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GET A QUOTEThe mobile landscape in constantly evolving. With each year, mobility is expanding its horizons bring more users within its ambit, packing more power and bringing more possibilities. 2013 was no different as it witnessed many steps forward and churns in the marketplace. At the start of every year, [x]cube LABS does a mobility recap infographic that summarizes the last year movements in the mobile ecosystem. In continuation with the practice, we present to you our latest infographic ‘Mobility in 2013’ that recaps all the major highlights, up and downs and market share swings in 2013 in the world of mobile devices and apps.
All posts by [x]cube LABS
M2M Applications: The Next Big Thing In Enterprises
Machine to Machine or M2M is catching the attention of businesses across the globe. Analyst Mason, in a study, predicts that M2M device connections will rise to 2.1 billion by 2021. A Vodafone survey reveals that 78% of respondents were of the opinion that M2M will be at the heart of successful businesses in the future. The study further highlights that 55% of participants rank M2M as a key priority for their organizations while 9% consider it as their number one priority.
Various research insights clearly show that M2M is evolving and is set to drive the next big thing in business.
What is M2M?
Simply put, Machine to Machine or Machine to Mobile (M2M) technology connects various machines like cars, appliances, computers with mobile or other fixed assets over networks and facilitates real-time data exchange to monitor and control either of these machines or their surrounding environment.
Drivers behind M2M
There are many motivations behind organizations embracing M2M including new revenue streams, cost savings, competitive advantage, process and productivity improvements, operational efficiency and speedy decision making capabilities etc. In short, the potential of M2M technology to encompass every function and its quantifiable business impact is making enterprises seriously consider M2M and put it at the core of their business.
M2M applications in business
From healthcare, manufacturing to retail; industries across the spectrum are using M2M.
- Healthcare: M2M applications have broken the barriers of distance by remotely connecting healthcare providers and patients. Remote monitoring solutions are allowing physicians to monitor their patients anytime, anywhere; seek critical data and capture images for condition management and home care. M2M healthcare solutions have not only improved quality of patient care but are also reducing costs.
- Retail: Retailers are using M2M enabled automated inventory tracking system wherein the legacy inventory management system is communicating with billing systems, mobile devices, RFID and sensors in the stores to report the consumption rates of products in the stores. The reports are then accessed by store managers and other relevant people on their mobile devices facilitating accurate inventory positions and store replenishments. From Kiosks, parking management to remote surveillance, M2M solutions are playing a big role in retail industry.
- Automobile: The automotive industry has been one of the early adopters of M2M solutions. From connecting infotainment systems, the dashboard with drivers mobile device to enrich superior driving experience to its use in vehicle diagnostics, accident prevention and telematics; M2M is speedily evolving in the industry.
- Consumer Electronics: All kinds of consumer appliances are communicating with other connected devices using M2M solutions. From smart refrigerators, ovens to remotely controllable equipments; the opportunities for M2M in the industry are just limitless.
- Energy & Utilities: M2M applications can also be found in power, oil and gas industry. Smart grid is being used to gain control over electric transmission and distribution networks while M2M supported metering solutions are helping companies to provide improved customer services. In the Oil and Gas industry, sensors and other connected machines are bringing accuracy and agility in exploration work.
Other sectors like industrial automation and monitoring, transport and logistics and utilities too are leveraging M2M technology to become more agile, responsive and innovative, and to outsmart the competition.
In future
One of the major hurdles behind M2M adoption is the high costs associated with it. But as the technology evolves and the costs associated with it falls, we will see M2M play a wider role in business and personal space. Similarly, as results of adopting machine-to-machine technology becomes more visible and clearer in the future, we will see the technology gain higher traction. The surge in consumer demand will also push M2M in mainstream further driving the adoption by businesses. With Strategy Analytics predicting the global M2M communications market to reach close to $30 Billion by 2014, M2M is set to grow big in the future.
[x]cube LABS CEO To Participate In CES 2014
The biggest electronics show CES 2014 is scheduled on January 7th to 10th in Las Vegas. Like every year, the CES 2014 is expected to be the biggest gathering of giants and newbies from the electronics industry and a platform to contemplate and showcase the latest consumer technology innovations. At [x]cube LABS, we see it as a perfect occasion to interact with various stakeholders from the mobile industry, share opinions on the trends and practices and explore new business opportunities. Our CEO Mr. Bharath Lingam will be attending the event. If you too are attending the event, then please drop by to say “hello”. It will be a great pleasure to meet you all!
You can connect with Bharath on his twitter account @bharath007 or reach us @xcubelabs.
Enrich with new ideas & experiences at 2013 Lean Startup Conference; Get a chance to win an iPad!
Lean Startup has travelled a lot from being a buzz word to a movement that is sprouting new ways for product developments and business processes. The 2013 Lean Startup Conference is yet another opportunity for all of us to learn new success stories, fresh case studies and read into the minds of business leaders, entrepreneurs and practitioners from other walks of life.
Our CEO Mr. Bharath Lingam will be attending 2013 Lean Startup Conference along with other members from the [x]cube management team. If you too are attending the event then we look forward to meet you all. You can connect with Bharath on his twitter account @bharath007 or reach us @xcubelabs.
But there’s also an opportunity for you to win an iPad!
[x]cube LABS is running a #leanstartupco Twitter contest where you have a chance to win an iPad on each day of conference by sharing with us your thoughts and key takeaways on the conference. Here’s what you need to do to win an iPad
Step 1
Tweet your thoughts/ key takeaways on the conference @xcubelabs. and use the hashtag #leanstartupco
Step 2
We will monitor and collect all such tweets @xcubelabs. with the hashtag #leanstartupco and send them to our judges
Step 3
An eminent panel of judges will select the best tweet of the day and the sender will be awarded an iPad.
Contest Rules
– You can tweet as many responses as you want.
– The contest will run for two days i.e. on December 9th and 10th.
– Winners will be decided by a panel of eminent judges.
– Winners will be announced on twitter as well as officially informed by the conference organizers.
Enterprise mobile strategy: 9 steps to success
Many enterprises are still implementing mobile in a piecemeal manner and therefore are not able to fully realize the gains and better ROI from their initiatives. A holistic mobile strategy can deliver maximum value to businesses, help them drive profitability and transform them into a proactive digital enterprise.
Developing a long-term business mobile strategy involves playing devil’s advocate, involving others in an argumentative discussion process, testing the quality of reasoning and then deriving insights that will seed your mobile strategy and implementation. Here’s how to go about it –
1) Define your goals:
What are your mobile expectations? How the outcomes correlate with your overall business vision? What form of mobile presence will help you realize your goals? What are your customer expectations and how going mobile can cater to it? Look within and outside your business to identify mobile opportunities. Just don’t look at what they are doing. Find why they are doing it.
2) Prepare a mobility road-map:
Once you have defined your business goals, the next step is to prepare a roadmap by finding appropriate mobile solutions that will take you to your destination. Do you need a mobile website or a mobile app? Is smartphone best suited to your business or a Tablet? For each mobile solution, build a case summary that lists important benefits, functions and target audience etc. Prioritize the mobile solutions based on your goals and your mobility roadmap is ready!
3) Analyze your exiting process:
Any mobile solution implemented within your organization will impact the existing workflow. It is therefore pertinent to go in for a comprehensive analysis of your current process before mobility execution. This will help you identify mobile implementation opportunities in the process, measure the impact of mobilizing it, gauge the user experience, justify the costs involved and calculate ROI.
4) Draw a technology blueprint:
Get into the specifics to draw a technology blueprint which entails decisions on mobile platforms, OS, devices- BYOD or company owned, app development and security policy etc. After this stage, you will have a clear idea on the mobile architecture to be integrated with your business.
5) Set a budget:
Many enterprises commit the error of clubbing mobile budget with the overall IT budget. This leads to confusion in ownership, authority and budgetary prioritizing. Create a separate budget and draw a clear picture of detailing out your investment strategy for investments- today, for the next 6 months and if possible for the next couple of years? Break-down the overall budget department and process-wise for better clarity.
6) Lay an implementation roadmap:
The implementation roadmap should spell out work process with specific tasks and the time horizon for each specific task. Identify risks and dependencies of the mobile project and base your projects on it.
7) Create a center of excellence:
A COE involving people from diverse domains and expertise will aid you in promoting collaboration across varied groups, institutionalize best practices, monitor and evaluate mobile projects, define policies and procedures to bring consistency into your mobile adoption initiatives etc.
8) Test deployment:
Implement your mobile plan in a single process and activity. Determine success and failure areas, document and analyze the deployment experience. Hone your strategy based on the test deployment experience and then go-ahead for an organizational rollout.
9) Assess and review:
Prepare an evaluation calendar and set metrics for your mobile strategy. Gather inputs and feedback from various sources on the mobile experience. Look for mobile adoption rates and engagement metrics to determine usage. Identify discrepancies and disturbances and take corrective action.
Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, says “Mobile is so important; put your best people on mobile. If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you are no longer relevant.” Yes, it’s that important.
