWeek finds that mobile app development in enterprises is gaining momentum in 2016 with companies like The Boston Globe, SAP, Caraustar etc., planning to develop and deploy more apps.Read More

Banking, Blog, Stats

8 fascinating stats on Digital Banking

February 4, 2016 [x]cube LABS

Technology is transforming the way we Bank. Every process from customer service, information delivery to banking operations is continuously evolving . To be updated is the need of the hour. So, here are 8 key stats in digital banking space which you cannot afford to miss.

1) Contactless will continue
	‘Faster Payment’ transactions by 2024. Source : Payments UK
2) Omni-channel presence
	Of Bank executives noted the importance of a bank’s digital omni-channel presence to its customer retention. Source : BizTech
3) Digitization
	Of bank executives called digitization a high priority. Source : BizTech
4) Disruptive force
	Of bank & capital market CEO’s say that an increase in competitors- traditional & new will be disruptive force over next 3 years Source : BizTech
5.a) Mobile wallet
	Of the top 11 retailers will announce a mobile wallet Source : Carlisle & Gallagher
5.b) Mobile wallet
	Of the top 10 U.S. card issuers will announce a mobile wallet, with at least one of the credit union associations announcing a mobile wallet that can be leveraged by any of their members. Source : Carlisle & Gallagher
6) Security Issues
	Of financial institutions percieve a lack of customer awareness & security concerns anaam to diye diyechi……s top barriers to security Source:BizTech
7) Cyber attacks
	Of banks say greatest technology concern is having a strong technology infrastructure to protect against cyber attacks. Source: BizTech

Blog, Internet of Things, Retail

5 Factors Driving IoT Adoption In Retail

January 19, 2016 [x]cube LABS

As per a survey by Zebra, as high as 96% of retailers are ready to make changes required to implement Internet of Things in their stores. Over 65% percent of respondents already have implemented IoT solutions and another 26% are planning to deploy it in the next 12 months. So what’s leading retailers to invest big dollars and embrace IoT in their stores. Here are 5 factors that are making retailers at high street go high-tech

1. The Informed Customer

Shoppers today are more informed than ever. They access product information, compare prices and seek reviews before making a buying decision. Traditional retail shops lacked the environment to get real-time information access which IoT promises to offer taking physical retailing closer in experience to online retailing.

2. Ubiquity Of Mobile

There is an explosion of mobile devices like credit card readers, mobile POS solutions, Sales enablement devices and apps for the retail industry. Earlier working in silos, IoT promises to help build a unified ecosystem, controlled by smartphones & tablets, integrating various devices and apps to accentuate the various possibilities.

3. Cloud & Big Data

There have been major advancements in key tech enablers to IoT like cloud computing and big data analytics helping retailers to store vast amount of data and share it across systems. Moreover, big data empowers them to process data emanating from various sources, transform it into insights and drive better decision-making impacting shopping experiences.

4. Reduction In Cost Of Sensors And Processors

As per a Goldman Sachs report, the cost of sensors have come down from an average 60 cents from $1.30 in the past 10 years. Similarly, bandwidth and processing costs have declined in the range of 40X to 60X making it more affordable for retailers.

5. Omnichannel Experience

Shoppers love the ability to compare products, buy a product and receive delivery anytime and anywhere. In their quest to stay ahead of customer expectations, retailers are leveraging IoT to offer omnichannel experience.\

Internet of Things has the potential to once again disrupt the retail space just as web and mobile did in the last decade. However, this time it is for the advantage of physical stores as they get the tools and data to go one up above online stores. Amidst the wave raised by Internet of Things, retailers need to reimagine their business by blending new technologies with old shopping charm to succeed.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

[x]Insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 08-14 January

January 14, 2016 [x]cube LABS

How Organizations Are Solving The Leadership Puzzle For Digital Transformation? Share on X

Companies are taking to digital transformation initiatives to leverage and integrate new technologies like mobile, cloud, analytics and Internet of Things. However, the role a digital transformation leader in such initiatives is huge. So who should lead digital transformation in an organization? CIO, CTO or a CDO? A study by the Economist Intelligence Unit reveals some interesting insights on how organizations are deploying varied different approaches like appointing two digital transformation leaders, outsourcing digital processes etc. Read More

Why Retailers Are Betting Big On The Internet of Things? Share on X

Internet of Things is gaining traction with people showing great appetite for connected devices and enterprises adopting it to transform themselves. Retail stores too are investing big in IoT to gain back the lost space to e-tailers. Barbara Thau in this article for Forbes identifies the reasons behind retailers excitement towards connected things and how they see a great opportunity in IoT to reinvigorate their stores, redefine shopping experiences and push revenues. Read More

Solving Cloud Management Challenges In The Enterprise Share on X

Cloud has brought many critical business benefits to enterprises like scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness etc. However, cloud has led to growth of shadow systems putting data at risk. John Purrier, in this interview for itproportal, provides deep insights and best practices on solving cloud management solutions and ensuring that information is secure in a cloud adopted infrastructure.Read More

Creating A Testing Center Of Excellence Share on X

Testing is critical. More so in today’s world where user experience is central to success. In spite of enterprises spending a large chunk of their project budgets, testing doesn’t get the priority it deserves. Mark Summers, in this article for CIO, spells out the importance of a Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) in innovation, managing disruption and providing consistent quality experience to users. He also delves deeply into TCoE and provide 4 steps to building one. Read More

How To Balance Mobile Device Privacy Vs Security Share on X

Security is often in conflict with privacy. More so in a BYOD environment where users own devices. Enterprises have a huge task bringing the right balance between mobile device security and user privacy. Any attempt to track location of a device or to prevent unauthorized access using antimalware may be viewed as intrusion by employees. Entry of IoT and wearables is just making the task tougher. Lisa Phifer in this techtarget blog suggest measures like assessing the privacy landscape, securing business assets, bringing mobile device privacy to policies and leveraging transparency to balance privacy and security in the organization. Read More

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

7 Defining Trends In Mobile Technology For 2016

December 31, 2015 [x]cube LABS

2015 turned out to be a huge and impactful year for mobile technology. With increased integration of devices and a phenomenal increase in the number of smartphone users, 2016 is going to be even bigger.

Analysts predict a much more extensive demand for mobile apps and solutions among enterprise in 2016, fuelling an optimistic growth curve for app development companies and mobile solution consultants.

Here’s our take on what would be some of the defining trends in the mobile technology space for 2016

1. Internet of Things (IoT) Will Connect Over 35 Billion Devices

As more and more devices get connected and there is a steady improvement in the links between different gadgets/equipment and mobile apps, 2016 promises a tremendous potential for IoT. Wearable tech is not the only thing that can change your life – even your vehicle, electronic devices, hardware and home tools will witness transformation. Analysts predict a substantial increase in the number of devices connected to the internet (mobile especially) – while Gartner puts it at a whopping 35+ billion by 2020, ‘the INQUIRER’ envisages a 285% increase. By 2020, 250k connected vehicles are likely to hit the market.

According to a Gartner study, “the IoT will bring into the digital security architecture dozens of new platform options, hundreds of variations on hybrid IT/IoT integration, new standards per industry, and a new view of an application… and IT leaders will need to balance digital business requirements with digital security realities.”

The increasing demand for connected objects – home improvement tools, domestic appliances, toys, and home security systems – will make smartphones/tablets a hub of information and communication. So, be prepared to usher in the new era of digital disruption.

2. From Gloves To Jackets, Anything Can Be A Wearable

Fitness, sports and healthcare sectors continue to be benefited by wearables. With big players like Motorola and Intel entering the fray – especially in the Android segment, companies are now spending millions into improvising their wearables. Move over smartwatches and fitness bands – now anything from your gloves and socks to jackets, sneakers and caps can be converted to a wearable device. Consumers can probably expect better, efficient, useful and cheaper wrist-wear with long-lasting batteries, more sensitive touch screens and better sensors.

Having undergone a major makeover, the redesigned version of Google Glass boasts of better battery life, faster processor and improved connectivity. However, this version is available only for enterprises and is not up for grabs in the commercial marketplace for individual users, yet. Nevertheless, companies which experimented with connecting Glass to healthcare, retail or other industry segments will likely see a greater impetus and reap major benefits in 2016.

3. AR will Witness Tremendous Growth in New Sectors

Though relatively in its nascent stage, Augmented Reality is expected to witness a rapid growth by 2020. According to Industry analyst firm CCS Insight the amount of AR and VR devices sold will rise from 2.5 million this year, to a whopping 24 million in 2018. It forecasts that the market will be worth more than $4billion.

