Author posts Alex Bakman

With the advent of smartphones and tablets,business has changed forever. In fact, new mobile technologies have influenced the interaction of businesses with customers, bringing service to the next level. According to San Francisco-based research firm Flurry Analytics, the use of mobile apps grew by 115 percent last year.Many companies continue to realize apositive impact of mobile applications for businesses in different industries.

The inventory industry is no exception. Smartphones and tablets with mobile business apps have also become an invaluable tool for inventory management, offering inventory applications as a very affordable and convenient solution. Thus, for instance, as consumer behavior always determines how products are marketed, “warehoused” and sold, businesses had to start offering their customers the option of making purchases right from their mobile devices.

First of all, it is necessary to explain how the inventory industry operates and what it represents. Inventory or stock refers to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate purpose of sale. Inventory management is a science primarily about specifying the shape and percentage of stocked goods. It is required at different locations within a facility or within many locations of a supply network to precede the regular and planned course of production and stock of materials.

Bookshops, coffee shops, florists and a lot of other businesses of any size need to manage inventory. Inventory management is a real task when you deal with a lot of different products in your business. The management of your inventory should be tied directly to the flow of business, from the ground up. Moreover, this should be done efficiently as there is no other way to know what is coming in, what is going out, and what needs to be replenished. Luckily, these problems can be solved with well-designed mobile inventory applications.

Benefits of mobile inventory apps

Collect and access accurate and up to date information anytime and anywhere. Save time

It’s much more convenient to collect essential data in one place and be able to use it anytime. Thanks to mobile apps, you can view your inventory levels, sales orders, and other pertinent inventory information on demand. Moreover, you can create, retrieve, and edit inventory data entries on the go. Thus, for instance, you can access necessary information while discussing orders with customers on your shop floor, attending meetings or trade shows, and visiting suppliers. In addition, mobile inventory apps enable its users to employ bar code tracking, thus improving accuracy and saving time. Moreover, such feature as bar code readers on the handheld devices can help one in the data collection process, eliminating unnecessary bulky equipment. Mobile inventory apps contribute to fast employees’ communication thanks to their mobile devices. Different chats and networks for employees allow them to reduce time for obtaining and providing information.

Improve operational productivity

Mobile inventory applications enable users to carry out a variety of common warehouse and shop floor transactions at the point of use, increasing mobility and convenience. For example, they increase warehouse worker productivity by using mobile applications in pick, pack, and load processes. They also allow keeping everyone- from the truck driver to the transportation plannerinformed about execution. Thus, for instance, a truck driver can update the other participants of the supply chain on the delivery status within seconds after the delivery.

Eliminate paperwork and go green

Inspectors from inventory industries have to deal with lots of paperwork every day. That said, it is not safe to store important data on paper as it can cause data damage, loss, customer disappointment and more. A mobile business app is a tool that will help improve the inventory process and, in particular, eliminate paperwork. Moreover, you can save all useful documents on your device. Snappii offers Inventory Anything App, which allows entering and storing data. Thus, all folders with documents are placed in your device.

Snappii, an ultra-fast codeless mobile app development platform, offers several inventory mobile apps that contain all of these benefits. Snappii’s ready apps can be 100% customized using a powerful and feature-rich WYSIWYG cloud-based editor. Thanks to our unique platform, mobile business apps can be built without coding in a few days, not months.

“It took about 2 weeks from the first draft to until the final app version. I thought that was good considering the time difference between AU and US. The costs are reasonable. The app is good. Nothing more you could have done. Thank you!” said Brett Cousins, True Blue Plumbing Inc. Visit https://www.snappii.com/ today, request a free demo, and see for yourself. You could be the next one to share your success story of using our products or services. Getting a high quality custom mobile business app is very easy, fast and affordable. Act now and get ahead of the game.

There is a huge potential in mobile apps for sales & marketing nowadays. With the help of such apps we can eliminate a lot of useless daily routine. What are these apps we are talking about, and why are they so convenient and easy to use?

When you work in marketing, you have a lot of on-going things to deal with; you have to collect and process huge amounts of data, following up with people on e-mails and other message services; sometimes you have to collect data offline at a trade show or a conference, and you must do all of that quick and efficient, saving company`s time and money. The more data you collect, the more paper you use, but if you switch to a mobile business application, you will reduce paper usage to a minimum.