[x]cube LABS to unveil Adbient & Instasense at TechCrunch, Bangalore
TechCrunch is hosting its first event in India! The two-day event, scheduled November 14-15, will focus on how to build companies in India that will go global and will feature keynote sessions, startup pitch presentations, startup exhibits and a hackathon. The event is expected to draw an amazing lineup of startups and thought leaders and will be an excellent platform to share new ideas and exhibit new products.
[x]cube LABS will unveil its two new intellectual properties Adbient and Instasense at the event. InstaSense is a comprehensive context aware platform that offers many interesting functionalities like managing your app’s Event-Partitioning model, geo-fencing capabilities, customized mobile gesture-based functionalities and enables contextual actions against multiple phone orientations. Adbient, on the other hand, is our latest media & marketing planning solution focused on helping developers acquire high quality users and monetize their apps.
[x]cube’s Team led by our CEO Mr. Bharath Lingam will be present at booth #10 at the event. Please feel free to stop for a demo of our latest mobility products Adbient and Instasense or to learn more about our enterprise mobility consulting services.
You can reach out to us on twitter @xcubelabs.
Nasscom Game Developer Conference (NGDC) is scheduled on Nov 15-16. Our COO Mr. Ravi Korukonda will be representing us at the event. If you too are attending the event then we look forward to meet you all. You can connect with Ravi on his twitter account @Ravikorukonda or reach us @xcubelabs.
Moreover, we are also participating in Devthon Collaborative Hackathon in Hyderabad on November 16-17 and India’s largest Android conference Droidcon India scheduled on 28 – 30 November. Our COO Mr. Ravi Korukonda is actively involved in setting the vision and successful organization of ‘Droidcon India’ in his role as member of Program Committee (Gaming Track). You can know more about it here.
Idea to 1 million app downloads; our CEO speaks at Nasscom Conclave
[x]cube LABS CEO Mr. Bharath Lingam was a key speaker in the NASSCOM Product Conclave, Bangalore attended by “who’s who” from the Indian IT industry. Bharath spoke on the idea to get 1 million app downloads and shared success secrets with the participants. According to him, there are 2 main success factors, one, building a great app that identifies the right space, promotes engagement and solves a problem big enough to have a bigger user base. The second factor is data driven, precision marketing. And he believes both should complement each other to reach the goal. The discussion is laced with actionable insights, practical tips and case studies and will help every app developer or a brand in getting a million users. Listen to him in this video-
[x]cube LABS COO encouraging force behind India’s largest Android Conference Droidcon India
Droidcon is back! The 3 day annual event this year aims to engage the finest minds from the Android community, contemplate on new ideas, best practices and trends and give a platform to developers & designers to showcase platforms, APIs and apps.
[x]cube being a leading enterprise mobility consulting firm considers it as its responsibility to encourage learning, ideation and community collaboration particularly in the area of mobile technology. As part of our continued efforts, our COO Mr. Ravi Korukonda is actively involved in setting the vision and successful organization of ‘Droidcon India’ in his role as member of Program Committee (Gaming Track).
Droidcon is India’s largest Android conference, and is part of worldwide series of Droidcon conferences organized in London, Paris, Berlin and many other prominent cities across the world. The event is organized by HasGeek, a team dedicated towards organizing technology events for learning and providing discussion space to discover new opportunities for like-minded people.
The annual event this year will focus around Gaming, Business, Systems, UX, & App Demos and will bring together the best of industry experts and technology minds as featured speakers on a range of topics. The 3 day conference will be marked with in-depth sessions and workshops culminating with a full-day hackathon.
The Droidcon India is scheduled on 28 – 30 NOVEMBER 2013 in BANGALORE. For more information, please visit www.droidcon.in/2013/.
Meet [x]cube LABS at GITEX 2013, Dubai.
GITEX- the technology gateway to Middle East and other neighboring regions is in its full swing. The event attracts the biggest and the best names from the technology world from across the globe and is wonderful opportunity to showcase your work, discuss industry trends and network. [x]cube being a leading enterprise mobile consulting company finds GITEX 2013 an excellent opportunity to not only witness the amazing display of technology products but also to meet some of the finest minds in the industry and keep abreast with the technology trends. The [x]cube LABS team will be led by our COO Mr. Ravi Korukonda.
If you too are attending the event then we look forward to meet you all. You can connect with Ravi on his twitter account @Ravikorukonda or reach us @xcubelabs.
Infographic: The Mobile Movement
The mobile app economy is getting bigger and bigger. With iOS and Android coming closer to each other, leaving other platforms far behind, the mobile app landscape is governed by the movements in App Store and Google Play. Here’s our latest infographic that brilliantly captures the key trends in the mobile app ecosystem. Our infographic takes you through-
# App downloads figures for 2012 and 2013.
# Increase in revenue over the last 2 years.
# Revenue from in-app purchases.
# Monthly download numbers for Apple and Google.
eBook: 5 Ways to Rock Your Sales with Mobile Sales Enablement!
Do you know 61% of companies that use mobile sales tools improved their customer retention rates in comparison to 47% of companies without any mobile tools?
Driving sales effectiveness is every CSO’s concern today!
As per CSO insights 2012, for CSOs across the globe, driving Sales Effectiveness is their top priority followed by increasing revenues and improving up-selling/cross-selling.
What has made driving sales effectiveness more challenging is the shift in sales engagement process with today’s savvy but time-starved customers demanding a relevant, personalized engagement that “shows, not tells,” and “helps, not sells.” Plus they also demand financial justification before taking a buying decision.
Do you know 56% of reps from companies that use mobile sales tools attained their sales quotas, while just 39% of reps from companies without mobile tools did so?
Mobile sales enablement is helping sales teams in better engaging clients, increasing productivity and winning more deals. From customized digital assets, collaboration tools to data driven decision support, MSE is arming sales teams with the right tools to meet the demands of new age sales cycle.
Our latest Mobile Sales Enablement eBook tells you-
- WHY TO USE MOBILE SALES ENABLEMENT
- BENEFITS OF MSE
- 5 KEY SALES CHALLENGES THAT MSE CAN ADDRESS
- – BETTER INFORMED, TIME STARVED BUYERS
- – SALES QUOTA ATTAINMENT
- – NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION IS TOUGH & EXPENSIVE
- – IMPROVE SALES PRODUCTIVITY
- – SALES TRAINING IS NOT YIELDING DESIRED RESULTS
This eBook also helps you take the first step, by providing actionable insights and practical tips, on implementing MSE in your organization and optimally benefiting from it.
You can download your free copy of the ebook here.
Happy Reading!
5 Simple Augmented Reality Integrations For Retail Mobility
Apple has left an undeniable impression on every technical designer and strategist.
It has altered the perspective on solution-design forever by demonstrating the strength of ‘simplification’ in driving product adaptability. Augmented Reality has been viewed as a trending technology, and like all technologies might lose its X-factor pretty soon.
Gaming for Business
Mobile games has been our passion since Apple launched its app store. Over the years, we have established our expertise as a leading mobile game development company by creating awesome mobile gaming experiences for people across the globe. Today, we have a specialized division in [x]cube GAMES where we deliver end-to-end services to businesses in leveraging mobile games for their internal and external usage. Watch our latest video where Imitiaz Hussain takes you through our mobile journey.
[x]cube LABS COO Marks Major Milestone with HR LEADERSHIP AWARD
Ravi Korukonda, with his endless dedication and passion, has molded [x]cube LABS into a great work place to work. Ravi has an affinity for people and it is reflected in the ethos of the organization, where the employees are not just a part of the processes but also have a say in modeling them.
The HR Leadership award, conferred by the IPE Asia Pacific HRM Congress is another feather in the cap of this illustrious COO, known for his dexterity and precision in setting up departments, defining HR processes and talent management to create people-centric environments.
This is an annual award jointly instituted by the Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE) and the Asian Pacific HRM Congress to honour individuals and organizations for their best practices in the field of human resource development.
The theme for this year’s Congress is “SUSTAINABILITY & GROWTH IN CHALLENGING TIMES” wherein prominent HR leaders and experts from public, private and social sector are expected to gather and contribute to the discussion.
We are indeed proud and privileged to announce that our COO will receive the award from an esteemed Jury and Council of Board members in a special ceremony scheduled on 5th September, 2013, at Taj Vivanta Bangalore.
Here’s to the [x] factor!
iOS 7 Background Execution and Multitasking
Multitasking has always been a smart way to switch between apps. Multitasking allows apps to continue running in the background even after the user switches to another app. Multitasking has been supported in iOS since iOS 4, but it was quite restricted, operating only with music, location and voip. This becomes very frustrating when we need to download some content for an app in the background, but it isn’t supported. With iOS 7 Apple provided multitasking for almost every app. Now we can perform lots of task when an app is in the background.
By integrating the new multitasking APIs in iOS 7, the app can keep the content up-to-date. The new service allows your app to update information and download content in the background without draining the battery unnecessarily. The updates can happen at opportunistic times and are intelligently scheduled according to usage, so your app can update content in the background only when your users need it.