[Tweet “AR and VR devices sold will rise from 2.5 million this year, to a whopping 24 million in 2018”]

Another study puts the revenue generated by AR apps in just two sectors – enterprise and entertainment – at a phenomenal $1+ billion each year. So, it’s not just gamers and movie-goers who will enjoy the AR/VR experience. Even in sectors like retail, transportation, real estate, hospitality, healthcare, and architecture, AR is likely to see innovative application and growth.

Oculus Rift is not the only thing to be excited about; other VR devices that aim to deliver a richer experience of the world around us are likely to flood the market in 2016. With the biggest players in technology investing millions of dollars into developing AR devices (Google Cardboard, Hololens, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, Magic Leap, etc), AR ceases to be a distant dream and is all set to take the consumer world by storm.

4. Beacons Will Change The Way Companies Engage With Customers

Location-based customer communication is not a new concept but with increasing deployment of beacons in retail industry, more retail stores – big and small alike – started exploring their potential to target customers with timely push notifications. We cannot ignore the way this trending technology is influencing a consumer’s shopping behavior and experience.

It’s now the turn of hospitality, advertising, airlines, and sports sectors to leverage beacon tech in a big way and revolutionize the way businesses engage with consumers at a personal level but in an unobtrusive manner.

With shrunken hardware, improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies, beacons are the way to go as they certainly provide the essential tools to entice customers. The BI Intelligence report indicates that beacon technology has the potential to drive $44 billion in retail sales in 2016.

[Tweet “Beacon technology has the potential to drive $44 billion in retail sales in 2016.”]

5. Businesses Will Focus on Consumers & User Experience

Companies will be forced to make their presence felt in the mobile space in years to come. As consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to carry out transactions, you’re likely to be swept aside in the tide of digital disruption if you’re not already prepared.

Mobile-centric solutions will become inevitable for all businesses, and conversion rates & ROI on mobile will significantly increase. With users on the go, mobile searches are believed to convert better than searches on laptop/desktop for many verticals.

The current tech environment is conducive for the development of varied mobile apps which needs to be the focus of enterprises this year. Consumer apps have increased user expectations and their demand for better UI and UX elements. So, enhanced user experience, consumer-centric approach, and unique products & designs will be key to ensuring stickiness and loyalty.

6. Security Architecture & Enterprise Mobility Will Go Hand In Hand

As enterprises are increasingly encouraging BYOD, the complexity of handling security threats and challenges is one area that needs focus. Traditional security measures of blocking attacks and rule-based security will prove useless in today’s era of Cloud Services and Public API platforms.

With more companies letting employees bring their own devices to work, accessing company-wide data and syncing it with their devices, sharing files over unsecure networks poses a serious threat to security. It’s, therefore, essential for enterprises to think of new and effective ways of managing enterprise mobility and ensure that its security tools work well across devices, operating systems and networks.

7. Simplification Will Be The Key To Success

Right from building apps to improving security measures, from infrastructure to technological systems, from functionality to scalability – enterprises need to aim at simplifying stuff. This not only ensures flexibility both to consumers and developers but also positively impacts the app development process.

Integrating software and applications with cloud-based services has given rise to ‘serverless computing’ and will surely help enterprises move away from CapEx model to OpEx model in the ensuing years.

With Cloud becoming the most secure way of storing data, more enterprises are going to migrate data from their servers/data centers to cloud and leave the security aspect to providers. Similarly, using Public APIs and Open Source software will not only help companies increase scalability at a lower cost but also enable small businesses to grow rapidly.

So, based on the predictions, do we believe that these trends are going to be game-changing for mobile technology? Yes, 2016 will be huge for enterprises and will make them a cut above the rest provided they are ready and willing to gear up and ride on this new wave of digital disruption, and be part of the immense growth curve.

Blog

[x]Insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 08-15 December

December 16, 2015 [x]cube LABS

How to realize high RoI from your predictive analytics investments?

Enterprises are embracing predictive analytics with big dollar investments. However, most often, businesses struggle to realize top business value from their investments in analytics with the tools remaining shelf ware. what’s the solution? Companies need to approach analytics with a new mindset. In addition to ensuring strong business support and focusing scarce skills on tackling right challenges, organizations need to develop an insight driven culture to leverage predictive analytics to its fullest.Read more

6 steps to success for speciality retailers to leverage digital and grow faster

Specialty retailers have a great opportunity in leveraging digital to boost customer engagement, brand loyalty and sales. However, most brick and mortar retailers are struggling to adopt digital fully. The major problem-where to start? To succeed in digital, retailers have to shift to a new mindset and culturally transform organizations. It starts with picking the right people, focussing on customer experiences as much as on operations, invest in best technologies, reward customer loyalty and explore new revenue streams.Read more

Shadow IT offers benefits and here’s how enterprises can make most of it?

Enterprise are fast embracing cloud and reaping benefits of it. However, enterprise cloud computing has also paved the way for shadow IT. As per a survey, a staggering 86% of cloud applications used in businesses’ are without the approval of IT. While shadow IT poses serious security challenges, it also has several upsides with potential to create business value. IT has to securely embrace shadow IT to realize these benefits. To make most of it, guidelines about what is okay and what is not is the right approach.Read more

Enterprise wearable tech: 10 innovative applications in improving customer experiences

Wearable tech has gone mainstream in enterprises. Businesses’ are leveraging wearables in many areas. However the biggest possibilities of wearable tech is in customer service encompassing customer engagement, experience and satisfaction. And enterprises are leveraging it innovatively to impress their customers and build loyalty. From customizable shopping paths, personalized product recommendations to boosting staff responsiveness- there are many novel use cases employed to better customer service.Read more

Big Data in healthcare: 3 applications to improve clinical decision making

Healthcare has been an early adopters of big data. Storing volumes of data, processing and harnessing insights to drive decisions is helping providers improve treatment care and patient satisfaction. And physicians are making use of big data tools innovatively and across the care model. From patient generated data to helping providers remotely monitor patients, gleaning over set of historical data for precision medicine to wise analysis-there are new applications discovered everyday.Read more

Blog

[x]Insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 01-07 December

December 9, 2015 [x]cube LABS

How to create an infrastructure strategy that supports modern enterprise mobility needs? Share on X

While most discussions and strategies on enterprise mobility revolves around mobile devices and apps, the infrastructure too plays a key role. More so as you go deep into mobility ecosystem where end user, the content consumption patterns and seamless experience across devices becomes the focus of strategy. Enterprises should now consider building an infrastructure that is capable to keeping your mobile capabilities up and delivering the essentials. The first step is to build a robust infrastructure strategy. Read more

Tips to deploy enterprise mobile apps at scale

Deploying one app is easy. Managing multiple apps is quite a challenge. Mobile application management (MAM) and enterprise mobility management (EMM) systems are there but they can help you to a limited extent. What next? Practices like adopting a scalable cloud model, publishing app in enterprise app store, fine tune self service and simplifying mobile authentication along with other steps can make managing many apps easy.Read more

Million dollar investments in cloud doesn’t matter if your cloud sucks

Enterprises are investing millions of dollars in their enterprise cloud strategy. However, network, a vital component to the success of cloud is still the missing link. To make their cloud a success, enterprises need to consider the location of his user and the possibility of different networks in use. And ensure that same performance is delivered across locations. But how to solve the puzzle?
Read more

How GM, Whirlpool etc., are leveraging Internet of Things to make their supply chain smarter?

Internet of Things is disrupting processes and functions resulting in cost-effectiveness and higher efficiency for enterprises. Supply chain and logistics too is not remaining untouched by it as companies embrace IoT. And the application of IoT is across industries from car manufacturer GM to consumer product manufacturer Whirlpool. By making innovative use of sensors, RFID etc., these companies to exert better control over their processes and take intelligent decisions.Read more

Enterprise Mobile Strategy: Time to go beyond “there’s an app for that” approach for success

We have witnessed massive explosion of mobile apps. First in consumer space and now in enterprises. There was a time when ‘going mobile’ or ‘building an app’ was recipe for success. But in enterprise mobility 2.0, CIOs and other mobile leaders, need to integrate their mobile projects with overall business strategy. They need to think of apps that transform processes rather than just mobilizing them. That’s how you would be able to put a strong case for your enterprise mobile project and gain higher RoI.Read more

Blog

[x]Insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 24- 30 November

December 1, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Welcome to [x]insights weekly! Here we bring to you a weekly roundup of news, views and insights, that you are interested in from the mobile world. From enterprise app development, big data to Internet of Things- we have it all covered here.

The CIO who fails in mobile will lose his job.

Mobile has changed the way people shop, access information and take buying decisions. And this is impacting businesses in a big way fundamentally shifting their approach and compelling them to reimagine their strategy. The current business environment calls for enterprises to be at the top of their mobile game to succeed. To win the battle, CIOs have no choice but to get their mobile strategy right and think mobile as a catalyst to digital transformation and market success. It’s simple- succeed in mobile or lose your job. Read more

How to secure your Internet Of Things?