The thing is we live in a modern age now; you can do all different kind of activities using nothing but your mobile device, so what is the best way to engage in this race of modern technology in no time? To build a mobile business app, of course! To be precise, an app, built with no programming at all, to facilitate the process of developing and saving a decent sum of money would do just fine. What kind of Sales and Marketing app do we need to start luring people with a wave of a magic wand?

According to a study by Hipcricket, mobile marketing is growing fast, involving more users every year. They report that nearly 66 percent of respondents have received a text message from a brand, and 45 percent found that useful. It is easy to observe that marketers consider mobile platform as a needful component of the marketing operations. Here we are talking not only about general promotional messages; also it is vital to stress the point on such a case as personal promotional messages. Most of the surveyed people stated that these messages still don`t feel very personal, they look more like spam and aren`t relevant to their interests. Why is this happening?

Nearly forty-one percent of participants said they were ready to share more information with companies via mobile apps. The lack of such information produces these strange “personal” notifications and messages. You can`t make a beneficial offer without having a database of clients` preferences. With the help of this data, we can develop an algorithm to send out more personalized, customer-oriented messages to boost up people`s interest in your company or brand. Whatever business you have, it is always good to have a mobile business app, but for what purpose? Honestly, the variety of choices is infinite. You are able to build one with no coding at all. You can`t even imagine what people did with the help of mobile apps.

Remember that time when you actually had to go to the movies to buy a ticket first, or they could simply ran out of them, so you didn`t get one. But those times are long gone. Now you can buy a ticket in advance, and all you need is a mobile device. The Fandango app, a pioneer in this field whose app has been downloaded by 21 million people, is a good example of such practice. Back then, nearly 19 percent of the tickets for Harry Potter and The Deadly Hollows, Part 2 were sold via this very app. If you are a movie theater owner, you are able to build such an app yourself to increase the sales. A low code mobile app platform is a great option for saving your money and to get more. You do not have to pay programmers a fortune, nor should you wait for ages to get a beta to test. It is this simple, a fully working app in a few days or DIY.  Here comes another good example. We all know The History Channel. They paired with Forsquare to promote their TV documentary America, the Story of Us. The Channel realized that check-ins could provide a way for the network to connect with potential viewers, so they put up tips within the app with peculiar historical facts about every other location. This educational opportunity is a good example of a welldeveloped marketing practice, conducted by a proper use of a mobile service. Although Forsquare has a complicated coded app, there is a way to build such an app yourself with the help of an environment like Snappii, providing a low code, no programming approach for building data-rich, complicated, user-friendly apps in no time.

(Source:https://books.google.ru/booksid…)

Recently, a great number of such mobile business codeless app platforms have emerged. Is there a need for such platforms? Yes, indeed. According to a recent Gartner research, traditional development practice is no longer effective for mobile apps. These practices are more suitable for desktop applications; mobile development is more agile and user-oriented. It differs from classic development cycle in many ways: rapid testing and development practices, smaller screen sizes, a shorter application life span, and on-going updates. Userfriendly environment is a must too. “Letting the users experience what the application will look like and building the screens on the fly with the appropriate tools will ensure that the initial build of the app looks familiar to the users and is close to what they’ll need once the application has been piloted or deployed,” said Mr. Van Baker, research vice president at Gartner.

Honestly, this is something great in building an app yourself. It is even easier with Snappii. All you have to learn is our WYSIWYG platform to start making great things. If you just want a low code app for your business, our qualified app-builders will do this for you. We cover any business, from the retail to the oil and gas and construction industries. Promote your company, establish a network of your most dedicated clients, share useful news, conduct awesome campaigns and win loyalty of your customers. A modern, convenient, and no code app is able to change your business for good; you just need to know what you want. We can do the rest. We invite you to try the Snappii Platform yourself. Simply visit us at http://www.snappii.com, click the login button in the upper right hand corner and create your own account. You will have free access to the platform for 45 days to see for yourself.

The Paper Forms Dilemma

Forms are used across industries as people regularly deal with invoices, perform inspections, schedule appointments and more. For years, paper forms have been the way for enterprises and SMBs to collect data in the office and in the field. While limited in capability, alternatives to paper forms used to be either unavailable or too expensive. However, with the advent of smartphones and tablets, mobile forms have now emerged as a more productive and more effective in-the-field option.

Tons of money are spent annually on paper for offices and field services. That leads to some disadvantages such as wasting a lot of money and facing inconveniences while working with paper. Paper forms are not practical and can get damaged or lost. In addition, it can be challenging to store and deliver paper forms. That is why it would be a dozen times easier to use electronic mobile forms instead.