Indoor Positioning Seems To Have Come Of Age
Startups have this theory—The First Mover Advantage—it is the advantage gained by the initial significant occupant of a market segment. Sometimes first movers have huge profit margins and a monopoly, case in point, Twitter and Foursquare. Other times, the first mover is unable to capitalize on the advantage, for example, look at what happened with Indoor Positioning Systems. Most web and social apps are dominated by one or two early players due to the First Mover Advantage. With Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS), however, these startups squandered away their golden opportunity, thus, leaving no clear leader and a cat fight out there.
Indoor Positioning Systems have been an area of interest for more than two decades now. But it is only recently that some major breakthroughs have happened to possibly accelerate the availability of such technology to the masses. Analysts predict that by 2017, the Indoor Location Market will reach revenues exceeding $5 billion in total and will represent over 200,000 installations of infrastructure equipment, including WiFi hotspots, Bluetooth antenna and over 800 million branded application downloads. Those are big numbers.
Decode Your Enterprise Mobile Strategy In 6 Simple Questions
Every enterprise will benefit from a unique mobile strategy. Understand how you can have all the information needed to define a mobile strategy through 6 simple questions.
“What is the mobile strategy which fits my business like a glove?” that’s the booming question in the board rooms of every enterprise, both big and small. This comes in the wake of companies realizing that mobile is the consumer’s most preferred medium. A simple way to understand mobile’s impact is to check the percentage of traffic that your website derives from mobile.
Despite the mantra that the consumer is the undisputed king, it is interesting to note that only 16% of companies worldwide have a mobile strategy in place. A majority of these companies are still optimizing their website for mobile, and most of those still approach mobile in a piecemeal, tactical way, rather than utilizing it to transform their businesses.
And a dashboard to rule them all …
Take the 2006 STARTECH Chrysler 300C dashboard. Let’s do an approximate count of switches/buttons on it. My tally comes to approximately 40. That includes CD changer controls, AC controls, radio, maps etc. That’s a lot of controls to handle and to use, especially if you are using your vehicle for the 20 mile drive between your home and office. You might not even use some of these controls for years together. Most of the time, you don’t even know what to do with the data that these OnBoardDiagnostic systems (OBD) generate. So, is their space on the dashboard justified? Well, your car isn’t the BatMobile and you definitely can’t get a custom dashboard.
What if I were to tell you that the next battleground for mobile is the dashboard of your car? Unbelievable? Impossible even?
Part 2- iOS 7 Beta review: Apple just made everything interesting again!
(In the first part of this three-part blog, we reviewed Apple’s latest mobile software iOS7 from design perspective. In this post, we will discuss new software features in iOS 7 and improvements from iOS 6. You can read the first part here)
Software features and improvements
iOS 7 brings following new software features and improvements to your iPhone:
All new multi-tasking
iOS 7 brings in a new card based multi-tasking screen wherein the user can scroll through a carousel of thumbnails to switch between the apps. The app icon is displayed for the corresponding thumbnail for the user to identify the app. To switch to an app, the user has to tap on one of the thumbnail or icon. To quit an app from the background, the user has to swipe-up the thumbnail. The new multi-tasking screen works in the landscape orientation as well.
Mobility in Automotive Industry: The new app-o-mobiles on the road
Are you ready to drive the change?
Our cover story this week gives you insights on mobile innovation in the automotive industry.
How mobile is altering the automotive landscape?
How in-vehicle apps are propelling the new advancements in the industry?
What are the challenges in integrating apps to cars?
And, the road ahead for in-vehicle apps.
A study conducted by Juniper Research reveals that 20% of consumer cars in Western Europe and North America will be app-connected by 2017. The report further highlights that, by 2016 there will be 92 million Internet connected vehicles on the road. Through their embedded connectivity and Group telematics (fusion of telecoms and information technologies in vehicles), intelligent cars are supposed to create revenues of $14.4 billion by 2016.”
The vehicle industry is on the cusp of a very big change. As car makers grapple with the multiple challenges presented by innovations in technology, radical shift in lifestyle demands influenced by the mobile revolution and a challenging business environment, there are compelling signs that the industry is set for a major shift. In the process, the central focus, ‘the car’ itself, is set to move beyond being a vehicle of conveyance to being a ‘digital hub’ offering an extended experience by converging devices and technologies. Download the cover story to get more insight.
No One Reads My GDD?
The problem with writing a well-defined and articulate game design document is that the only one who ends up reading it is the one who wrote the document to begin with – the game designer!
Being repeatedly questioned and asked about game features clearly outlined in the GDD is not exactly a great way to jump start development, if not downright irritating and many times, wildly infuriating.
Since people aren’t going to start behaving according to our game rules (i.e. read the GDD!) any time soon, it is up to us to design creative alternatives to cross this particularly hard level. Here are some pointers that effectively communicate game design and ensure relevant teams are on the same page even if they scored an F on the GDD.
Get a mood board
Put up a mood board and start pinning images. Since pictures speak louder than words, make use of pictures to communicate your design; tag them correctly and structure it in a manner that the viewers can form the relationship between images and understand the game. Let those involved with the game pitch in too with their images, making the entire exercise symbiotic. But ensure it is about the game as it is or is being designed.
Mobile Strategy- The Why, What And How In Creating Your Enterprise Mobile Strategy
In a recently published survey by Accenture of over 400 global executives 1/3rd of the participating executives cited mobility as one of their top two priorities, while 75% put it among their top five. The same survey further highlights that 59% participants 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 can help them realize their business goals, transforming them into a lean, agile and proactive digital enterprise.
But where to begin?
Read our cover story to know-
The need for mobile strategy.
Key elements in designing and implementing a long-term strategy for your enterprise.
Steps towards a successful mobile strategy.
Consumer-centric Gamification – Make Gamification work for your consumer (Part 2 of 2)
(This post is written in two parts, this being the second one and addresses the concerns that any Retail Enterprise faces while gamifying a consumer-end process or an element of the process.Read the first part here )
Many of my friends check-in via Foursquare religiously. On quizzing them about this preference, I realized that each one of them started checking-in for fun, but doing it constantly has turned it into a habit. The convenience of application design only made it easier for everyone to nourish this habit. “It’s not just about the convenience, though. It is also about having easy access to other users of the application. After I started using Foursquare, my friends were interested in knowing the reviews of all the restaurants I try. They knew that I was a foodie, but it was difficult to keep updating all of them about where I’ve been regularly,” added another Foursquare enthusiast. That brings me to:
Yes! We will be attending WWDC-2013
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is surely an iOS developer’s rock concert. How else will you describe an event where tickets get sold out in just two minutes? The WWDC-2013 scheduled to be organized from June10-14 in San Francisco is witnessing a crazy rush from Apple aficionados and developer community to participate in the event. Surely, luck was on our side during the on-sale time as we managed to get tickets for the event and are raring to be a part of it. [x]cube LABS will be represented by a delegation led by our COO, Mr. Ravi Korukonda.
If you too are attending the event then please drop by to say “hello”. It will be a great pleasure to meet you all!
You can connect with Ravi on his twitter account @Ravikorukonda or reach us @xcubelabs.
Visual Note- Mobile Device Management
Mobility in enterprises offer several key competitive advantages, but at the same time also poses multiple challenges. There are thousands of devices and hundreds of apps to be managed, monitored and secured. There is critical business data to be secured while making it accessible on smartphones and Tablets. Mobile Device Management or MDM comes across as a popular, reliable solution in answering to the many of these challenges. MDM is critical to any organization that wishes to optimally leverage from mobile technology. At [x]cubeLABS, we have designed a visual note that takes you through the various facets of the MDM and helps you understand- What is MDM and how it works? The need for a mobile device management platform within enterprises and the issues faced while deploying it. Please click here to view our visual note on MDM.
iOS Programming – Then vs Now
When Apple released the AppStore in 2008, it began a revolution that led to the largest and most vibrant application ecosystem in existence. Objective-C, the programming language for writing apps for Mac OS and iOS, went on to become the third most popular language of modern time after C and Java.
Objective-C has evolved considerably and we have features such as blocks, literals, subscripting, ARC etc. In a span of 3 years, so much of how we program has changed for the better. This article points out some of these new features.
1. Literals
Literals are shorthand notation of writing fixed values. Until recently, Objective-C only had literals for NSString.
// NSString literal NSString *string = @"Hello"; // The old and redundant way NSString *string = [NSString stringWithString:@"Hello"];
With Apple LLVM 4.0 onwards, literals for NSArray, NSDictionary and NSNumber were introduced. The following is the old way of writing code:
NSNumber *trueNumber = [NSNumber numberWithBOOL:YES]; NSArray *fruits = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"Apple", @"Papaya", @"Mango", @"Guava", nil]; NSDictionary *params = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:@"Brad", @"firstName", @"Pitt", @"lastName", nil]; NSNumber *magicNumber = [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:25U];
With literals, the same code can be written as follows:
NSNumber *trueNumber = @(YES);
NSArray *fruits = @[@"Apple", @"Papaya", @"Mango", @"Guava"];
NSDictionary *params = @{@"firstName" : @"Brad", @"lastName" : @"Pitt"};
NSNumber *magicNumber = @25U;
Literals are aimed at developers’ happiness and promote readability.