While Internet of Things is going mainstream in its adoption, security remains its key concern. How to ensure data integrity and consumer privacy in an environment wherein hundreds of devices are interconnected and continuously emanating data? The security threat-if not addressed to customer perception- may result in loss of millions of dollars pouring in by companies. Dealing with network connectivity threats, on-device data security, device isolation and other steps is necessitated to strengthen IoT security. Read more

Leverage cloud to sharpen your mobile strategy

Enterprises are adopting mobile to boost employee productivity and keep them connected anywhere, anytime. However, devices and apps are just the first step to mobility. The real value of enterprise mobility can only be achieved when it is responsive and contextual to user needs. PBX is relic. Today you need cloud to keep pace with the changing business environment and your employee needs. Read more

Mobile & Wearables: Where should CIOs focus on?

Mobile is completely embedded in business. The latest entrant, wearables too have serious use cases in business. And many enterprises like healthcare, manufacturing etc., are employing it to their advantage. In the current scenario, CIOs should focus on ascertaining how they can mix different tech and tools to optimize benefits, understand how mobile, wearables and IoT etc., is changing the work-style of their users, build a foundation for tech enabled change and be bold to experiment with new ideas to see what works. Read more

9 cyber threat predictions in 2016

These are challenging times in the digital world. Enterprises are not just adopting technology but building ecosystem connecting various devices, apps and networks. The scale is getting bigger and bigger. And with it the challenge to strengthen your security. In 2016, business are predicted to face threats around ransomware, attacks on wearables, infiltration on automobile systems, attempts to exploit weak cloud environments, sale of stolen data and integrity attacks on financial sector. Read more

Life at [x]cube

PurpleTalk- Where Growth Happens

November 25, 2015 [x]cube LABS

PurpleTalk culture is characterized by its fun environment, open-minded, employee-friendly policies and inclusive decision making. The objective is to ensure that we create a conducive environment for technology innovation, encourage out of the box thinking, continuous learning and individual development.

While as an organization we think we are doing a good job at it, what would be better than a hard fact check ? So we asked our employees what has been their experience with PurpleTalk and this is what some of them had to say..

Interested to join the PurpleTalk Team ? Check out our current openings.

Blog

[x]Insights Weekly-Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 17- 23 November

November 24, 2015 [x]cube LABS

How IOT driven real-time maintenance is changing the game?

Preventive maintenance is good but suffers from a major shortcoming- it is based on accepted practice rather than on real conditions. But all that is changing as manufacturers leverage IoT for real-time maintenance. Data emanating from their products is helping them predict maintenance issues remotely, diagnose it and improve customer experience. Read more

5 tips in building enterprise apps that your employees will happily use.

Enterprises are significantly spending on building mobile apps for their employees. However, many of them fail to inspire usage resulting in losses. Understanding your brand, thinking design and user experience and other critical elements play a major role in inspiring app usage and boosting its success.Read more

3 ways big data is transforming healthcare

Big data can be a real game changer for the healthcare industry. As quality of care becomes the focus, big data analytics can help hospitals and physicians in driving innovation, enabling real-time innovation, creating better patient-physician engagement and enhancing security. Read more

Plentiful options but how to select the right cloud provider?

Creating the right cloud environment is paramount for enterprises seeking to seize new opportunities offered in the digital economy. The market today offers a range of choices in enterprise cloud computing. However, it is important that the right cloud provider is chosen. While service offerings is blurring with most of cloud providers, it is the experience of the provider that is emerging as a differentiating factor for building a cohesive cloud environment.Read more

What it takes to become a digital enterprise?

Enterprises seeking to transform into a digital enterprise are hitting in the dark and struggling to find the right path. From ‘where to begin’ to ‘Have we reached there yet’- the questions capture businesses’ digital dilemma. While there is no ‘a one size fits all’ solution yet but still there are 6 strategic factors that can take any enterprise to their destination in the digital landscape. And there are 6 signs also to tell you whether you are becoming a digital enterprise.Read more

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

Top 6 Mobile App Strategies For Your Brand

November 19, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Nearly a third of the apps are downloaded and abandoned. Users don’t return back to it. There are ample cases of low budget mobile projects setting records as well as high budget mobile apps failing to deliver. More than technology and money, success of an app depends on its strategy. Here are 6 mobile app strategy tips to ensure your app realizes its goal

1. Think user

Build a mobile app user persona based on his personal and professional data. Think of his interests, motivations, challenges and frustration. See how you can add value to his life.

2. Solve a problem

How you can solve his challenges or cater to his needs with your app. The problem should be big enough for your mobile initiative to be feasible. You can alternatively look to provide a better solution to existing problem like Google did with its search engine. You can also seek to adopt an existing solution to your niche area like Airbnb and LinkedIn have done.

3. Accentuate the experience

Users want their apps to be as good as the personal apps they use. Create simple yet delightful experiences. Plan the app navigation in such a way that he gets access to the entire app in shortest possible way. Personalize experiences by monitoring his behavior and browsing history.

4. Leverage the best technology

Pick the platform where majority of your users are if you are constrained by budget. Check if cross platform app development will serve your purpose. Build in social media integration, device hardware access, device integration features if the app functionality demand.

5. Sell value

Instead of selling the software, sell its value proposition. Create a crisp value proposition and use it as a promotion message for the app. Heavy budget marketing can just give you the initial boost and sustain it till the cash is flowing. But once marketing stops, your app will begin to fade away. It’s the value proposition only that will keep it alive in the long run.

6. Re-engage

It is not just enough to get huge downloads. You would also want your user to use your app frequently. And that doesn’t happen on its own. Users need a reason to use your app again and again. Refresh content, interact via messaging, gamify to boost re-engagement.

Mobile apps are for human. Apps that better serve your user interests become long-term companions. So focus on him/her while building your mobile app strategy and reap the benefits.

Blog

[x]Insights Weekly-Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 10-16 November

November 17, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Enterprise mobility trends predictions for 2016

2015 has been an excellent year for enterprise mobility with wider adoption, cutting across industries, and many innovative deployment of mobile tech in business. In 2016, enterprise mobility consisting of mobile, wearables, cloud, big data and Internet of Things will be prominent tech force with integrated computing as the strategy. The lines will blur. And with it, mobile will replace desktop as primary computing platform, enterprises refocusing on apps and increasing focus on mobile security. Read more

3 ways big data can improve quality of home healthcare

The Affordable Care Act has put tremendous pressure on providers to reduce readmissions and keep costs in check. Under the new policy, healthcare providers can leverage big data to improve their home-based healthcare services and address new challenges. Big data can help in constant monitoring of patient-diagnosis of diseases, keep it in check and prevent hospitalizations and emergencies. Read more

How to reduce cost of risk by governance at app level?

Enterprises implementing cloud systems need to implement governance at all levels. However, most businesses implement governance at physical infrastructure and virtualized cloud, ignoring the app level putting their data to risk. App level governance can help you to cut down cost of risk associated with unauthorized and malicious app usage in addition to providing other benefits.Read more

How mobile app testing can save your app from draining your customer’s device?

One thing is clear – customers don’t like apps eating up battery life of their devices. Secondly, apps don’t perform well on low-battery devices. So one of the prerequisites for the success of your app is – low battery consumption and performance. Mobile app testing can help you detect battery-related issues of your app and address them before it becomes your customers’ and your businesses’ nightmare. Read more

Now robots to rev up brick and mortar retailing, cut $450 billion ‘out of stock’ loss

Speed, automation and analytics have been the major reasons behind internet retailers eating market share of high-street retailers. However, things are swiftly changing with automation and analytics making their way to physical stores. A retail robot launched last week seeks to bring shelf auditing and product analytics to the stores helping them reduce $450 billion annual loss worldwide due to out-of-stock items and empty shelves.Read more

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

[x]Insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights 03- 09 November

November 10, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Enterprises are using Gamification to make customer journey fun, and getting desired results. Is your business doing it?

Gamification has a strategic importance in the digital world. As enterprises, across sectors, look to create memorable experiences, occupy their mind space and boost loyalty, gamification can be the right tool for boosting customer engagement. And many industries like health, wellness, and education are leveraging it to their advantage. However, gamification just doesn’t mean pushing some badges, points and ribbons. It goes deep into understanding user motivations and interests, aligning it with your business goals to create an engaging and rewarding program. Read more

10 awesome Big Data applications for businesses

Big Data Analytics is the flavor of the season. And rightly so. Leveraging data analytics to gain critical insights is worth in gold. But where exactly do enterprises employ big data analytics? Practically everywhere. From customer behavior understanding, process streamlining, predictive maintenance of machines to performance optimization of employees – big data and analytics encompass all things. So, check out some awesome applications of big data analytics for your business. Read more

To build a killer mobile app, think human-centric design

User experience can make or mar your mobile app. It’s just that simple. Human-centric design can help you unlock your app’s true potential by preventing failures and charting out an experience map of your users. This will not only help you smoothen your mobile workflow and help users navigate like a breeze but will also reward you with actionable insights to build new processes and products. Read more

Smarter way to manage cloud storage apps than just blocking them

To safeguard their sensitive data, enterprises block – mostly personal and storage – apps. But this is not the smartest strategy, and leads to employee resentment. Especially when you follow a BYOD model. So, what’s the alternative? What else can be done without compromising data security? There are ways to protect your data while allowing employees to use whatever apps they feel like. The secret lies in using the mobile management server the right way. Read more

How to engineer reverse innovation to succeed in emerging markets?