In fact, mobile forms are quicker to fill out and send via email and web post mode. The speed of delivery is great and doesn’t require middlemen. The question is how to eliminate paper and replace it with mobile forms inexpensively and rapidly?

An iPhone or Android app, together with various types of forms, will greatly assist you especially if it goes about iPads and Android tablets as they are more flexible and convenient due to bigger screens.

The True Cost of Paper

Printing is now the 3rd highest office expense after rent and payroll. Combine this with the fact that, on average, a typical office worker prints 34 pages per day, of which 17% are never used. That translates to 8,840 pages per year with over 1,500 pages of waste. Businesses spend up to 3% of their revenue just on printing things through the office printer. If, for instance, your annual revenue is $5 million, then that’s $150,000 spent just on using the office printer every year. (Source: PrintAudit)

Citigroup, a large financial services company, determined that if each employee used double-sided copying to conserve just one sheet of paper each week, the firm would save $700,000 each year.

Likewise, Bank of America cuts its paper consumption by 25% in two years by increasing the use of online forms and reports, e-mail, double-sided copying, and lighterweight paper.

Why You Should Replace Paper Forms with Mobile Forms

Today more and more companies are stepping away from paper work preferring to store data on clouds and servers. Mobile forms have a wide range of advantages your company would surely benefit from.

Eliminate Errors

For the most part, paper forms are filled out by hand, increasing the likelihood of human error. Moreover, as paper forms then require retyping, the possibility of information being misread or illegible also exists.

Save Time and Money

Collecting, sending and cloud service-storage of data give companies a great opportunity to save valuable time. Moreover, these processes can be done without any auxiliary resources like rewriting or scanning paper from data onto a computer. As a result, it helps to avoid excessive administrative work.

Native Features

Paper data always has a certain pattern. But we can`t say so about mobile forms, which have several options on one workflow. A photo, a signature or a bar code can be inserted into a mobile form without any difficulties. Also, geo and time stamps on mobile devices provide a good opportunity to track a delivery.

Data Safety

Safety takes a separate place while working with data. Paper forms are not as reliable as mobile because paper can be spoiled, sent to a wrong address or even lost, while mobile forms are always securely protected.

Easy Access

Mobile forms can be integrated with other enterprise systems. In particular, you can store them as a PDF or Excel document in Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, MS One Drive or simply email as PDF and Excel documents. Also, the forms can be saved in a cloud database for access and reporting.

As you see, the benefits are huge as, besides saving a lot of time, everyone can eliminate paper usage and submit all the info by filling out electronic forms. Mobile forms not only enable customers to submit data to you 24×7 in the format you determine but also collect, store and send information from employees. Any business data – documents, photos, GPS locations, digital signatures, etc. – can be turned into a form for easy capture.

Key Benefits

Improve your workflow already today and order a mobile form app at Snappii website. With the help of this mobile business app, you will be able to easily handle big volumes of paper work and save your precious time. Snappii mobile forms are completely customizable. You can immediately begin collecting data on your tablets and smartphones. Store it as a PDF or Excel document in Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and your mobile device or simply email it as PDF and Excel document. Save it in a cloud database for access and reporting. Start with data collection today knowing that you can add powerful features at any time. We’re the only company that can make this claim.

Key Features of Snappii Mobile Forms:

•  Collect any data
•  Test and update forms
•  Store data anywhere
• Online/Offline mode
•  Add galleries and lists
• Connect to any ERPs and CRMs
• Collect signatures, photos, numbers
• Capture GPS locations
• Scan QR and Bar codes
• Add social networks
• More

Try it yourself… We invite you to try the Snappii Platform yourself. Simply visit us at http://www.snappii.com, click the login button in the upper right hand corner and create your own account. You will have free access to the platform for 45 days to see for yourself.

What Do We Have?

For a long period of time small business was struggling with a lot of inconveniences. As the technical progress evolves, customers demand a vast variety of new, advanced services. This goes for mobile platforms too. Imagine yourself being a young and promising entrepreneur with a good start-up. Back in time, to promote a business of yours, you would have to jump through hoops: different kind of advertisement in newspapers, on TV, radio and other media. Although, it is rather effective, modern world already considers this old fashioned. Needless to say, most of these services have already gone mobile.