2. ARC
iOS development currently only supports manual memory management. All the projects written prior to LLVM 3.0 were manual memory managed i.e., a developer had to handle memory management manually by calling retain/copy/release/autorelease, following Apple’s Cocoa memory management guidelines. Though the rules were simple, new developers often fell prey to mistakes caused by manual memory management resulting in application crashes. To make things easier, Apple introduced Xcode 4.2 with LLVM 3.0 compiler supporting ARC.
According to Apple’s documentation: Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) is a compiler-level feature that simplifies the process of managing object lifetimes (memory management in Cocoa applications). ARC is a compiler generated step that adds retain/release/autorelease statements invisibly to the code for the developer. The following is an example written using the manual memory management environment:
// Create a user object PTUser *user = [[PTUser alloc] initWithDictionary:userDictionary]; // Do something awesome here // Release it when you are done [user release];
Under ARC, the same code would be:
// Create a user object PTUser *user = [[PTUser alloc] initWithDictionary:userDictionary]; // Do something awesome here // Release is not required as the compiler auto-adds this step invisibly to the user. // [user release];
While long time developers may still vouch for manual memory management, ARC keeps things simpler for beginners and is probably the way of the future.
3. Default property synthesis
Xcode 4.4 was released with Apple LLVM 4.0; it introduced default property synthesis. All the properties that are not @dynamic and do not have a custom getter / setter defined, are now automatically synthesized by default.
For example, have a look at code written using Apple LLVM 3.0 compiler and earlier.
@interface PTUser : NSObject @property (strong, nonatomic) NSNumber *userId; @property (strong, nonatomic) NSString *username; @property (strong, nonatomic) NSString *email; @end @implementation PTUser @synthesize userId = _userId; @synthesize username = _username; @synthesize email = _email; @end
The same code written using LLVM 4.0 and above with Default property synthesis would look like this:
@interface PTUser : NSObject @property (strong, nonatomic) NSNumber *userId; @property (strong, nonatomic) NSString *username; @property (strong, nonatomic) NSString *email; @end @implementation PTUser @end
This not only saves developer time, but also reduces the number of redundant lines of code.
4. Blocks
iOS 4.0 introduced blocks, a language-level feature added to C, C++ and Objective-C. Blocks are like functions, but written inline with the rest of your code, inside other functions. They are sometimes called closures or lambdas in other languages.
^{
NSLog(@"Executing a block");
}
Blocks are handy in wrapping up a piece of code and effectively storing it for later use. In other words, blocks are excellent for handling callbacks and also acting as inline methods.
A traditional C callback example:
#include
void callMeBack(void (*func)(void *), void *context) {
func(context);
}
void callback(void *context) {
int val = *(int *)context;
printf("%d\n", val);
}
int main() {
int val = 5;
callMeBack(callback, &val);
return 0;
}
If you look at it, a developer has to think hard to understand the flow in which the code is executed. If you implement the same thing in blocks, it looks like this:
#include
void callMeBlock(void (^block)(void)) {
block();
}
int main() {
int val = 5;
callMeBlock(^{
printf("%d\n", val);
});
return 0;
}
If you look at the above example, all the context-related arguments have disappeared. Using a block, we have been able to increase cohesion by moving code to where it belongs, making it easier for a developer to understand. Let’s take a look at other example.
Prior to blocks, we used to write it the following way:
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:@selector(keyboardWillShow:)
name:UIKeyboardWillShowNotification object:nil];
}
- (void)keyboardWillShow:(NSNotification *)notification {
// Do something when the keyboard is shown
}
With blocks, you can implement the same thing as:
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserverForName:UIKeyboardWillShowNotification object:nil queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] usingBlock:^(NSNotification *notification) {
// Do something when the keyboard is shown
}];
}
Blocks have been added to all the newer APIs and offer the same level of syntactic sugar to the developers.
In UIKit
[self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:^{
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"downloadCompleted" object:nil userInfo:nil];
}];
In Foundation
[[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] addOperationWithBlock:^{
[downloadHistory addObject:imagePath];
}];
In collection classes
[array enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop) {
NSLog(@"Object at index %lu is %@", idx, obj);
}];
iOS 4.0 also introduced Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), also known as libdispatch. GCD, with the help of blocks, allows developers to write concurrent code. We will cover GCD in an upcoming article very soon. Stay tuned.
5. Storyboarding
Prior to storyboarding, User Interface design was primarily done using Interface Builder’s nibs/xibs. While nibs are nifty, Apple decided to tweak the current workflow of designing apps and introduced storyboarding to the developers with Xcode 4.2.
A storyboard is composed of a sequence of scenes, each of which represents a view controller and its views; scenes are connected by segue objects, which represent a transition between two view controllers.
Storyboarding helps developers visualize the appearance, navigational flow and transitions between scenes of the entire application under one canvas. On top of that, Xcode’s already powerful visual editing tools makes it easier for developers to design, layout and add/remove controls to a scene on the fly.
Real Time Bidding: The Win-Win Solution for Mobile Developers & Advertisers
With the increase in smartphone and mobile Internet users mobile has become a key focus area for marketers. While mobile advertising has already been explored in various forms and models, it is still an evolving space, striving to meet the challenges and concerns of the advertisers as well as the publishers.
Some of the key concerns that keeps haunting most mobile app developers and publishers:
1. Trade Off: User Experience vs. Monetization. Most developers and app publishers today are focused on delivering a superlative user experience. It is often a concern that incorporating ads for monetization can put the ideal user experience in jeopardy. You definitely don’t want to show a Valentine’s Day gift ad to a man who lost half his fortune in a recent divorce.
2. How Much: It is a common complain amongst mobile app publishers that the revenue from mobile ads is not good enough. Considering they are often times compromising on the ideal user experience to incorporate the ads, which could result in loss of users, one must ask, “what is the real cost?” How does a developer maximize the CPC/CPM (Cost per Click / Cost per thousand Impressions) on his inventory?
3. Fill Rate: While developers are trying to cope with this problem using multiple networks, still they would often times find a part of their inventory not being utilized. Ad inventory is the most perishable commodity for a developer, if he is not able to serve ads to one visitor, that impression is lost for ever. Hence fill rate remains as one of the top challenges for the developers.
Real Time Bidding seems to be the new kid in the block for mobile advertisement that is offering a definite win–win solution for both publishers and advertisers. Let’s understand how Real Time Bidding works.
What is Real Time Bidding ?
Real Time Bidding (RTB) means that every ad impression can be evaluated, bought and sold instantly. When a user opens an app, the users attributes are sent through the RTB Exchange server to the Demand Side Platform (DSP). Based on the perceived value of the users, interested advertisers place their bid to win the ad impression. The highest bidders’ ad is then shown to the user. This entire process happens in less than 200 milliseconds, thereby eliminating any visual delay for the user.
So how does RTB help solve the major concerns in mobile advertisement?
1. Better Targeting: As the user attributes are passed on from the RTB exchange server to the DSP, advertisers get to evaluate each impression and judge the relevancy of the target user before serving their ad, resulting in highly-targeted advertising that the user would easily relate to. While this takes away one of the major publisher concerns, interrupting the user with irrelevant ads, it also delivers better result for the advertisers due to highly specific targeting.
2. Higher CPM: In RTB, each impression is evaluated and multiple advertisers place their bid for the same impression before going to the highest bidder. This process ensures that the publishers get the best possible CPM for each of their impressions and maximize revenue.
3. Fill Rate: With more and more companies implementing OpenRTB (an emerging, open standard for Real Time Bidding communication), it is becoming easier for publishers to connect to multiple DSPs for the same impression, resulting in the highest possible CPM and less untapped inventory (as explained in the point above).
It has been observed that RTB provides significantly better results than traditional ad buying. A report from Adfonic, comparing RTB vs non RTB ads for mobile shows that the click-through rate for RTB ads are 97% higher than non-RTB ads.
RTB provides buyers with more access, targeting and transparency while sellers get a better price for their inventory as multiple advertisers compete for the same impression that is perfectly matched to their targeting attributes.
RTB for Mobile Ads – What’s the big deal ?
Real Time Bidding has been in play for web-based display advertising for some time now, so its eventual progression to mobile isn’t unexpected. So why is everyone going gaga about it? Well, there are few distinct advantages that Real Time Bidding brings to mobile advertising.
1. Location: A consumer carries his mobile everywhere he goes; to the mall, to the coffee shop, to the spa and all this invaluable location data could be made available to the advertiser. Now imagine, if you know the consumer is at the mall and you could push an ad to him with a discount coupon for your brand of chocolates – isn’t that likely to leave your competitor’s brand on the shelf?