To succeed in emerging markets, businesses have to deliver solutions of reasonable quality, good performance, and at an affordable price. To build products that are acceptable to customers in emerging markets, companies need to understand many socioeconomic factors and then find the technology to solve it. And solving this puzzle can lead to reverse innovation and a disruptive leap helping you find the secret sauce for success in developing economies.Read more

Announcements, Blog

[x]cube LABS Ranks In ‘Appindex’s Top App Developers India 2015’

November 9, 2015 [x]cube LABS

AppIndex- a popular app development marketplace- has published a new report on top mobile app development companies in India and [x]cube LABS is proud to make it to the illustrious list. In its report ‘Top App Developers in India 2015’, just 13 app developers from across India could make the cut. Appindex chose the top app developers, for its list, based on a range of criteria including tech competencies, expertise, level of business focus in addition to their experience working for large and SMEs.

Since its inception in 2008, [x]cube LABS has been recognized in various global fora for ingenuity and mobile expertise. A global company, with over 400 employees and offices across the world, and major focus in US market, [x]cube has experience developing over 700 disruptive apps and created over $2 billion for its clients. Over the years, we have partnered with several Fortune 1000 businesses and innovation driven startups providing world-class services and innovative solutions in wearables, gaming, cloud solutions, big data, analytics and the Internet of Things.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

[x]Insights Weekly- Enterprise Mobile News & Insights October 27- 01 November

November 3, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Welcome to [x]insights weekly! Here we bring to you a weekly roundup of interesting news, views and insights, that you are interested in from the mobile world. From enterprise app development, big data to Internet of Things– we have it all covered here.

When faced with- shape up or sink challenge, what should enterprises do to ‘wow’ customers?

2015 saw major disruption and innovation in the market that made existing customer service models dated and redefined customer engagement. 2016 will be no different. As customers expectations move up, businesses face the hard reality: shape up or sink. In the disruptive world, businesses need to not only need to think digital and mobile first but also be customer-obsessed, get better insights on buyers, personalize their experiences and offer new experiences every time. Read more

How to use mobile referral smartly to cut down costs & add virality to your user acquisition campaign?

Customer acquisition is key to success of your mobile app or product. However, in these times, when it’s raining apps and every business going mobile, acquiring users is tough and expensive. A well-planned mobile referral program can do wonders and bring virality to your promotional campaign. However, market segmentation and product-fit mix will be the decider. Read more:

How understanding the inextricable relationship between big data analytics and cloud can help enterprise maximize RoI?

Enterprises are turning to big data analytics to make sense from volumes of data and gain insights from it. However, it is the cloud that is offering greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness to big data analytics. Tying their analytics strategy with cloud strategy can further help enterprise in maximizing their RoI and gaining new efficiencies. Read more:

From key fobs to jewelry – Mastercard turning everyday objects into smart payment devices.

Wearable and Internet of Things is changing the way business is done. Smart Home, Connected Car, Smart clothes and so on. The payment industry is also not left untouched by the disruption of tech. In what could revolutionize the payment industry, Mastercard plans to transform everyday objects into payment devices. The new move has the potential to disrupt not only payments industry but also retail POS, making life easier for shoppers. Read more

6 technology trends revolutionizing the financial services industry

Financial services industry is facing key challenges like reduced margins, higher customer churn, service/product accessibility and regulatory compliance. Technologies like mobile, wearable, big data and Internet of Things can help the industry effectively address the challenges and keep their business strategy aligned to changing customer expectations. Read more:

Blog

[x]cube LABS Bags Top Honors At Davey And Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) Awards

November 3, 2015 [x]cube LABS

We believe in creating ingenious and intuitive mobile app experiences. Our design strategy revolves around human centric design approach. And that’s why [x]cube has been the partner of choice of top Fortune 1000 brands. While we consider client & user satisfaction to be the ultimate hallmark of our success, recognitions at global platforms keep us motivated and aspire for more.

Continuing its winning ways, our award-winning design team has bagged top honours in Davey Awards and Graphic Design USA (GDUSA). “Mattel’s Ever After High” an app designed and developed by us for leading toy manufacturer Mattel won us a Davey Silver Award! The Davey is sanctioned and judged by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a “Who’s Who” of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms.

Two of our apps, Booxie & Hobson was also honoured recently in Graphic Design awards. Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) are leaders in graphic design publications, and recognizes the work of design professionals in their digital and print publications showcasing the best in American Graphic Design.

Life at [x]cube

An evening with Goblins, Ghouls and Gremlins-It’s Halloween…!

October 30, 2015 [x]cube LABS

All Hallows’ Eve, also known as All Saints’ Eve and commonly, Halloween, has long become an integral part of popular culture in the west. The tradition of trick or treat, cosplay, decorating places with jack-o’-lanterns and other props are what this day is all about. Gradually, Halloween is becoming a global phenomenon which is welcomed for the fun quotient it adds to our lives. When Halloween came calling this year, PurpleTalk was ready and in my experience, it easily was the best observation of the festival so far.
The festive ambience was in the air a few days prior as we were notified of it. A day before Halloween, two ghouls paid us a surprise visit. They went around announcing the festival, getting everyone’s attention and spreading the excitement. When the day arrived, PurpleTalkies were decked up as anything but saints. Hollywood characters, monsters from horror movies and popular sc-fi lifeforms overran the floors. Teams were formed according to departments or projects. Each team was asked to choose a theme and dress up accordingly. The promise of unlimited fun and exciting prizes saw the teams give us their best. Some of the prominent themes included Batman movies, Zombies, Mummies and Vampires.

The celebrations moved into top gear as judges went around in the evening inspecting the teams and interacting with them about their choice of themes. Artists got busy painting faces and before long, familiar looks transformed remarkably as creativity unfolded. The evening was crowned in style as all the participants gathered in the eleven floor for group photos.

All Hallows’ Eve was thus appropriately hallowed! Here’s looking forward to the next event.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility, Marketing

5 Key Enterprise Mobile App Metrics That Matter

October 30, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Businesses are building mobile apps for their employees, customers and processes. Most of them are spending considerable resources in their mobile projects. But still many organizations are struggling justifying ROI of their mobile spending. Finding the right metrics to focus is critical to calculating the success and resultant ROI of your enterprise mobile app. Here are 5 key enterprise mobile app metrics that matter

1. Enterprise App adoption

How many of your customers or employees have downloaded the mobile app? Not just numbers but also percentage as numbers can sometime be deceptive. Is it in expected lines? It would be worth remembering that app downloads and installs in their own don’t define success of your app. But is a good starting point.

2. App usage and retention

This is the key after you have succeeded in getting a good number of downloads. How often and long do your employees are using your apps? How do different target groups are interacting with your app? What is the average time spent in your mobile app? How many users are active?

3. User experience

Is your app smoothly running? How long does it take to load? How good is your user onboarding process? How often your users are reporting of app crash? Most of the enterprise apps fail to succeed primarily because of poor user experience. Used to cool, sleek and personalized app experiences in personal lives, users today demand similar experience from enterprise apps.

4. Goal Achievement

What are your goals? The goals will vary for each app. For a HR internal app, it can be efficiency, faster approvals, time & cost savings etc., whereas for a field servicing app, it can be labor time saved, productivity, cost savings etc. Are you achieving the set goals?

5. Funnel Behavior

There are 4 stages to your mobile app funnel- onboarding, engagement, conversion and retention. Funnel behavior will be different for each app and would hugely depend on the nature of app- productivity, ecommerce, customer servicing etc. Tracking funnel behavior at each stage is important.

There are power analytics tools available that can give you detailed data on all key enterprise mobile app metrics mentioned above. Chasing the right metric will not only help you to define success and measure enterprise app ROI but will also provide actionable insights and input to further improve your app and optimize its success.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

How To Put Users At The Center Of Your Mobile Strategy?