It goes without saying that if you want to get customer`s attention, you must be flexible. It is worth mentioning that flexibility is the key to success nowadays. You have to adapt to an ever-changing environment as fast as you can, or you go off the grid this instant. This simple rule applies to everybody, but it is valuable for business people the most. As you can see, browsing Kickstarter or other trending fundraising service, an urge to build a startup or establish a small local business is tending to grow. As all these newbies are springing up like mushrooms after the rain, they need a cheap and promising way to popularize their cause. Obviously, the major factors here are time and money. This means they are not interested in spending much, but they do want to have a tremendous boost of people’s interest in their cause in no time. Is there anything that can help these people to achieve their goals, do you think?

It is about time to break cover. There is one thing that can help you for sure. As it was stated above, we are living in a new world full of technology which is a huge part of the big picture now. You are able to perform different kinds of actions using your mobile device anywhere, any time – a broadband internet connection is a plus – having only one device instead of many. This simple fact makes lives of common people easier, as far as it is vital for entrepreneurs too. Instead of working with all types of local media, you can perfectly make a no coding business app to cover all the requirements of yours. Of course, this doesn`t mean that other media is completely worthless; senior generation tends to read newspapers more than surfing the web, however, there is a huge percentage of computer literate seniors nowadays. By the way, many papers have gone mobile to decrease paper usage to minimum, so it is possible to look through your favorite issue even if you are in another country.

This applies to almost every other media nowadays. You buy a fancy new smartphone, you`ve got it all in one: phone, notebook, alarm clock, photo camera, newsstand, internet, maps, traveler`s guide, video games, television, and even a flashlight! Mobile devices are making other traditional devices obsolete, and the list goes down to infinite; the amount of various applications is growing from day to day in the blink of an eye. In other words, “All you need is phone. Phone is all you need.” Don`t forget about phablets! As a result, we have a growing need for mobile applications, and business sector is not an exception.

Why Low Code?

Low code mobile apps are useful for any kind of business: startups, small business or a big corporation. The average person spends nearly 90 minutes a day on their mobile device. It is strange, but using our mobile device to actually call people is the sixth most used function after other activities. Web browsing came top of the list with people spending 24 percent of their time browsing the web, closely followed by time spent on apps. What can we get from this situation, if we have a business to run? Let`s say, there are a lot of opportunities, you just need to use them wisely, but you have to make a no coding app first.

No matter what kind of business you have, a basic approach is ultimate for every field: from a taxi service or a lawyer company to a local supermarket. It is possible to apply an app either to promote your business among your customers, or to organize a workflow in your company, for example, with a simple inventory app you can unify the process for good. Surely, it depends on what you want form your future mobile app. The thing is how to determine what exactly people want to have in a no programming app, and how to kill two birds with one stone?

What Do We Need?

A recent survey by eVoice, a virtual phone service for small business, titled Survival of the Fittest: New eVoice SMB Survey Uncovers Evolving Trends in Mobile Apps for Business shows what kinds of apps are popular among small business professionals. According to the survey, 50 percent of surveyed people stated that communication apps are the most important type of app for their business. Nearly 27 percent of respondents have between 6 to10 business apps on their mobile device. In general, 44 percent of them are more selective and only have between 1 and 5 business apps on their device. In the same way, thirty-seven percent of people reported that the main reason to delete an app from their mobile device is that the app doesn’t perform as advertised. In addition, forty-five percent of the respondents claiming they only pay for nearly 10 percent of the business apps on their phone. The question is which kind of app is most suitable for business?

Here are some following facts:

• – Fifty percent of surveyed people report communication apps as the most useful type of apps on the market.

This represents the necessity of business communication, you simply can`t sell your services if you don`t advertise enough. That is why these apps are so popular.

• – Productivity apps rank second among the respondents. Education apps go third.

Productivity apps like Awesome Note or Evernote are great, but they are mostly developed for organizing a workflow, not promoting your goods. It is easy to deduce why education ones go third: it is always good to learn, but it is business effective only if you start selling services like memberships or additional packs.

• – Freemium model apps receive more purchases than apps without. Only 39 percent of the respondents want to buy a business app.

Generally speaking, Freemium model is a double-edged weapon. On the one hand, you don`t pay a thing. On the other, you don`t have a full functionality, and to get it you should pay anyway. If you don’t want to pay, they are going to send you all of these annoying notifications every single hour. Why not to buy it in the first place, then? To buy, or not to buy: that is the question.

• – Last but not least, fortyseven percent of people like their apps to be constantly evolving.

This means that a developer should constantly update his apps to satisfy clientele`s wishes and needs. Fixing bugs is a fine option too.