2. Better Control and Efficiency: Advertisers have always been leveraging consumer data, but on the mobile it goes to a different level with a lot more consumer data, including location, contextual and demographic data being made available in real time with the ad request, helping the advertiser have better control, deciding whether or not they want to bid on a particular impression and how much would they like to spend on it. Also, such specific control over targeting delivers better results and higher ROI for advertisers.
3. Improving the Mobile Ad Ecosystem: With RTB, publishers are already seeing increased CPM, resulting in larger publishers joining the bandwagon and opening up premium inventory. The advertisers, motivated by the better results and eager to take advantage of this premium inventory, are ploughing more money into RTB ads.
The combination of Real Time Bidding and rich display ads could do wonders for advertisers and with the ever-increasing number of smart phone users and higher Internet penetration, it is providing a golden opportunity for mobile developers to cash in on their users, without any significant disruption to the user experience. While privacy remains a concern, users today are often okay with sharing some information about themselves in order to have a better online/application experience and Real Time Bid Exchanges can successfully leverage the same to facilitate highly targeted advertising, filling the coffer for the publishers.
Consumer-centric Gamification – Make Gamification work for your consumer (Part 1 of 2)
(This post is written in two parts and addresses the concerns that any Retail Enterprise faces while gamifying a consumer-end process or an element of the process. )
Retail is a volatile space. So, it comes as no surprise that brands struggle to adapt to ever-changing consumer preferences. Mobile has managed to bridge this gap in recent times, because of the “anytime, anywhere convenience” and access to user analytics. Every brand wants to be active in the Mobile space to engage consumers, understand preferences and obtain feedback. The first wave was social; every brand wanted to be on the social space, to follow and engage consumers through social networking.This trend was quickly followed by location-based services; the word on the street was “local,” physical proximity over world-wide presence.
Which brings us to the third wave, Gamification. When carried out the right way, Gamification can engage audiences in ways that traditional Mobile apps cannot. I was in charge of driving the Mobile Strategy for ‘customer engagement’ for a leading retail chain. Like every solutions person, I wanted to apply the recent hot trend and apply it right.
I started with “user/consumer profiling” to understand the behaviour patterns, preferences and pain-points of the consumers in my scope. But, since gamification is a recent trend, my research tools online did not promise accurate information. I wanted to understand the audiences and their pain-points at a deeper level. So I turned to the Solutions team at [x]cube LABS to carry out a field-study. We visited different stores, mapped in-store experiences and talked to people.
During this process, I quizzed a few people in a store about what they thought were the most effective gamified processes in life. I was surprised to hear what they had to say. “ Exams” said one. “Games in school and college,” said another.
It suddenly dawned on me that Gamification isn’t new, it is age-old; it has been an integral part of our lives. Each one of us has psychologically warmed up to the process of excelling in an activity and in turn expecting a reward for it.
That brings me to:
1.Don’t just interpret behaviour patterns. Get to know your audience.
There’s more to understanding user behaviour than decoding analytics. Switch places, instead of sticking to the planning-end of your business, venture out to few of your stores. Be an end-customer for a change. Talk to people and try to understand what bores them, what excites them, and what brand aspects are they attached to? You are sure to have a new perspective on what to gamify in your consumer-cycle.
Over a few cups of coffee, I asked people at my workplace to talk about how they would respond if their day-to-day tasks were gamified. Entering the time-logs could be monotonous; maybe, we could look at gamifying it? Viewing reports in never-ending grids is uninspiring; what if someone comes up with an interesting and engaging way to do it?
People seemed to like these ideas, because every idea was driving fun. We were talking about transforming boring, non-engaging tasks into something enjoyable and gratifying; something one would be self-motivated to do. That brings me to:
2. Pick an area that is non-engaging.
The objective of Gamification is to drive engagement and fun. So, if you choose an aspect in your line-of-business which is already engaging, then the curve of customer engagement would be flat. So start with one of the most boring areas of your process. Try and understand what will make each of these fun. Invite your most-loyal customers to a flash-preview of the gamified process. Document what they enjoy the most. At the end of this activity, you are sure to have your Gamification strategy ready.
One of my female colleagues had an interesting insight to share during the course of these conversations. “It is a known fact that women love to window shop and men don’t like it so much. I would be interested in gamifying such small but challenging areas.” I quickly searched for any Gamification of window shopping and chanced upon Adidas Neo window shopping in Germany.
It’s a universal fact that pretty models catch the attention of men, combine that with a widely accepted fact that any consumer-end solution needs to be simple-that’s Adidas Neo Window shopping for you. A user just has to drag clothing items and voila, the model mirrors your movements just like Tom cat in Talking Tom does. Window shopping cannot get any more interesting than that. Which brings me to:
3. Do not gamify your end-to-end process. Opt for gamifying select touch points.
A majority of the target audience belongs to the ‘Generation C’ (The connected consumer) . One of the defining characteristics of Gen. C. is an affinity for instant gratification. Time and convenience are a customer priority. It is wiser for your business to choose one or two select touch points and -bring them to life as exciting and engaging mobile apps through gamification. Because at the consumer-end, gamification is just not a solution, it’s a statement made by your brand.
User privacy and the ethics of app data collection
“Welcome to Dallas! Special Shopping offers only for you. Check it now”, read a pop-up message on my smartphone screen as soon as I was out of the Dallas airport. I never asked for it though. Being a geek, I always spend my time on researching about apps and their functions. I knew that I have not installed any app that provided me with these functions. I quickly checked in to see what really happened. To my surprise it was a game which took the GPS data. Why would a game that needs no connection to the Internet take my GPS data? How would it help someone make the game better? I reviewed the privacy guidelines issued by the company only to find that the developer has given me a disclaimer but not a choice. His statement was quite clear, if you do not give access to this data, you need not use my game. ‘Thank you so much’ I said to myself and uninstalled the game.
While mobile apps have created a whole new industry and enabled tremendous convenience to the user, it has also raised serious concerns about her privacy. Can privacy be compromised for convenience? Many a times, it has been found out that the app developers themselves do not know what data their app is collecting due to deployment of some third party SDK (such as those from analytics providers/ advertising networks) in the app. Although third party SDKs are easy plug-n-play solutions reducing efforts and costs in app development, the unintended data collection is causing trouble to some developers. With governmental regulation on user privacy getting stricter, the app developers are clearly finding themselves increasingly vulnerable to breaching laws and potential law-suites.
Governments, across the globe, have recognized the importance of privacy of their citizens and are trying to implement stringent rules to guide them. While app developers and publishers are resisting these regulations, they are also failing to realize that customer privacy is at risk and collecting the data without informing her will only be a deathblow to their business.
App developers need data from the user to provide her with more relevant services but ethics must be followed and the user must be informed about it. There are certain guidelines that app developers are expected to follow though they are not legally enforceable. Some of the guidelines are:
1) Be completely transparent about how you are using or transmitting user data.
2) Don’t access more data than you need.
3) Give your users control over uses of data usage that they might not expect.
4) Have a privacy policy.
5) Share new data usage policies before implementing them.
6) Be clear and specific in the disclosures.
7) Delete old data
8) Encrypt data in transit when authenticating users and transferring personal information.
9) Provide users with appropriate communication channels to clear their concerns.
10) Comply with the law of the land.
Keeping the above mentioned considerations while developing an app will not only help developers address privacy concerns but also help them earn respect and trust of their customers. As the saying goes, “Always think of how can you help your customer rather than thinking of ‘How to sell him something?”. The customer will surely appreciate your honesty.
Calculating ROI of your enterprise app
Mobility has emerged as the most disruptive technology in the enterprises today. Businesses are deploying enterprise mobile apps in earnest resulting in a unique interaction between people, process and products. As per a recent survey by Zenprise, 74.7% of decision-makers said they have or will deploy mobile apps to support their line-of-business activities in the next 12 months. However, deploying line-of-business or customer-facing applications requires high amount of upfront investments and substantial recurring expenses every year. As the global economy continues to stagnate, thereby exerting financial pressure on businesses, decision makers are taking a hard look at their mobility expenditure and are asking questions like “How much these mobile apps are benefiting the company?” or “How to calculate the ROI of mobile apps to justify the expenses?” and so on.
In our cover story, this month, we take a look at the process of calculating ROI for enterprise mobile apps by looking at various approaches to measure benefits and costs incurred in deploying mobile apps.
[download file=”http://www.xcubelabs.com/coverstory/Calculating-ROI-for-your-enterprise-app.pdf” title=”Calculating ROI for your enterprise app”]
Mobile ROI
To calculate the ROI of a mobile app we will first need to ascertain two components : benefits and costs.
Benefits: The benefits arising out of deploying enterprise level apps in an organization can be classified into qualitative and quantitative benefits.
- Quantitative benefits are those that can be put in numbers such as percentage increase in cost savings, reduction in time to perform specific activity, percentage increase in revenue /profits etc
- Qualitative benefits, on the other hand, are intangibles like increase in customer satisfaction, boost in customer loyalty and brand perception etc.
