Research: Appdome Study Reveals Sea Change In The Way Fortune 1000 Companies Are Deploying Corporate Mobile Apps

Top companies are now publishing internal mobile apps via the Apple App and Google Play stores to expand employee reach

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Dec 17, 2019, 09:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Appdome, the mobile industry's first no-code mobile integration and solutions platform, today released the results of its first study on corporate mobile app deployment trends by Fortune 1000 companies. The results show a significant change in the way corporations get mobile apps into the hands of their employees.

Twenty-seven percent of Fortune 1000 companies now publish at least one employee-facing (or B2E) app via the public app stores, with nearly a third of those companies only publishing internal apps. The Fortune 500 also is most active with publishing employee apps, accounting for 72% of the 693 internally facing apps found by the Appdome research.

"It used to be that consumer apps were published to the public app store and workplace apps were published via internal enterprise app stores," said Tom Tovar, Appdome Co-Creator and CEO. "That's no longer the case, as Fortune 1000 companies are now seeing advantages to publishing internal apps to public app stores."

Employers and employees now recognize the importance of mobile devices when it comes to workforce productivity. According to research from Oxford Economics commissioned by Samsung, nearly four in five respondents said that employees need a mobile device to do their jobs well. But only a small amount of companies provide mobile phones to all employees, while 31% of companies rely entirely on employees to bring their own devices (BYOD).

Distribution via public app stores provides three main advantages over private distribution. With public apps stores, it's easier for employees to obtain apps, more efficient keep apps updated via automatic notifications and processes, and enables the enterprise to eliminate device enrollment as a condition for using internal apps.

Types of internal workplace apps found on public app stores
The 693 internal apps published on the public app stores can be categorized according to the following use cases:

Event and Meeting Apps – 31%: Designed specifically for a meeting or event. Until recently, these were typically the only internal apps published publicly. Now, however, enterprises publish a wide array of internal apps on public app stores to enable employees, including the following
Sales processes and enablement — 21%: To accelerate the sales process by generating quotes, demoing products and helping with product selection
Operational processes — 20%: To streamline and automate processes for collecting information, handling claims, confirming values on remote systems, inventory management and other workflows
Safety and training — 15%: To provide text- or video-based training programs or benefits information, and help employees find mentors, participate in rewards programs, access perks, play training games and even learn through virtual reality
Collaboration — 12%: To foster peer review, employee teamwork and overall collaboration
Partner enablement — 1%: To enable partners to register deals, confirm royalties, track shipments and access company or product news

However, enterprises publishing internal apps via public apps stores must take advantage of technologies that provide critical app security protections (app shielding, obfuscation and encryption) as well as secure authentication technology (SSO).

"The public app store has so many advantages over enterprise app stores, that it's no wonder enterprises are moving in this direction," Tovar said. "But as Fortune 1000 and other enterprises embrace public app store distribution, it's even more critical that they secure them."

To download an infographic with more detail on the results of this study, please visit https://www.appdome.com/workplace-apps-on-appstore-2020/.

About Appdome
Appdome changes the way people build mobile apps. Appdome's industry defining no-code mobile solutions platform uses a patented, artificial-intelligence coding technology to power a self-serve, user-friendly service that anyone can use to build new security, authentication, access, enterprise mobility, mobile threat, analytics and more into any Android and iOS app instantly. There are over 25,000 unique combinations of mobile features, kits, vendors, standards, SDKs and APIs available on Appdome. Over 150+ leading financial, healthcare, government, and m-commerce providers use Appdome to consistently deliver richer and safer mobile experiences to millions of mobile end users, eliminating complex development and accelerating mobile app lifecycles. For more information, visit www.appdome.com.

SOURCE Appdome