Here at Snappii we develop no coding mobile apps to suit every need of any kind of client. Our goal is to maintain a productive pace of making robust, but simple apps for a variety of businesses. Sometimes people don`t want to spend big sums on apps, time is an issue too. Choose Snappii, and you`ll get native iOS and Android apps in no time, with no additional costs. If you feel worthy enough, you can make an app yourself. It will take only few days to build a sophisticated low code app, no programming at all. You don`t have to learn all of these complicated programming languages to get a “Hello, world!” message on your screen.

Do We Have a Solution?

If you stick with Snappii, the first thing you will receive is increased flexibility of development cycle. It is easier to change and publish your business app on the go. Also, you will be able to speed up your payments, increase profits, improve data accuracy, save time, and reduce costs. Not a bad starter pack for one tiny app, is it? If you are one of those good-looking nature lovers, eliminate paperwork and go green with Snappii; it is such a promising way to improve customer service and satisfaction. “If he cares about trees, he, surely, cares about us,” they may consider.

“Every business needs a no coding app,” a bold statement worth to hold as a guideline. Whatever you are into – inspections, surveying, retail or even some serious government work – we can build an app for you. Try our apps for free and decide where to start.

Many countries around the world (and the USA is no exception) are trying very hard to provide adequate patient care regardless of physical distance between patients and healthcare providers, lack of trained medical personnel, and skyrocketing medical equipment, pharmaceutical, and service costs. Fortunately, the mobile world has a lot to offer, revolutionizing the way in which doctors diagnose, treat, and communicate with their patients. Indeed, mobile devices can connect patients with their healthcare providers, enable timely health monitoring, and give around-the-clock access to medical records and other essential information, thus improving health outcomes and lowering costs.

As mobile health applications and services are becoming an essential tool in bettering health care around the world, researchers are getting increasingly interested in how potent mobile health solutions can become in the near future. Thus, for example, New Manhattan Research Study , conducted by Decision Resources Group and commissioned by Manhattan Research, has recently found that many physicians believe in digital communication technologies, including mobile apps, as powerful tools for improving patient outcomes. According to this study, forty-seven percent of doctors owning smart phones had shown patients images or videos on their devices, and more than a third of physicians had recommended that patients use health apps in the past year. Moreover, American Food and Drug Administration has shared research findings according to which about 500 million smart phone users (medical professionals,consumers, and patients) worldwide are going to regularly access health care applications by 2015, and by 2018, over 1.7 billion mobile device users will have downloaded mobile medical applications.

“The mobile revolution is everywhere around us,” notes Joseph Kvedar, MD, an Associate Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Connected Health (CCH) at Massachusetts General Hospital and, a unit of Partners Healthcare in Boston. “It’s all about mobile now, and physicians can’t help but notice that, and they feel they have to get involved in some way.” And many physicians are surely noticing this but often hesitate to “prescribe” a certain app as they are not quite sure how trustworthy it is. “There’s a fear of liability if they don’t know what they’re talking about. So they tend to be very general and say, ‘It’s probably worth looking at this category to help you track something because you need to lose 10 pounds or you need to be more active, explains Joseph Kvedar.

That said, FDA has already started to assure safety and effectiveness of currently available mobile health applications and on September 25, 2013 issued Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff . In this document, the agency describes what medical apps it will regulate, for which FDA will exercise enforcement discretion, and what mobile apps are not considered medical devices. The FDA page devoted to mobile medical applications also lists examples of each app category and what mobile health applications have been already cleared or approved. These regulations have very important implications for the medical mobile application industry as they allow physicians to make well-advised choices while choosing healthcare apps for their patients. On the other hand, if doctors prescribe certain medical apps, these apps are more likely to be trusted by patients.

Now let us discuss specific benefits that mobile healthcare applications offer.

• 1. Medical apps give patients access to reliable healthcare information, help them manage their chronic conditions, allow patients to keep track of doctor appointments and medications, and let them find physicians and nearest hospital locations with the touch of a button.
• 2. Mobile health applications allow 24/7 access to reference materials, lab tests, and medical records.
• 3. 80% of instances of diabetes, heart disease and strokes can be prevented by better self- care, and mobile apps allowing patients to easily monitor their blood sugar, blood pressure, and weight can be indispensable tools for high-risk patients.
• 4. Medical applications let doctors and nurses address medical conditions through near real-time monitoring and treatment regardless of the location of the patient and healthcare provider.
• 5. With the ever-growing knowledge about diseases, genetics, and pharmaceutical products, it can be particularly challenging for physicians to keep up with the latest advances in medicine and apply that information to their patients. Health mobile apps that help doctors understand how to deal with particular symptoms and what drugs they should avoid can be incredibly useful, especially when doctors diagnose and treat patients in the field.