The qualitative benefits may be impossible to measure but form an important consideration in getting the bigger picture of deploying an app. To measure quantifiable benefits, a step-wise approach could be illustrated by the following example –
|
Sample Benefit Analysis A mobile app for field service technicians providing access to real-time information on customer complaints, tickets raised/solved and other details can offer benefits in- • Travel savings: Real-time information on devices will also help technicians in reducing their travel time. They don’t need to make needless trips to central office and can plan their schedule so as to minimize their travel. Reduction in travel time not only increases work-time of technicians but also saves on fuel costs. • Resource management- Your existing staff has more work-time now and also can now handle more tickets with the same resources. |
Step-wise approach to measure benefits
Increase in productivity of the work force has emerged as a major benefit arising from deploying enterprise apps. Various studies suggest that workers have been able to gain additional work time by using mobile apps. Let’s assume that a technician in a manufacturing unit gains 30 minutes of additional productivity per day owing to mobilized environment in his workplace.
So, if the pay per hour of a technician is $50 then the productivity gain for the organization would be
Productivity gain per day = ($50/2) $25 per day per worker.
Productivity gain per month (22 working days) per worker = $25*22 = $550
If there are 100 technicians operating in the unit,
the cumulative productivity gain per month = $550*100 = $55000
Using this approach, the equation can be extrapolated to the entire organization.
Benefits, no matter how high, must be weighed against the expenses incurred in deriving it. And therefore it is also equally important to look at the costs involved in deploying a mobile app / enterprise mobility strategy and to see whether the benefits-costs equation is profitable.
Costs: The total cost of ownership for an app can be classified into: upfront costs like licensing, app development, hardware procurement etc., and recurring costs involving data plans, maintenance, up-gradation, training for new users and IT administration.
- Licensing– Deployment strategies drive the costs incurred in licensing of servers and other software for your mobile app.
- App Development– The costs of app development depend on many factors including the functionalities, complexity and the technology used in the app. Also the costs may vary depending on whether it is developed in-house or outsourced. If development isn’t your core functionality, it is always economical to outsource to specialized companies.
- Device Procurement– Increasingly BYOD is becoming popular in enterprises, relieving organizations of device procurement cost. However, if you have a policy of providing company-owned devices to employees then the costs will vary depending on the model and manufacturer of the device.
- Voice & Data Plans– Every app and mobile device will need voice and data plans to function. These are the costs incurred every year and form a substantial part of overall expenses.
- Maintenance & Up gradation– Every application needs periodic maintenance depending on a number of factors like frequency of new version releases, addition/changes in functionalities etc.
- IT Training & Administration– The end-user training costs are largely driven by the number of users and the number of apps available to users.
The upfront costs in owning a mobile can be significantly higher while recurring costs will be lesser but will spread over the years. Also, the total costs involved in deploying an app will vary significantly depending on the scale, scope and functionality of the app. However, calculations (provided in the table below) based on a study by Forester for a BlackBerry solution deployment provides us with some indications on the type and the range of costs involved across various deployment stages.
Costs Of BlackBerry Solution Deployment Captured In The TEI Analysis
| Cost Category | Reactive deployment stage | Proactive deployment stage | Integrative deployment stage | Cost Drivers |
| Blackberry Enterprise Server | $48 | $100 | $45 | Variances are driven by the number of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, whether the organization has separatetesting,production,orback-upservers, the cost of each server, and the maintenance fees. |
| BlackBerry smartphones | $639 | $739 | $741 | Costs vary due to the number of BlackBerry smartphones supported and corporate liable device policy. |
| User support | $66-$73 | $71-$75 | $171-$206 | User support costs increase along with the number of mobile applications deployed. |
| End user training | $52-$77 | $231-$254 | $240-$289 | Costs driven by the number of users and the number of mobile applications available to users. |
| Voice and data plans | $2,363 | $2,459 | $2,079 | Voice and data plans are the key driver of costs across all deployment stages. |
| Mobility applications | $0 | $72 | $193 | Costs driven by the number of mobile applications beyond email |
| Total three-year cost per BlackBerry smartphone | $3,168-$3,200 | $3,672-$3,699 | $3,470-$3,552 | |
| Average annual cost Per BlackBerry smartphone | $1,056-$1,067 | $1,224-$1,233 | $1,156-$1,184 |
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
Calculating mobility TCO can be a challenge in the absence of a standard model or a popular formula. Moreover, a major part of the costs vary depending on the functionalities of the app created, platforms to be supported, scale of users and the mobility strategy adopted by the organizations. The study by Forrester Research Inc. puts the average annual cost per BlackBerry user to be in the range of $1,056 to $1,184 per user per year in all deployment stages.
So continuing the scenario used for calculating benefits where we saw a productivity gain of $25 per day per user or $6500 per user per year and assuming costs to be the average of the range provided above i.e.
($1056 + $1184) /2= $1120, we find that the
ROI= Productivity gains/costs
= $6500/ ($1120)
ROI= 5.8X.
As discussed above, upfront costs like licensing, app development and device procurements etc., will not form part of expenses in the following years and only recurring expenses like data plans, user training (depending on new users added) and app maintenance costs etc., will be incurred leading to lowering of cost per user and further increase in the ROI of the app.
Key considerations
- It is important to note while calculating ROI for an enterprise app that not all benefits can be measured. Moreover, not all benefits can be accrued in the first phase or year of deployment. This could be because of the functionality used, scale of coverage or adaptability levels among the users. Similarly, a few benefits of mobile app may end after a few years of deployment.
- The costs of owning an enterprise app goes significantly lower after a few years of deployment. There are significant investments upfront but as the scale of adoption increases, the cost to serve per user starts coming down.
- Another way to increase the ROI by bringing down the costs of developing an app is to consider outsourcing it. In-house app development requires significant investments in technology and manpower which pushes the cost.
- To gain the most from your mobile app, it is important that user-centricity is kept in mind while developing it and sufficient motivation and encouragement is provided for its large scale adoption. The bigger the scale of adoption, the more ROI you can gain.
Conclusion
Quantifying ROI for an enterprise app is challenging but is something that can be very useful in decision-making and can play a large part in developing mobile strategy for future deployments. Although a good part of the benefits derived from an enterprise app remains intangible and hence difficult to quantify, but various case studies, precedents and data available can help decision-makers to judge and justify their investments in deploying an enterprise app.
Augmented Reality applications – from the Consumer to the Enterprise
Augmented Reality (AR) applications (apps) have recently been enjoying a lot of attention in the mobile world. Companies are increasingly looking to AR apps to provide their customers with a differentiating experience. App developers consider AR apps to be at the cutting edge of the mobile industry.
Location data or Visual Feed
The majority of AR apps either use the device’s geographical coordinates to automatically identify nearby Points of Interest (POIs), or identify the images in the visual feed. Subsequently, the apps show data relevant to the geo-location, or augment the visual feed by overlaying related images, videos or animations.
A common example of an AR app of the first kind is related to tourism. The device knows the user’s location, based on which it can retrieve (from a previously created database), a set of famous landmarks, then “identifies” them on screen by listing out the name, historical data and other details.
The second kind of AR app would find use in the service industry. A technician would train the camera on his mobile device onto a part requiring repair or servicing. The part would be recognized, using pattern detection techniques, and this would trigger either videos, or a set of instructions on how to proceed with the maintenance.
How does an AR app work?
At its core, an Augmented Reality (AR) application seems to do three things:
a) Accepts input, usually in the form of context aware location data, or environmental data in the form of live camera pictures,
b) Processes the input data, typically to determine nearby POIs, or to recognize the images in the camera feed,
c) Displays some output, generally in the form of details of the POIs, or as animations of the recognized image, or related audio or video streams.
Now a typical computer, or mobile, application (app) also does the same three things. The first part accepts user input. The second part processes and transforms the input. In the third part, the processed data is output (displayed) to the user in some suitable format.
So, once we cut through the hype surrounding AR apps, an AR app seems to be the same as a regular app. What then makes an AR app different from a typical app? The differences are subtle and lie in the nuances of user interactions, device responses and the typical use cases.
How are AR apps different from regular apps?
An AR app accepts input usually in the form of location data (i.e. latitude, longitude, orientation, speed etc), or in the form of a visual feed from the camera. In the first case, no user involvement is needed. Devices embedded in the mobile, such as a GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer or other sensor units, automatically get this information and pass them on to the app. In the second case, the user must switch on the device’s camera and point it at the POIs. In both cases, the input is received in a non-traditional way. A traditional app would display a form, and users would key in data as input.
The output generated is also differentiated. An AR app would generally add on (or Augment) a virtual layer of information or animations to the “real” information, which is already available.
So, to summarize, an AR app is characterized by seamless user experience, ubiquitous availability and visual output.
From the analysis done above, it seems that AR apps would be most suited to a retail, or consumer facing, environment, in some kind of a personal use, informative or entertainment domain, with minimal user input and a good deal of visual data is output.
