According to the State of the Connected Customer Report, 75% of the workforce says their personal technology has changed their expectations for work technology. With more connected technology on the market than ever before, consumers have developed a mentality where they expect more personalized, connected experiences and such a mentality has carried over to their work lives. To understand what such a connected mentality means for enterprises and their employees, we surveyed CIOs and IT leaders to predict the future of mobile in the workplace come 2025.

Productivity apps will be a high-priority

Mobile technology and mobile apps are key factors in business productivity. Of the CIOs and IT leaders we surveyed, 74% agreed that the lack of mobile access to business applications, data and content will slow business productivity in 2025. Alternatively, a report from RingCentral found 68% of workers toggle between more than ten apps per hour at work, and 69% of workers waste up to an hour of productivity each day (or 32 days per year) navigating their workplace communications apps. So how do you build smarter, more focused applications that actually boost productivity? 

We asked Salesforce Lightning champion and Admin, Melanie Zilles, about the key things to keep in mind when strategizing new apps. “I think it's super important to get the users involved. Ask them what is most important to them while they are on the road. Are there specific things they do that they would never do while sitting at their desktop? Find out what that is, and accommodate for it.”

User-feedback is critical to app development

Getting your users involved in the app development process is not just a great way to ensure the app meets their needs properly, it's also a good way to take a look at processes that might be slow or overly-complicated. 

For example, when we began the process of building our internal request app, Concierge, we asked employees how much time they spent during their first month of employment filing tickets to get access to things they needed. The answers surprised us. We learned they were spending hours filing tickets when they could have been learning the ropes of their new roles. Due to the high number of tickets filed, our IT and Provisioning teams struggled to keep up and needed a more efficient way to organize their workflows. 

With the creation of Concierge new hires, along with our IT and Provisioning teams, are more productive throughout the day. New hires can find the information they need by using the Concierge app from their desktop or mobile device and they can log tickets that are automatically routed to the appropriate teams.

Mobile app developers won't be hard to come by

57% of the CIOs and IT professionals we surveyed disagreed with the idea that finding mobile developers in 2025 will be harder than it is today. While 48% of IT organizations have a significant mobile developer skills gap, low-code development platforms combined with strong citizen development programs can help organizations get around this by alleviating IT departments that are being bogged down with many, low-priority tasks, and supporting the needs of admins without the need for additional employees. Citizen development provides training and education for non-IT teams, enabling them to build the apps they need using low-code. 

Enabling your admins and other non-IT teams to build apps using low-code means you can develop a mobile strategy that meets your needs regardless of the size of your business. And when it comes to getting your admins involved in app-building, it's even easier to close the loop. 

Admins like Melanie are instrumental in building apps for their organizations and running testing to ensure the apps work the way they're supposed to. “Do your due diligence and test extensively,” she says. “Find out what may not be working yet and make sure you find a workaround. As admins we always try to strike a perfect balance between keeping a clean org and maintainability and functionality.” 

Download the Future of Mobile report to learn more about the mobile trends that are top of mind for IT professionals today.