These are just a few ways in which mobile health applications can assist patients and healthcare workers, help provide better care, and lower costs. The length of this paper doesn’t allow mentioning them all, nor is it possible since the use of a mobile app highly depends on each specific case. This leads to another consideration: health care professionals are best suited for designing healthcare apps as only they know exactly what a new medical application should be like. Fortunately, codeless app platforms allow building high quality custom mobile applications without any programming skills. Moreover, such codeless app platforms as the ultrafast Snappii’s codeless platform save thousands of dollars on building a mobile application and, unlike traditional app building methods, let one deliver a polished app in days, not moths.

Snappii is ultrafast mobile app development without coding.

Snappii offers mobile apps for the healthcare industry as a convenient and easyto-use mobile solution that will save time and reduce costs, simplify medical data sharing among healthcare professionals and patients, and, as a result, will improve treatment outcomes.

Try it yourself…

We invite you to try the Snappii Platform yourself. Simply visit us at www.snappii.com, click the login button in the upper right hand corner and create your own account. You will have free access to the platform for 45 days to see for yourself.

How Mobile apps Help improve Construction Business?

Construction businesses most commonly use mobile applications for the following functions:

• – Inspection, safety and data collection(40%)
• – Scheduling and meetings (29%)
• – Keeping up on the status of projects (23%)

Why Construction Industry needs lots of mobile apps

-Improve and expedite inspections

•  •Quality
•  •Safety
•  •Compliance

-Collect Daily Log

-Inspect and track equipment and assets

• • Fleet management
• • Location tracking
• • Inspection and scheduling

-Improve data accuracy

• •Avoid handwriting errors
• •Avoid redundant data entry
• •Save money on paper and forms

-Avoid penalties with better and more timely documentation

-Improve team communication

-Collect critical data faster in the field

•  •Photo capture
•  •Audio and Video recording
•  •Note taking
•  •Bar codes
•  •Geo location and maps
•  •Date/time • Weather

-Reduce paper forms and eliminate clipboards

-Speed up project estimation with real time data flows

-Track and monitor equipment assets locations

-Improve work force management and task assignments

What do Mobile apps cost?

A survey of IT professionals conducted in 2013 by AnyPresence revealed that over half of its responders spend more than three months and over $50,000 developing a typical app and nearly a quarter report spending over $100,000.

Snappii offers many mobile apps for the Construction Industry

• • Purchase in App Stores at $5 per user/mo. Free version.
• • Custom or customized apps development. Avg ~$5k
• • DIY codeless platform

Snappii apps cover nearly all aspects of Construction Management

What customers are saying

Kim, at Hyster and Yale brands of a Fortune 1000 company

“At Hyster, we integrate intelligence into our lift trucks and we wanted to deliver that same level of technology with our information for this app. Snappii provided a unique technology platform that enabled us to deliver this comprehensive app to the lift truck industry.”

There are a lot of frustrated business people out there who want to get mobile apps for their business but can’t. If they have IT departments and when they ask for app development, they are reminded about how many other projects the company has and are told about the backlog of apps that are yet to be done ahead of them.

In every organization there is a severe shortage of programmers and especially the mobile app developers and it is not about to get resolved any time soon. In fact it is getting worse. Requests continue outpace supply and it is a real bottlenecks for business people.

That’s why many business people then try to find programming resources outside of the company. When they bid the app development out they often get sticker shock how much a domestic company wants to charge them. I personally heard many stories about six digit price tags for relatively simple apps.

So the search inevitably brings them to consider app developers in South or Central America, Eastern Europe, India or China and other places. The prices seem a lot more reasonable and there are plenty of app developers ready to take on your projects.

That said, buyer be aware. This approach is riddled with problems and more often than not you will not get the app you want. Let me highlight a few problem areas

• 1. Language barrier. It is hard enough to clearly express yourself to a developer here in the States. What one person says and the other hears can often be 2 different things. Now imagine how much worse it is trying to explain to someone whose native tongue is not English. If you are developing a business specific app that requires some understanding of what the business is all about your offshore developer will most likely have no clue about your business because she or he has never been exposed to such business which may not even exist in their country.