So, can AR apps make an impact in the enterprise? Here are some possible scenarios where this can happen-
- A real estate developer is planning to construct a new housing project in a mountainous region. Options exist to start the construction in four or five different locations in the area. The developer wants to select a spot which would present the greatest visual appeal both to potential buyers and residents. To do this, an AR app could superimpose an image of the constructed housing complex on to the possible locations, and based on how it looks, can select the optimal spot.
- An airline wants to customize the interiors of the new aircraft which it has ordered. Using AR to superimpose pictures on to a camera feed of the plane’s interior, the aircraft builder can present to the buyer how various seating options (number of seats, colors etc.) will actually cause the interior to look like. The buyer can take an informed decision based on this.
- AR apps could revolutionize the print industry. AR apps can view and interpret printed media, then superimpose related video as well as real-time, updated news feeds on it. DIY (Do It Yourself) books can be enhanced by combining the text with an AR app which can overlay complementary pictures and videos.
These types of apps either already exist today, or are in the development pipeline. But it is just the beginning. AR as an enabling technology has the potential to take enterprise level mobile apps to the next level. The future is likely to bring to the fore AR apps of the kind which today looks beyond the realms of possibility. Innovations such as Google’s Project Glass and integration of brain-wave data with the AR environment are sure to give a new meaning to AR apps and make it compatible with much more complex processes, elevating AR’s adaptability level to a higher level in the enterprise.
Enterprise Mobility in 2013: A Look Ahead
2012 was the year of enterprise mobility as more and more companies, big and small, across the globe, initiated adopting mobile solutions. There was clamor for mobility from consumers as mobile became an indispensable gadget for them and from employees as they witnessed more possibilities for it in work. Early industry adopters like retail, banking and healthcare benefitted by quantifiable results in consumer loyalty, productivity and efficiency etc., further encouraged other sectors to adopt mobility into their ecosystem. Enabling technologies like Augmented Reality, NFC, RFID and cloud computing etc., also opened up new opportunities for businesses to leverage mobile technology. In short, in 2012, mobility was disruptive in enterprises unsettling the traditional people-product-process engagement. From why mobility, the focus shifted on how to mobilize and now enterprises are thinking: what more to mobilize?
There are far more possibilities for mobility beyond its current usage in enterprises. With the start of a new year, it’s worth keeping the ear to the ground and listen to the signals? In our cover story, this month, we look ahead to know how the enterprise mobility landscape will shape up in 2013.
Here’s what to expect this year-
[download file=”http://www.xcubelabs.com/coverstory/Enterprise-Mobility-in-2013.pdf” title=”Enterprise Mobility in 2013″]
Mobility for all – Inside and outside
Enterprises till now have primarily focused on customer-centric apps that enable consumers getting access to products and services. Employees, on the other hand, have been demanding greater mobility in workplace. 2013 will see a giant leap as more and more organizations find greater benefits in mobile solutions catering to the inner needs of the organization. As a result, enterprise mobility, for the first time in many companies will see dedicated budgets, strategic focus and prioritized implementations. According to Yankee Group, “The proportion of companies increasing their budgets for mobile applications has almost doubled in the past year, from 28 percent to 51 percent of all companies spending more, with many looking at different use cases, both internal and customer-facing.” Enterprises will look beyond picking the low lying fruits of mobility resulting into better parity between consumers and employees. So, on one hand we will see apps providing product information to consumers but there will also be apps developed that will help employees check stock status, track product movements and so on. Mobility will also spread itself beyond travel, banking, finance, healthcare and retail etc., to other industry sectors like automotive and manufacturing on a bigger scale.
Apps – We will see more of it
2013 will see more apps in the enterprises. Enterprise apps will move beyond providing mail, calendar, messaging and database access etc. The major thrust will be on line-of-business apps that integrate processes, products and people by bringing more sophisticated functionalities and enabling access to enterprise software and infrastructure. Employees would be able to interact with machines in real-time. Cloud-based technologies like Platform as a Service (PaaS) will provide the right infrastructure to the enterprises to cost-effectively scale-up mobility and provide entire workforce access to it.
Devices – The shift
Enterprise mobility till last year had revolved around smartphone. But the entry of Tablets and its evolving utility in the workplace will mark the shift. There will be diversity in devices as seen in consumer world with Apple, Android further eating into Blackberry’s base. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy which sometime back generated a reluctant and at times a combative response from the decision-makers will be an established norm. Further, mobile strategies will no more be centered towards one particular device type or platform but will look to accommodate as much diversity as possible.
Machine-2-machine – The new connect
Enterprise mobile solutions will not only herald a more robust connectivity between employees but will also witness greater push into M2M communication. Decreasing M2M device costs; permeating wireless connectivity, increasing enterprise awareness and business case feasibility and supportive government regulations will be the drivers for M2M this year. According to a latest study by mobile network operator E-Plus, M2M SIM cards in use in Germany is forecast to grow to over 5 million by 2013, up from 2.3 million currently. The existing market applications of M2M communications are in the automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare, metering, POS/payment, tracking & tracing, remote maintenance & control, and security sectors.
Augmented Reality
The advent of smartphones and Tablets will provide Augmented Reality (AR) with a suitable platform for its mass usage. Till 2012, most of the usage of AR in mobility was limited to location-based and navigational applications. But, evolution of image recognition technologies and further developments in mobile computing will power the development of a wider range of applications that promise to take AR use to next-level and dilate its usage across the corporate ecosystem. Augmented Reality as an enabling technology will spread its wings in 2013 across industries- from media to education and healthcare to entertainment.
Mobile Device Management – The security cover
| Among organizations which have not yet deployed an MDM solution, 32% will deploy one in 2013 and additional 24% plan to deploy one in 2014• Enterprise applications with augmented reality elements are expected to account for the third-largest proportion of revenues by 2015. — Juniper Research• The leading factor (34%) cited for deploying an MDM solution was the potential for loss of intellectual property• Among respondents switching to a new MDM platform, 31% indicated that they would likely select a cloud-based solution. Of those, 55 percent said they would choose a private cloud solution for security reasons
• The top three reasons cited for choosing a cloud MDM solution were: Source: Osterman Research |
The proliferation of smartphones and Tablets of all sizes, platforms and functionalities, the gold rush for apps in enterprises coupled with adoption of BYOD strategy has led to deluge of security threats for enterprises. Securing critical corporate data hosted on mobile devices and accessed outside company’s network will drive enterprises to invest more in MDM solutions in 2013. According to Gartner, Inc., over the next five years, 65 percent of enterprises will adopt a mobile device management (MDM) solution for their corporate liable users. However, MDM in its present form will only be a step towards secured environment. As more data related threats emerge, we can see a much robust and broader approach towards mobile security in enterprises.
Mobile Payments – The cashless economy
Google Wallets, Squarebucks and payment services from mobile operators; mobile payments that started to heat-up in 2012 will continue the momentum and gain wider traction in 2013. For consumers, it is getting more convenient paying through mobile and enterprises are willing to meet the new demands of consumers. However, as more and more people use mobile for payments, the opportunities for security breaches and frauds will grow, calling for a fresh approach and robust technical infrastructure.
Consumer Experience – New rules of engagement
2012 saw enterprises adopting mobility to engage with its consumer base. The buyers’ aspirations too have risen to a level where they want their device to help them shop. Till now, for most of the companies, mobility was restricted to providing consumers an alternate access to its products & solutions. 2013 will set new rules of consumer engagement as companies use enabling technologies like Augmented Reality, context based searches, Near Field Communications, and mobile payments etc., to offer immersive experience.
2012 was a pretty eventful year as mobile became a disruptive force in enterprises. 2013 is expected to be a major turning-point in enterprise mobility. An year that can well decide the course for the future. Let’s see how it unfolds.
Big Data, Small Screen
We are living in a connected age and computing has made information superfluous, organizations are having zeta bytes of data at their disposal and the challenge is how to best leverage those data?
Mobility on the other hand has got the business world addicted to information on the go, executives are getting used to making decisions on the fly.
Big Data solutions help process those zeta bytes of data to get actionable insights and mobile devices make this insights available in almost real time for businesses, effectively increasing the efficiency and decision making process.
As a mobile app development company working with various enterprise clients we have been observing the data centricity in almost all requirements in every possible aspect of business. Whether it’s about designing some marketing campaign, sales force enablement, inventory management for retail units or executive dashboards – data is the key to a successful business app.
It is becoming increasingly important for mobile application companies to develop expertise in big data technologies, as the future clearly spells the convergence of big data and small screens.
At [x]cube, we have been creating apps that integrates and analyze huge volume of business data, however, we realize that there are business that are looking for big data solutions beyond mobile apps. We have now established, [x]cube DATA , a specialized team that will be catering to various industry segments with state of the art big data technology.
At [x]cube DATA We have developed capabilities in all major big data technologies and would be providing custom solutions for industries across a wide spectrum. Leveraging our existing competency in mobile [x]cube is now uniquely positioned to offer big data solutions for small screen.