October 29, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Most enterprises recognize that end-user- his needs and requirements must be put at the heart of the ecosystem to realize the full benefits of their mobility initiatives. They also understand that without widespread adoption, whatever mobile apps or solutions they are building, will not deliver desired results. Most, however, do not know where to begin. You can start by answering a set of questions, like

What type of devices will suit their work (smartphone/tablet or both)?
Will the company own the device or should the employees be allowed to bring their own?
Which users groups will be eligible for mobile enablement (Field staff? Managers & above? Everyone?)
Do you understand the work process and needs of your targeted user group?
What apps will help them do their work efficiently?
How to leverage mobile app design and UX?UI for faster adoption?
What kind of data will they need anytime, anywhere?
What are their mobile maturity profiles?
What kind of security mechanism needs to be placed for each user group to prevent threat to sensitive data?

Similarly, while building a customer-facing app, you can begin with

What is your customer profile?
What kind of information would they want from your apps?
What type of transactions would they like to do with your app?
How can the UI/UX of the app help improve customer engagement?
How can you add value to your customer-facing solution to reinforce your brand message?

Answers to these and similar questions will help you understand your user requirements better and will provide you with a list of considerations that can be a good foundation for your mobile strategy and app development roadmap.

Big Data & Predictive Analytics, Blog, Retail

Predictive Mobile Analytics- Game Changer For Retailers

October 29, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Technology has transformed retail business. Starting with web, mobile websites and now shopping apps- retail industry today has a completely different look. The adoption of mobile apps in retail has not only brought convenience, speed and cost-effectiveness to customers but has also given critical tools to retailers to granularly segment their audience, find the right channel to target them, understand their needs and expectations and personalize experiences.

Tools like predictive mobile analytics have empowered retailers to behaviorally target shoppers, engage with them at right moments in the buying journey and influence their decision. From customer feedback, buying history to transactional data- data and analytics tools are arming today’s online retailers with valuable actionable insights.

Here are 3 game changing benefits of predictive analytics for mobile apps

1. Product recommendation

Predictive mobile analytics can not only influence first sale but can also trigger upsell/cross sell through recommendation engines by helping you handpick products for your customers. The recommendation tools analyses customer buying pattern, browsing history and other criteria to recommend products that are best suited to his interest/purchasing power etc.

2. Customer Engagement

Understanding customers is key to effective promotion and engagement. Predictive analytics provides you with critical insights on customer tastes, preferences, buying history, price sensitivity etc., that can help you engage with your buyers effectively and influence their buying decisions. For mobile apps, it can help you design effective engagement strategy to trigger more app usage, personalize experiences and thereby boost sales.

3. Customer Feedback

Today’s business is more about listening to your customer than telling about yourself. Powerful analytics tools can help you analyze mountains of data from multiple touch points- social media, forums, websites etc., to to glean precise insights and give you an accurate idea on your customer’s engagement with your brand and business.

The applications of predictive mobile analytics is not just limited to customer-facing side apps but also encompasses internal apps for store operations, merchandising, supply chain etc. From giving you real-time data on stock availability, shelves occupancy, product positioning, stock movements- predictive analytics will help you take critical business decisions on time, pushing sales and saving a lot of dollars.

Blog, Cloud Computing

4 Key Mobile Cloud Computing Challenges For Enterprises

October 28, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Cloud and integrated services have gone mainstream in enterprises. With mobile becoming core to any enterprise strategy today and businesses looking to mobilize their processes and people, app developers have leveraged mobile cloud computing to build intensive, data rich applications. Mobile cloud computing brings various benefits like scalability, flexibility, real-time data access and cost-effectiveness allowing businesses with limited budget also to use content rich, transaction intensive applications. However, there are a few challenges for enterprises to address while adopting cloud application for their mobile apps, like

1. Limitations of mobile devices

Though smartphones & Tablet are getting powerful everyday, still these are not close to desktops in energy management, processing power, storage capacity etc. It is therefore essential for mobile app developers to optimize energy management by partitioning of application functions and offload energy sapping processing functions to the cloud.

2. Network and Bandwidth

Mobile apps mostly run on wireless connectivity which means longer latency, slow connectivity, diverse access schemes and intermittent coverage etc. This challenge can be addressed by moving clients and server closer to each other and rerouting traffic as per location and cache capabilities.

3. Platform fragmentation

This can be a challenge when user group is using different platform-iOS, Android and Windows etc. App developers need to optimize the apps across all platforms and ensure that all users get similar app experience and feature access.

4. Data security & user privacy

Security of sensitive data and ensuring user privacy is a major challenge for enterprises building apps on cloud. Data on mobile devices is more vulnerable to threats and attacks than desktops. The security issues may range from data integrity, authorization, cloud model security issues etc.

Mobile cloud computing, despite having a few challenges, is the future. And as performance and experience become critical for business and consumer apps, app developers have to find the best solutions to address mobile cloud challenges.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

5 Factors That Determine Your Enterprise App Development Cost

October 27, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The budget of developing an enterprise app is a serious consideration when a business decision maker like you sits down to plan his mobile project. There are many other things but cost of app development ranks higher. So, what is the cost of building an enterprise app? The answer is ‘It depends on what you want in/from your app’. Not a simple answer? Yes, because there is none. There are many drivers to a mobile app development cost. The more you want, the costly it will be. let’s see what they are

1. Devices

Are you developing an app for smartphones or Tablets or both? Are you building an app that will be integrated to your proprietary device- a wearable or a sensor? Your budget will increase as you start covering a wider range of devices. For integration to specialty device- the budget will depend on communication protocol, complexity of integration etc.

2. Native or Cross Platform

The platform strategy is a key driver to your enterprise app development costs. Will your enterprise app support one particular platform- iOS, Android, Windows or do you want it to be compatible across all platforms. Generally, if all other things remain constant, the cost of an iPhone or iPad app development is higher than that of building android apps or Window apps. A cross platform app development strategy may be the right pick but the functionality and experience of the app is nowhere closer to a native one.

3. User log-in

Another aspect that can make a difference of a few thousand dollars in your mobile project budget. If you want secure login in your app then it will cost you. However, a secure login safeguards your app from unauthorized access and ensures data security and hence spending a little more to protect your sensitive data is a good idea.

4. App Features

Will your app need location based services? Will it have in-app purchasing functionality? Will it have any engagement tool? Do you want any other custom add-on? All the feature additions may cost you anything between $1000 to $10,000 and more in custom features.

5. Analytics

These days most of the enterprises integrate analytics tool in their app so as understand its usage, user behavior, app performance etc. The data collected can be critical in measuring your app performance but it will push your budget up. The cost of analytics integration depends on the vendor, tool and expertise needed to integrate it.

In addition to these, there are other considerations like your app distribution & marketing strategy, maintenance and upgradation frequency that have an impact on your app budget. Understanding the key drivers to an app development cost will help you plan your budget to perfection and prevent any offshooting.

Blog, Healthcare, Internet of Things

6 Factors Driving Massive Growth Of IoT In Healthcare

October 8, 2015 [x]cube LABS

As per a Forrester survey:

97% healthcare organizations participating in a Forrester survey agree that the IoT will be the most strategic technological initiative their organization will undertake this decade.

90% of healthcare IT departments are prepared to make the necessary changes to implement IoT solutions.

52% of all respondents already have some form of IoT solution in place or are in the process of implementing an IoT solution, while another 30% have plans to do so within the next year.

Internet of Things is transforming healthcare by completely redefining the way people, devices and apps connect and interact with each other. From personal fitness and wellness sensors, implantable devices to surgical robots – IoT is bringing in new tools and efficiencies in the ecosystem resulting in more integrated healthcare. There are several social and technology factors that are pushing healthcare organization to leverage IoT and usher in a connected healthcare ecosystem. Here are the key factors

Social Factors

1. Aging Population

Faced with a rapidly aging population, the country has been forced to explore innovative caregiving methods like Internet of Things to meet the demands of older adult population.

2. Patient Protection Affordable Care Act

The landmark legislation focussed on accountable care is making connected care a necessity for the U.S. High costs and fragmentation have long been ailing the healthcare system in the country calling for significant improvements in resource utilization and collaboration across healthcare systems.

3. Shortage of Human Resources

Hospitals are facing shortage of trained staff. Also the cost of hiring good talent is putting significant pressure on hospitals to optimize staff utilization by leveraging new technologies like IoT.

Technical factors

4. Advancements in mHealth

Hospitals are already using mHealth technologies with visible results in productivity, cost efficiency and revenue generation. Internet of Things promises to encompass siloed executions into a system-wide implementation connecting people, devices and other things.

5. Cloud & Big Data

There have been rapid advancements in cloud computing and big data enabling providers to store vast amount of data and share it across systems. Moreover, big data analytics empowers them to process data emanating from various sources. transform it into insights and drive better decision-making impacting patient care and treatment outcomes.