• 2. Time zone difference. Unless you are dealing with Central or South America the time window to interact with your developer by voice is really short. In many cases just a few hours so a day or no overlap at all. The day may have just started for you and it is really late for your offshore developer. How attentive do you think he or she is going to be?

• 3. Specs are never complete enough or good enough. If you have done a lot of software development you know that no matter how comprehensive the specification you write. it is never complete. It is practically impossible to capture every detail and nuance of what you want the app to do. Yet when you are dealing with an offshore developer your main way of communicating will be using specs. When you start reviewing the prototype apps you begin to realize that it does not do what you have envisioned in your head.

• 4. Cultural differences. You will very likely encounter a difference in taste when it comes to use of color, graphics, and language. This is very normal as there are huge differences in people’s preferences around the world. Even more important is cultural norms when it comes to telling the truth and saying “no”. In some countries especially in Asia saying “no” is not culturally ok. So when you ask about task status you often don’t get the straight scoop. You think your app is finished and then you get an unpleasant surprise.

• 5. Transferring Business specific knowledge. Very often we take for granted how much domain specific knowledge we possess. We If you have been in a certain industry for a few years, you have learned a lot of specific business details which you may not even realize you did. Now you want to create an app which will automate a business specific process. You will have to spend a lot of time educating your offshore developer about this business process. The more specialized your business is the more challenging this will be as your offshore developer may not even seen anything like your business because it does not exist in his or her country.

Empowering Ordinary Business People to Make Apps Themselves

Software development technologies have improved a lot over the past 40 years. Computers have gotten much faster and they have plenty of memory. It is no longer necessary to code programs in hard to understand, symbolic languages with strange syntax that only programmers can decipher.

The age of visual application development has arrived. It is now possible to let anybody. Not just the programmers, to build apps visually by simply picking the needed features and assembling them visually using a drag and drop approach. You simply draw what you want on the screen and it is the platform’s job to generate the code to transform your “picture” into a working app.

Over the past 4 years my team and I have developed such a system. We call it “Snappii”. (www.snappii.com) It has been used any thousands of people and today it is by far the most powerful and flexible visual app development platform on the market. Short of making games, you can build any app you want using Snappii.

What makes it so powerful is that it has a lot of built-in features such as:

• No limitations on how your app looks. You have 100% control over UI.
•  Create Tablet specific apps or universal apps
•  Database service on device, in the cloud or inside a company.
•  Ability to present information in lists, galleries and maps
•  Data collection and reporting
•  Ability to do any calculations
•  Integration with Social networks
•  Ecommerce and payments
•  Bar Codes and QR Codes scanning and processing
•  Automated submission to App Stores
•  Immediate App updates on thousands of devices
•  Generates native Apps for IOS and Android systems as well as HTML5
•  View and generate PDFs, watch YouTube, Capture photos, locations, GPS etc.

With Snappii anybody can build app 30X faster than programming them in native languages and since changes are inevitable, you can make the changes yourself. You don’t have to wait for anybody

We welcome you to try Snappii for 45 days at no cost. Simply register here on Snappii.com. We offer live human support to assist you every step of the way and help you build your app. Visit us today!

The App Dilemma

• Users want more apps than IT can realistically deliver
•  Mobile App Developers are
  •  hard to find
  •  expensive
  •  want to work for Google and Apple
•  100s of thousands of Enterprise Windows Applications and Web Apps need to be reworked into native Apple an Android
•  Build native Apps is hard programming. It is not HTML

How to solve it?

•  Some people think HTML5 is the answer, but
  •  Cross browser differences
  •  Performance issues
  •  Security issues
•  More training ?
  •  Low level programming takes many months Avg 3 to 6 months
  •  Will it really address the backlog of apps?
•  Offshoring?
  •  Language and cultural issues
  •  Time zone issues
  •  Loss of control
•  Onshore Outsourcing: Too expensive

Leaders have found a solution

•  Gartner Analyst Richard Marshall in “Adapt a Bimodal Approach To Mobile App Development Strategy” recognizes the need for codeless, agile app platforms
•  Salesforce.com spent 75% of Dreamforce conference talking about and promoting their codeless platform called Lightning
•  Kony is betting their company on a new offering called the “Modeler” which is a codeless app platform
•  Snappii has offered a codeless app platform for the past 4 years

What’s the buzz about Codelless?