[x]cube LABS to participate in 2013 International CES
The biggest electronics show CES 2013 is just round the corner. From January 8-11, 2013 at Las Vegas, Nevada, the gems, the giants and the newbies from the electronics industry will all gather on one platform to contemplate and deliberate on the latest trends, technologies, products, practices, and upcoming challenges. At [x]cube LABS, we see it as a perfect occasion to interact with the various stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem, understand the swiftly changing landscape and explore business opportunities. We will be represented by a high-level delegation led by our CEO Mr. Bharath Lingam, and comprising other senior executives from the company.
If you too are attending the event, then please drop by and visit us at booth no-25301!
Augmented Reality Apps: The future is real + virtual
A study by Juniper research predicts enterprise applications with augmented reality elements to account for the third-largest proportion of revenues by 2015.
![Mobile Augmented Reality Apps - [x]cube LABS](https://d6fiz9tmzg8gn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/AR.png)
Augmented Reality (AR) has gained a lot of lot of traction, in recent times, as an enabling technology in the mobility space. The proliferation of powerful smartphones and later tablets has presented AR with the right vehicle to take center stage in enterprise and consumer mobility. As a result, we are witnessing a huge interest in AR technology and its growing adoption in enterprise-level app development and there is much more in the near future.
Our cover story, this month, focuses on Augmented Reality with specific reference to enterprise mobility and endeavors to explore the seismic shift, drivers, opportunities and challenges of adopting the new technology. We also look into the future to understand how AR will shape-up mobility in the coming days.
What is Augmented Reality?
Ronald Azuma’s widely referenced definition of AR explains Augmented Reality as systems that have the following three characteristics
1) Combines real and virtual
2) Interactive in real time
3) Registered in 3-D.
In simpler words, AR refers to a technology that blends real and virtual world in real-time through suitable computing interfaces. For a user, it offers a real-time view of the immediate surroundings improved or enriched with digital information. One example of Augmented Reality use in enterprises can be a medical equipment manufacturer launching an app that allows its sales team to provide 3D demonstrations of its entire product range to doctors on a smartphone or a Tablet. Similarly, AR can be used by car manufacturers to visualize and design a car body and engine layout. A mobile AR app can be built that allows employees to try and build digital mockups of the car body and work on its design, share it with other relevant people and then arrive at the final design.
The Transformation
Augmented Reality failed to took-off in enterprises for many years due to lack of supportive infrastructure. The advent of smartphones and Tablets provided it with an appropriate platform for its mass usage. But still, most of the usage was restricted to location based and navigational applications. However, evolution of image recognition technologies and further advancements in mobile computing powered the development of a wider range of applications that promises to take Augmented Reality in enterprises to next-level and dilate their usage across the ecosystem. Today AR has its usage across every industry vertical- from military to industrial, and from education to entertainment.
The Key Drivers
There are several factors that are driving the AR usage in enterprises.
The advent of AR-supportive smartphones and Tablets in enterprises is the major driving force that provided the necessary infrastructure for the technology to grow.
With the costs of AR capable mobile devices going down and advancements in the AR technology, the costs of employing AR into apps has also considerably reduced, further encouraging enterprises to try it out.
Increasing mobile internet speed and adoption is another factor that is encouraging the usage of AR apps beyond limitations of time and space.
In the last few years, we have also witnessed the rise in m-commerce with every big and small brand making its presence felt in the mobility space and providing consumers with access to their products and services. Brands in search of providing interactive and superior shopping experience to consumers are leveraging on AR.
The Benefits
Provides rich, interactive and engaging user experience.
Aids in boosting brand perception among customers.
Helps in customer buying decisions.
Provides access to the soaring smartphone markets.
Relatively economical in comparison to other media alternatives.
Detailed analytics and data to understand user behavior.
SELLING WITH AUGMENTED REALITY
Likelihood To Buy?
After viewing the 2D printed display advert, out of 100 parents, 45% would consider buying the toy for a child. Out of those who viewed the augmented reality experience, 74% of the parents would consider buying the toy for a child.
Attitude To Price?
Out of those parents that viewed the printed advert, the average price of £5.99 was attributed as the estimated retail value of the product. Of those parents that engaged with the augmented reality experience, they estimated a higher average price of £7.99.
Advertising Engagement?
Parents spent an average of 12 seconds actively engaged with the print advert. Those parents using the augmented reality experience did so for an average of 1 minute 23 seconds.
The Challenges
There are, however,a number of social,economic and technical challenges that need to be addressed for AR apps to gain any significant traction in enterprises. It is early days for AR apps in mainstream and hence there is little public awareness on its usage and benefits. Brands releasing AR apps have to educate its audience so that they can make complete use of the AR capabilities in apps. Secondly, AR is heavily hardware dependent i.e. it requires good-quality cameras and sensors; which in a fragmented smartphone market with varying device sizes and capabilities would be difficult to standardize. Moreover, to boost the usage of AR apps, challenges like user interface, demand for engaging content that can provide value to consumers etc., too need to be addressed so that AR moves beyond the gimmick to fully engage the customers.
The Opportunities
Augmented Reality offers tremendous opportunities for enterprises to leverage from it both, internally and externally. Here a few ways through which enterprises in different sectors can use mobile AR apps
Travel & Tourism: AR based GPS apps can provide directions to tourists. Translations apps can help them read and interpret signboards and menus in foreign locations. Sightseeing apps can be built that provide location-based information on the display of the device. The tourists can walk through historical sites and museums with key facts & figures presented on the screen of their smartphone or Tablet.
![Augmented Reality Developer - [x]cube LABS](https://d6fiz9tmzg8gn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/lg_wikitude.jpg)
Source: Androidcentral.com
Healthcare: AR apps can enable medical students to use surgical techniques on virtual body parts of the patients. 3D visualization aids in the apps can be used to see and explain complex medical conditions. AR can also be integrated with other medical equipment like X-ray, MRI scanners etc., to provide comprehensive details of a patient’s condition.
Source:augmentedrealitytrends.com
Manufacturing: AR can help in creating a simulation environment that can assist in product designing process. Simulated environment can also be used to train employees. The maintenance team can get superimposed images and relevant information to help detect defects in big machines.
![Augmented Reality for Maritime Industry - [x]cube LABS](https://d6fiz9tmzg8gn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TWNKLS-augmented-reality-for-Maritime-Industry.jpg)
Education: AR capable navigation apps can provide directions to various places in the campus. Schools can use AR generated 3D visual models to explain science and mathematical concepts. Markers can be used in text books which provide additional information or play supplementary videos when scanned with AR capable smartphones.
![Augmented Reality for Education Industry - [x]cube LABS](https://d6fiz9tmzg8gn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/layer-reality-browser.jpg)
Source:personal.kent.edu
Commerce: AR apps can provide complete preview of products and customization of options. For example, apparel stores can provide preview options through which buyers can actually see how a particular apparel design looks on them. For promotion, AR supportive materials can be designed which when scanned through a mobile device provides additional information about the product.
![Augmented Reality for Commerce and Shopping - [x]cube LABS](https://d6fiz9tmzg8gn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Augmented-Reality-Shopping.jpg)
Source: augmentedrealitytrends.com
Sports & Entertainment: In sporting events, AR can be used to overlay advertisements into the playing area. AR imagery and markers can be used to explain the techniques and strategies involved in the game. AR based games can provide gamers with real-life experiences in combatting an enemy or while racing cars. The use of AR in movie-production can result in a unique viewing experience with viewers finding themselves amidst the characters.
![Augmented Reality for Sports and Entertainment - [x]cube LABS](https://d6fiz9tmzg8gn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/augmented-reality-iphone-football-concept.jpg)
Source: augmentedpixels.com
Our Recommendations…
AR is the future: Be it for internal usage or external , enterprise apps will surely become AR capable in the days to come.
Understand the technology: AR apps have their own advantages and limitations. Build an effective strategy that optimally and effectively utilizes the technology without compromising on your brand strategy.
Focus on user experience: Ensure an engaging, user-friendly and interactive experience.
A long-term roadmap: AR technology and its application in enterprises are swiftly advancing. With time, the benefits from it will also improve. Allow it to gain critical mass.
The Future
Being an enabling technology, AR can take enterprise level apps into the next level. In the next few years, as the usage grows and further advancements in the technology are made, novel ways of deploying AR in enterprise mobility will be explored and experimented with. In the future, innovations like integrating brain-wave data with the AR environment, Google’s Project Glass etc., if successful, will give birth to more meaningful and effective utilization of AR in mobility. What we are seeing today is just the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to come.
Mobility in 2012-The year that was.
The world of mobility is evolving at a rapid pace. Each year it’s getting speedier, powerful and better. 2012 was no different where we have witnessed mobile devices and solutions take many steps forward. Our latest infographic “Mobility in 2012-the year that was” visually summarizes the highlights of the year in the mobile landscape, the growth story and the gainers and losers. The infographic tells you with facts and figures on how the mobile ecosystem has grown this year.
To view the complete infographic and for a high resolution image click here. Re-tweets and feedback will be highly appreciated!
Our other infographics-
mHealth-Mobility in Healthcare
Enterprise Mobility-Apps, Platforms and Devices
The evolution of mobile operating systems