Only 1/3 of mobile development projects deliver—improve your odds with new research and MobileFirst

Digital transformation fueled by mobility is impacting businesses in more profound ways than ever before—it is reinventing enterprise strategy. There is an increasing need for agility and hybrid IT models to support data-hungry applications in faster development cycles. The demands on infrastructure and developers are high. Businesses need better ways to quickly deliver high-quality applications that provide exceptional mobile moments, inspiring employee engagement and customer loyalty.

We know from the last C-suite study that over 84 percent of CIOs invest in mobile solutions. Now with the latest Center for Applied Insights study of 585 developers, released this week, we also understand that two-thirds of mobile projects are at risk of failure. Yet there are four key drivers that can improve the odds of success substantially. We thought it was important enough that we’ll be sharing this research and our perspectives with CIOs face-to-face today at the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo in Orlando.

Let me spend a moment on the portent of these new insights and how they strengthen our commitment to the IBM MobileFirst Platform.

Center for Applied Insights mobile development study

This new research reveals four key drivers of mobile development project success, including:

  • Successful development teams have more mobile development experience. They also have the right business and industry expertise. These teams were 30 percent more likely to have at least one developer with over five years of specific mobile development work experience.
  • Successful teams use cloud-based mobile platforms more heavily, because they allow greater agility and flexibility and faster time-to-market. When developers can simply select the services they need from the cloud, they can jump right into the code with capabilities customized to the project. As a result, it’s no surprise that two-thirds of successful projects report using cloud APIs to assemble applications.
  • Successful developers collaborate closely with the entire ecosystem. We found that 6 out of 10 successful project teams collaborate closely with the business and with users throughout the development cycle.
  • Successful project teams don’t just pay attention to the ratings and reviews. They are more likely to analyze user behavior and gain inspiration based on what they learn. In fact, 37 percent of successful teams, of those we surveyed, are more likely to analyze social sentiment about their app.

For companies and CIOs that want to lead their industry, this research should be a welcomed endorsement of the change they’ve seen ahead, with an emphasis on a requirement for increased agility. For industry laggards, they should take note that these are market forces that are shaping which companies will lead their industry in the future. We can’t delay or mitigate these forces; we can only confront them with preparation and a strategy.

Moving into the future with mobile

Another key to the future of mobile development is working with the best new technology. MobileFirst Platform, combined with our well-received acquisition of StrongLoop, a leading provider of Node.js solutions, will help forward-thinking companies deploy the server-side capabilities for mobile applications more quickly and effectively. The industry-changing apps of tomorrow start right now. They need to address specific user roles and needs, take advantage of context awareness, analytics and cloud technology, and provide users with the information they need quickly—and in the critical moment. This is how mobile will continue to fundamentally change the ways we live and work.

This is just a taste of the future. We have much more to share.

For those who will be at the Gartner Symposium, I look forward to meeting you and getting your perspective on the new research and how you are driving mobility at your organization.

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