6. SaaS & HaaS

Internet of Things is driving the growth of Software as a Service (SaaS) and Hardware as a Service (HaaS) model, helping healthcare organization to eliminate CAPEX on new software and hardware. It also enables providers with limited budget to get access to advanced technologies with scalability.

With the competition in the post-reform era getting intense, more and more healthcare providers will embrace connected healthcare to drive excellence, be competitive and improve treatment outcomes.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

5 Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Enterprise App Success

October 7, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The stakes are getting higher and higher for enterprise apps. With businesses putting mobile at the heart of their strategy, aligning mobile initiatives with their business goals and investing significant time & resources in app development- it is more than necessary to get things right. Here are 5 mistakes to avoid while navigating the treacherous waters of developing an enterprise app–

1. Failing to solve the OS conundrum

The first question to ask as you sit down to strategize on your mobile project is- Will your app run on iOS, Android, Windows or all? While it is easier to fall prey to stereotypes and choose iOS as it is big money or pick Android for its humongous user base; your platform consideration should depend on the nature of your app and your mobile strategy. If you are building a consumer app then you should look to pick anyone OS as per your comfort and gradually move to others covering as much ground as possible. For enterprise apps, the choice would depend on your device policy-BYOD or not. If your organization follows a BYOD policy then start with most used OS in your enterprise and then building an app for other platform.

2. Skimming on user experience

Many enterprise apps fail to take-off the ground due to lack of user interest and employee usage. Users, your employees or customers, appreciate engaging and personalized user experiences. They want the same level of experience which they get using personal apps. So invest in design and UX/UI. Keep it simple to use and cut-off repetitive tasks.

3. Not integrating analytics

The beauty of the digital world is the availability of real-time data that cuts guesswork, enables quick decision-making and help you correct mistakes quickly. Whether you are developing an enterprise app or a consumer app, integrating analytics is beneficial. Getting data on number of users, frequency of usage, time spent and retention etc., can throw a lot of actionable insights on user behavior and help you leverage it to further improve your app.

4. Waiting to get the app perfect before launching

Mobile apps don’t get perfect at once, they become perfect after several reiterations. Launch a minimum viable product in a small market, get data on user response, take corrective actions and continue doing it till you get it right for the larger audience. Keep refreshing your app with new features and experiences at regular intervals to get users hooked to it.

5. No plan for app deployment

The app is in final stages of development and you don’t have an app release strategy. Even a free consumer app need aggressive release strategy to succeed. For enterprise apps, you need to consider its distribution source, management tool and usage policy. For consumer apps, you need to think about app store publishing and app marketing. So create a mobile app deployment policy in advance to ensure successful release of your app.

The cost of developing an enterprise app, in-house or outsourced, is high. Add to it the brand image and other intangible investments on building an app and ensuring the success of your app becomes that much critical. Keep the above mistakes in mind while strategizing your next enterprise app development project and make your app a success.

Blog, Retail

Retail Mobile App: 7 Key Success Factors To Drive Higher ROI

October 1, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Retail has been an early adopter of mobile technology. Today most retailers have made mobile central to their strategy, operations and customer servicing. So much so that many retailers have gone ‘app only’ to be more competitive and encourage customer loyalty. However, building a mobile app doesn’t guarantee success. With every retailer providing services via mobile, your app needs some distinguishing factors to attract users, provide better experience and, thereby, drive ROI. Here are 7 key success factors to drive higher ROI from your mobile retail app

1. Draw your mobile strategy

User-centricity should be at the heart of your strategy. Do a detailed study of your existing technology infrastructure, processes and people to understand your business requirements. Work closely with other stakeholders to arrive at a roadmap with benchmarks for short, medium and long-term goals.

2. Create Innovative Mobile Experiences

Your mobile solutions must offer dynamic, interesting experiences to hook shoppers. Create solutions that are useful and valuable to users and enrich it with relevant content aided by technologies like Augmented Reality, RFID and QR coding, etc., for better customer engagement. Build a user-friendly, instinctual interface that provides easy interactions and ensures speedy performance.

3. Personalize User Experiences

Leverage analytics tools and recommendation engines to keep track of your user behavior and personalize their experiences by suggesting products based on buying history and user interests. This will also help you influence user decisions by intervention at key buying phases and also upsell and cross-sell.

4. Integrate With Social

Today’s shoppers interact with brands via social. They are most likely to trust their social tribe and follow their advice. Ensure that your mobile app is integrated with social media channels to help your customers tell and share their stories.

5. Make It Scalable

Your solutions, chiefly customer-facing ones, need to be scalable enough to support high usage during holiday seasons and other festivities. Choose a multi-platform or cross-platform development strategy to attract a broader audience.

6. Secure Your Data

Your mobile apps will store and distribute key customer and corporate data, more so if you have ecommerce integration. It is of utmost importance that you have a robust multi-layered mechanism in place to check unauthorized access and data loss. Security is key to customer trusts.

7. Leverage Data for Growth

Make use of the data collected from various sources to better understand your customers and their buyer journeys and keep improving your app features to stay ahead of the competition.

Customer loyalty is key to success of your retail mobile app. With every brand giving access to their products through mobile app, keeping these 7 factors in consideration while building your next app will boost loyalty and help drive ROI of your mobile app

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

Top 5 Benefits Of Mobile Center Of Excellence (MCOE)

September 28, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobile has transformed the way business operate. Today mobile is central to any enterprise’s core strategy with many embracing the mobile first mindset.However, as enterprise mobility grows, it is also creating a complex environment with multiple platforms, device types and apps resulting in governance and security issues. A mobile center of excellence (mCoE) is a popular strategy to bring standards and governance in mobile adoption, implementation and use in enterprises. A mCoE offers many benefits to the enterprise including

1. Tighter Collaboration

It can act as a coordination center between various business units to reduce gaps, cut down repetitive processes and reduce costs. It improves alignment across various mobile programs initiated by different business units and ensures that these programs are geared towards achieving the larger objective.

2. Cuts down development time

An excellence center can help expedite your mobile development processes by creating and making use of existing reusable frameworks and streamlining processes.

3. Consistency in user experience

A common reason behind failure of many an enterprise apps is lack of consistency in User Interface (UI) and user experience (UX). Users want experiences that they are used to in the personal lives. A mobile CoE can create a checklist for design and user interaction to bring consistent user experience.

4. Strengthening the security

With data and information security becoming a critical issue, a CoE provides you with with a standardized and centralized governance leading to better monitoring and management of devices and apps. Also frequent security audits from the center will help organizations in ramping-up their security architecture.

5. Center for transformation

Today mobile is at the heart of strategy for enterprises embracing the mobile-first approach. A mCoE with an integrated architecture and approach will help you adopt mobile-first mindset quickly. In addition, it will also be a catalyst for innovations by offering thought leadership and helping organization discover and exploit new opportunities in the mobile space.

Enterprise mobility presents new opportunities for businesses to go lean, become agile and be more responsive to their customer needs. Given its potential to usher a transformative impact in business, it has become crucial for enterprises to think deep down and embrace mobility in a strategic way. A mCoE can not only help you in bringing order in your existing environment environment but can also help you prepare for the future.

Blog, Healthcare, Internet of Things

5 Key Benefits Of IoT For HealthCare Organizations

September 22, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Internet of Things is changing the face of healthcare by completely redefining the way people, devices and apps connect and interact with each other in the ecosystem. From personal fitness and wellness sensors, implantable devices to surgical robots – IoT is bringing in new tools and efficiencies in the ecosystem resulting in more integrated healthcare. It promises to enable providers to better patient care, improve treatment outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. IoT offers hundreds of opportunities for hospitals and providers to promote wellness, boost patient care and save lives while optimizing resources through process excellence and automated workflows.

The key benefits of IoT for healthcare organizations are

1. Reduced Costs

By leveraging connected healthcare solutions, patients can be monitored on a real-time basis, thereby cutting down unnecessary physician visits. Advanced homecare facilities will cut down hospital readmissions and stays.

2. Improved Treatment Outcomes

Connected Health enables caregivers to get access to real-time information resulting in data-driven, informed decisions and evidence-based treatments can help provide timely care and boost treatment outcomes.

3. Real-time Disease Management

With continuous monitoring of patients and access to real-time data, diseases can be treated proactively before their condition worsens.

4. Minimizes Errors

Automated workflows, accurate data collection and data-driven decisions cut down wastes, minimize errors and reduce system costs.

5. Improved Patient Experience

Connected Health genuinely focuses on patient centricity. Better accuracy in diagnosis, proactive treatments, timely physician intervention and improved treatment outcomes lead to accountable care resulting in high trust among patients.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is set to play a transformational role in healthcare. However, winners will be organizations that are better prepared to manage digital disruption caused by IoT and are successful in integrating it with their overall care environment to build integrated healthcare ecosystems.