•  Codeless App Platform
  •  Visual assembly of app components: drag, drop, configure
  •  “Canvas painting” and not templates
  •  Configuring rather than coding
  •  Business people can use, not just programmers
  •  Cloud based
  •  Generate native apps
  •  Automate deployment and updating
  •  Should be feature rich and complete
  •  Should have built-in connectivity to system and data

Codeless Platform Advantages

•  Speed. Apps in days, not months
•  Rapid prototyping to gain user acceptance
•  Used by all: Business Analysts, Project Managers, Digital Marketers
•  Ease of maintenance and updating
•  Gets users to focus on solving business problem
•  Great at new and unproven projects
•  Saves massive amount of $$$

Come see for yourself

•  Ask us for a Demo. Email sales @snappii.com or call 603 651-0066
•  Let’s “livebuild” any app you need in the demo
  •  We build it app in the browser you see it run on your device
•  Go to Google or Apple Appstores and search “snappii”. We have built over 80 business apps. We can customize them for you in a matter of days

Mobile devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) help to improve the effectiveness of the employee labor. The owners of small business are distracted with the absence of special mobile business apps. They confirm that with the help of such mobile business apps, there can be an effective company administration.

As mobile has become an integral channel for many business activities, it is emerging as a preferred platform for learning and knowledge sharing. Mobile platforms are disrupting all kinds of activities and processes, and putting a whole new twist on employee productivity, customer interactions and partner collaborations.

These days it seems like everyone is building mobile business apps — not just consumer mobile business apps, but mobile business apps for the enterprise, too. Google and Salesforce.com, for example, are making hundreds of APIs available, and developers are seizing the opportunity to build on these as more businesses migrate to the cloud.

Everyone has a Smartphone, but Tablets are becoming the device of choice as workers are increasingly going mobile while conducting their business. The challenge once again is that the device’s usefulness is limited by the lack of business productivity Apps. A quick review of both Google’s and Apple’s app stores will prove this point. While there are lots of games, the number of business Apps is lacking in both variety and functionality.

So what’s a business person to do? They know going mobile presents significant opportunity to streamline business processes generating real savings. They also know it presents a real opportunity to further engage with their customers and in doing so drives the top line. But IT departments have been slow to react either by choice or lack of relevant resources. There are simply not enough mobile app developers to go around. This generates a backlog of App requests and unless you do something the bottleneck will not go away any time soon. Furthermore, if you are a small business without an IT department your only hope is to look for a generic App in an App Store which you may or may not find.

Alternatively, you can try the route of custom App development. Unfortunately, finding and hiring mobile developers to build your business App is both time consuming and expensive.

Outsourcing offshore is another alternative but that is fraught with risk, difficult to manage, and results in loss of control at a minimum.

According to a recent Gartner research app development teams will have to employ practices that are different from traditional app development, because there is a big demand from business companies and it puts increasing pressure on IT organizations to deliver large numbers of mobile business apps.

So, it`s not difficult to come to a conclusion that there will be a mobile business apps boom soon. Every business needs mobile business apps. It`s the easiest and quickest way to improve the business process with the help of one button click. The high technology is developing rapidly and it`s hard to imagine how many mobile business apps will be created and customized all over the world.

In such conditions there must be a unique platform without any coding while creating mobile business apps. Today there are already many powerful platforms out there and new mobile app development platforms continue to appear every day. Obviously, mobile app developers are not enough, the Enterprise market is ready for mobile business apps and app developers cannot handle this growing demand. That’s where the mobile app development platforms will be taking over and supply the market with mobile business apps.

Businesses are rapidly moving from software to more flexible mobile business apps. They are now asking app developers to create low-cost, user-friendly, and smart mobile business apps, like the ones installed on their mobile devices for personal use. What is more, businesses are looking for agile mobile business apps that can evolve forever, constantly adjusting to the ever-growing consumer and business demands.

Snappii has created a platform for developing sophisticated, feature rich mobile business apps without writing any code. Snappii enables programmers and non-programmers to build native mobile business apps quickly and without having to know Objective-C and Java programming. Additionally Snappii App Designers leverage the platform to offer clients full service custom app development.

Business people can, in fact, build many powerful businesses Apps without writing any code. There is no need to wait for IT or to outsource App development offshore. The Snappii visual development platform has been built over the last 3 years and offers many features listed in this white paper.

Thousands of robust business-grade Apps have been built on the Snappii Mobility Platform by business people like you.

Try it yourself…

We invite you to try the Snappii Platform yourself. Simply visit us at http://www.snappii.com, click the login button in the upper right hand corner and create your own account. You will have free access to the platform for 45 days to see for yourself.