Read our latest eBook to understand how your organization can leverage IoT to disrupt market, improve treatment outcomes and be at the forefront of excellence.

download ebook

Blog, Mobility

5 Tips On Choosing The Right Platform For Your Next Mobile App

September 15, 2015 [x]cube LABS

As stakes get higher and higher for businesses adopting mobile as a strategy, choosing the right platform- native, hybrid or web; becomes crucial. By making the right platform choice, enterprises can lower their TCO, get most from their mobile investments and provide better experience to the users. Each platform has its own strengths, weakness and suitable use cases. So, how to make the right choice? These 5 tips will help you make the right platform choice for you next mobile app development project

1. User Analysis

Conduct audience analysis to understand your users, their expectations. Customer facing apps need to be impressive in user experience to boost retention and engagement. So go native. Enterprise mobile apps need to be compatible to multiple platforms and need easy maintenance and up-gradation. So you can either choose hybrid or web.

2. App Features

Identify the functionality requirement of your app. If it needs access to device features like Camera, GPS etc., then opt for native apps. For apps that majorly serve content to users, choosing a hybrid platform or web apps architecture will be the best.

3. Development Time

What is your go to market timeline? A native or a hybrid app takes time to build when compared with web apps. So check on that before deciding on the platform.

4. Budget

The total cost of ownership for a native mobile app development is higher followed by hybrid and web apps. However, TCO also depends on app functionalities. Some feature rich web or hybrid apps may cost you more than a simple native app.

5. App Upgradation & Maintenance

How soon do you need app upgradation and maintenance? Native apps are quick to incorporate new features added in OS, whereas for cross platform apps, you need for tool developer to make the features available. Similarly, maintenance of native and hybrid apps becomes complex as it needs app store approval every time the app is revamped.

Making the right platform choice is key for the success of your mobile app project. Keeping the above factors in mind will help you make the right choice.

Blog, Manufacturing, Wearables

Wearable Tech In Manufacturing: 5 Challenges To Address

September 10, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The manufacturing industry is excited about leveraging wearable tech in the shop floor. Already many companies are using wearable devices for product design & development, employee training and security etc.

As per a research by Goldsmiths and Rackspace, productivity of workers across 85 companies increased by 8.5%, and job satisfaction levels rose by an average of 3.5% with the use of wearables.

Wearables brings a range of benefits for manufacturers but at the same time it also brings a few challenges, especially in a sector like manufacturing which involves high degrees of risk, costs, and requirement for precision.

1. Cost

The basic challenge is the affordability of the wearable tech. The average price of wearable devices are around $1500 (whereas for consumer products the average price is $300).

2. Safety

Yes as much as safety is an opportunity it is also a challenge in manufacturing. You don’t want your employees to have something which may restrict their vision or distract them while working on a heavy machine. Operating the device with gloves on also becomes a challenge.

3. Power Backup

Wearable tech uses modern devices like sensors, Bluetooth, GPS, storage chips which consume a lot of power. Power backup thus becomes a challenge in manufacturing where people work for long hours without access to recharge points.

4. Design & Aesthetics

The success of wearable lies on how the wearable is able to replace a conventional device. In a manufacturing setup where workers are working in extreme spots like under machines or on cranes you don’t want to burden them with extra devices. The user should not feel burdened or uncomfortable while using wearables. The device should be robust enough to absorb all types of vibrations, dust, dirt, temperatures, etc., that it is exposed to.

5. Data Privacy

Enterprises are vary of the fact that confidential data would be at risk as the data is stored on a cloud or transferred through Bluetooth. The biggest challenge of wearable tech providers would be to ensure privacy and security of the clients. A lot of employees would also not want their privacy being tracked with the location tracker on the device.

Wearable device manufacturers and other stakeholders have to quickly address these challenges to make it more adoptable in the industry. Once done, it will help the industry achieve higher productivity, precision and safety.

Wondering how best you can use wearable tech for your business? Get market trends and expert insights on wearable tech in manufacturing by downloading our latest eBook.

download ebook

App Marketing, Blog

Launching A Mobile App? Here Are 3 Tips To Make It Go Viral

September 8, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Out of millions of apps published in the app stores, half of the apps don’t break-even resulting in financial losses for the developers. Over 50% mobile apps lose half of their users in the first 3 months. Tough, isn’t it? But then there are apps like Angry Birds, Instagram, Twitter etc., that script new success stories by continually adding new customers to its list while retaining the old ones. In fact, its the old customers that play a major role in acquiring new customers. ‘Virality’ is in online what ‘word-of-the-mouth’ publicity is in the physical world. Its free but it also take something out of ordinary. While there are many proven ways to get your app go viral with new ones discovered with each successful viral campaign, but if you study all the successful apps they have these 3 things in common

1. Value

All successful apps add value to a user’s life. It may solve a problem, simply entertain or do both. But offers something which is relevant, unique and valuable. Is your app offering any value to your users? Is you app positioned rightly so that the value is at its core?

2. Built-in virality

If you want people to talk about your app then you should enable sharing it with their friends and showing it. If A has downloaded a new game and he finds it interesting then he should be able to share this game via mail, chat, social media etc., with his friends. Also he needs to be encouraged to do so. So how about some incentives in form of coupons, virtual currency etc., for people who share your app?

3. Keep it fresh

The reason half of the users leave the app in the first 3 months is that they get bored of it. Google, Twitter, FaceBook know it and hence work on improving the experiences. So keep your app fresh by continually improving it. Monitor user behavior to identify opportunities for improvement.

And aggressively promote till your app gets the minimum threshold of users to initiate virality. Push it to reach a certain number of downloads by marketing it inside and outside the app stores and from there it will start attracting users on its own.

Blog, Internet of Things

3 Major Benefits Of Internet Of Things For Enterprises

September 4, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The Internet of Things (IoT) is not a buzzword anymore. It is gaining significant traction and is all set to become the dominant technology in the enterprise space. According to a report by BI Intelligence, it is estimated that by 2019, IoT will be double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined. It will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019.

Image Credit: BI Intelligence

So, what’s driving IoT growth in enterprises? Here are the 3 drivers that is pushing growth of enterprise IoT–

1. Helping enterprises build competitive advantage and boosting operational efficiency

Many organizations are looking for new ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors and to fend off threats from new entrants. The ability to use and capitalize on the data collected by IoT is helping firms build and sustain competitive advantage. Companies are using IoT to find new revenue streams and improve margins. For example, industrial equipment manufacturers are selling outcomes, like machine hours, rather than just products.

IoT is also helping companies increase their operational efficiency by enabling them to monitor assets in a real-time basis. For example, monitoring shipping containers for temperature changes that could affect the quality using battery-powered sensors and 4G LTE connectivity.

2. Better understanding of customer behavior resulting in improved customer experience

IoT is helping organizations improve the customer experience by providing organizations with data necessary to better understand customer behavior. Organizations can use data to understand where the customer is and what they are doing. This makes it possible to understand what the customer needs.

IoT is transforming the delivery of goods and services. For example, major retailers are leveraging telematics and asset tracking solutions to speed-up order delivery. And the same data can be used to offer customers the ability to see exactly where their delivery is via a smartphone app or a website. IoT is also enabling organisations to reach out to tap new markets.

3. Improving safety and reducing risks

IoT is enabling organizations to improve environmental standards, improve efficiency and cut waste. IoT can help employees working in hazardous areas by alerting them to hazards. Automobile and train companies are also fitting vehicles with IoT-enabled systems that can predict and help prevent accidents.

IoT is also enabling organisations to remotely monitor sensitive inventory, equipment, and plant & machinery. Connection motion sensors with locks and alarms can help detect unauthorised access and automatic activation of countermeasures.

It’s still early days for Internet of Things in enterprises. As the adoption of IoT grows more in enterprises, we will see businesses leveraging the technology in discovering new benefits for them and optimizing it.

To know about enterprise IoT in detail and how your business can benefit from it, download our latest eBook ‘Building a Connected Enterprise’ here.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

Wearable Apps And Testing Challenges

August 28, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Image Courtesy: www.forbes.com

Testing a wearable app has become a brand new challenge for test engineers. Wearable to app communication is important, and creating that connectivity/ association can be a primary cause for concern. The word wearable refers to the electronic system that is being incorporated into items such as clothing and accessories which can be worn or attached to the body. Wearables are integrated with sensors and are communicated to via an application installed on primary devices like smartphones or tablets. Wearable apps consist of both hardware and software components, and applications are incorporated into various wearable home appliances, tech and vehicles. Let’s look at some of the challenges that testers face while testing wearable apps.

Data Sync

It is a very important challenge in testing the wearable application. Test engineers need to be more focused on data sync and need to check if data from the tablet/smartphone is synced properly to the wearable apps. QA plays a crucial role in testing the data sync especially when the connection of the device through bluetooth is lost, device gets switched off due to low battery, when wearable apps and device get disconnected or reconnected to each other. Communication between the wearable and the app is very important, hence testers need to be more careful while testing.

When wearable apps get synced to each other, the data on the actions performed by the user in Apple Watch or in other devices needs to be synced properly without any technical issues.

Screen Size/UI

Testing a wearable application is different from testing mobile apps. Another challenging task for testers, therefore, is testing the resolution of the application on wearables like Apple watch. As the screen size of the Apple watch is very small, test engineers need to be more cautious on UI/design of the application. The user should find the look and feel of the application to be user-friendly and not clumsy. The application look and feel should be user-friendly and not be clumsy to the user.

Functional Testing

Wearable apps have come to the market with a bunch of sensors, and while testing the application with different kinds of sensors, the functionality should not be affected, but needs to remain the same as expected. QA testers have to come up with new and different scenarios for testing wearable applications since customers will use different kinds of wearable devices.

Battery Life

The other major challenge for testers as well as developers is the battery life of smartphones or wearables (by kaseman). Many different test scenarios come into place when the battery of the phone or the wearable device is OFF while testing the wearable-to-app. The data of any actions performed by the user when the battery is off in the primary device or the wearable has to be saved. Whenever the battery is ON, the data of the device and the wearable need to be restored.

Testing on Real Devices

Testing the application on a real wearable device is quite essential. Very few emulators are available in the market to test the wearable applications, and it is also possible that they may not provide accurate test results. Hence, testing the application on a real device is a challenge for testers.

Jyothirmai works as a Senior QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS. She has 4+ years of experience in Mobile, Web and Desktop applications, and expertise in testing different domains like Health Care, Social and Insurance.

App Marketing, Blog

5 Smart Tips To Acquire & Engage Mobile App Users

August 21, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Launching a mobile app? You are not alone. Rough estimates suggest that in Apple appstore and Google Play, close to a million apps are published every year. All vying for user attention. Needless to say, in an extremely crowded marketplace, mobile app user acquisition has become highly competitive.

Further, mobile app user engagement too has become a lot tougher. Data from Localytics suggests that 52% of the apps lose half of their peak users in 3 months. Here are 5 simple yet smart tips to help you make your app popular and make users hooked to it.

1. User Experience

Ensure that your app is free from all technical flaws and provides excellent first impression to users. Make customer on-boarding simpler and easier. Optimize the login and account creation process. Provide your users guides and FAQs within the app.

2. App Marketing

In the crowded marketplace, marketing your app to give it visibility is important. Make use of all customer acquisition channels mobile advertising, social media promotion, paid search campaigns, app store marketing, in-app promotion etc.

3. Personalize experiences

Track your user behavior leveraging advanced analytics tools. Deliver targeted and customized content to your mobile app users based on their preference, context etc.

4. Make loyalty rewarding

Reward users who are continuously using your app. Motivate users who have not returned after using your app once or twice through attractive incentives. Make use of event-based triggered automation techniques to encourage further use.

5. Listen to your users

App success depends on user satisfaction. Listen to your audience using surveys, feedbacks, app store ratings, user behavior metrics etc., and accordingly optimize your app offerings. Continuously engage with your customers to understand their needs.

Among millions of apps released every year, only a few thousand succeed. Most fade away within weeks of launch. Optimize your mobile app user acquisition and promotion strategy to make your app a grand success.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

Enterprise Mobile Security: Threats & Measures

August 20, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Security concern tops the table among major challenges faced by enterprises in their mobility journey. Critical corporate data and consumer privacy is at risk, in the absence of a robust security mechanism. Consider these numbers from ‘2015 Security Report’ published by pure-play security vendor CheckPoint:

106 unknown malware hit an organization every hour: 48 times more than the 2.2 downloads per hour reported in 2013.
96 % of organizations studied used at least one high-risk application in 2014, a 10 point increase from the previous year.
81% of the organizations analyzed suffered a data loss incident, up 41% from 2013.

So mobility in enterprises is at more risk compared to last year. And therefore need for a secure mobile environment is of critical importance for organizations.

Types of enterprise mobile security threats & measures-

Threat types	Challenge	Measures
Devices	Portability of devices makes it vulnerable for theft, loss etc.	Device locking, wiping of data, memory card security etc.
Data & Information	Emails, financial data, customer data etc., can be misused by unauthorized access.	User authentication, data encryption, log monitoring and device protection
Network	Breach of enterprise network, unauthorized Bluetooth access	Robust network security, credentials based access
Disallowed apps	Accessing apps from non-trusted sources can lead to Trojans and malwares etc., in the network.	Monitoring app usage, splitting profiles for personal and corporate usage, allowing approved app usage
Malicious software	Attacks from sophisticated malware, viruses and Trojan horses	Security software, spam protection software.

Enterprises adopting mobility need to look beyond MDM and consider mobile security comprehensively encompassing devices, apps, data, network etc.

How will your enterprise handle disallowed devices, non-compliant apps and unauthorized user access?
How will your organization handle critical corporate data from falling-off into wrong hands due to loss or theft of devices and breaches in security?
How will you monitor and manage user behavior?
How will you lock and wipe data from devices lost or stolen?
What policy will you adopt for employee owned device?
How will you ensure that you have a centralized control and capability to track each device, record their behavior and when required take preventive mechanism?

Answers to above questions will help enterprise build the right mobile security strategy and framework to safeguard their data and gain more from their mobile investments.

A Recently Published Survey Of Over 400 Global Executives Reveals That

The Need For An Enterprise-Wide Mobile Strategy

Enterprise Mobility Adoption Stages

Key Aspects Of An Mobile Strategy

Steps Towards A Mobile Strategy

Experts Speak

Cimarron Buser, VP Of Business Development At Apperian

Ken Daniels, Senior Director for Strategic Alliances in Enterprise Mobility at Samsung

Prat Vemana, Director Of The Velocity Lab And Global Mobile Strategy At Staples

Our Recommendations For A Successful Enterprise Mobile Strategy

To Conclude

1) Contactless will continue

2) Omni-channel presence

3) Digitization

4) Disruptive force

5.a) Mobile wallet

5.b) Mobile wallet

6) Security Issues

1. The Informed Customer

2. Ubiquity Of Mobile

3. Cloud & Big Data

4. Reduction In Cost Of Sensors And Processors

5. Omnichannel Experience

1. Internet of Things (IoT) Will Connect Over 35 Billion Devices

2. From Gloves To Jackets, Anything Can Be A Wearable

3. AR will Witness Tremendous Growth in New Sectors

4. Beacons Will Change The Way Companies Engage With Customers

5. Businesses Will Focus on Consumers & User Experience

6. Security Architecture & Enterprise Mobility Will Go Hand In Hand

7. Simplification Will Be The Key To Success

How to realize high RoI from your predictive analytics investments?

6 steps to success for speciality retailers to leverage digital and grow faster

Shadow IT offers benefits and here’s how enterprises can make most of it?

Enterprise wearable tech: 10 innovative applications in improving customer experiences

Big Data in healthcare: 3 applications to improve clinical decision making

Tips to deploy enterprise mobile apps at scale

Million dollar investments in cloud doesn’t matter if your cloud sucks

How GM, Whirlpool etc., are leveraging Internet of Things to make their supply chain smarter?

Enterprise Mobile Strategy: Time to go beyond “there’s an app for that” approach for success

How IOT driven real-time maintenance is changing the game?

5 tips in building enterprise apps that your employees will happily use.

3 ways big data is transforming healthcare

Plentiful options but how to select the right cloud provider?

What it takes to become a digital enterprise?

1. Think user

2. Solve a problem

3. Accentuate the experience

4. Leverage the best technology

5. Sell value

6. Re-engage

Enterprise mobility trends predictions for 2016

3 ways big data can improve quality of home healthcare

How to reduce cost of risk by governance at app level?

How mobile app testing can save your app from draining your customer’s device?

Now robots to rev up brick and mortar retailing, cut $450 billion ‘out of stock’ loss

10 awesome Big Data applications for businesses

To build a killer mobile app, think human-centric design

Smarter way to manage cloud storage apps than just blocking them

How to engineer reverse innovation to succeed in emerging markets?

1. Enterprise App adoption

2. App usage and retention

3. User experience

4. Goal Achievement

5. Funnel Behavior

1. Product recommendation

2. Customer Engagement

3. Customer Feedback

1. Limitations of mobile devices

2. Network and Bandwidth

3. Platform fragmentation

4. Data security & user privacy

1. Devices

2. Native or Cross Platform

3. User log-in

4. App Features

5. Analytics

As per a Forrester survey:

Social Factors

1. Aging Population

2. Patient Protection Affordable Care Act