Maybe we’ve lived in the same house for too long but to me it seems the volume of paper dropping through our front door is increasing rather than decreasing.  Moving house is perhaps one way to avoid the piles (one for recycling, one for shredding, one for filing) but these days shouldn’t there be an alternative?

Earlier in the year I was at a public sector event in the UK where a presenter on behalf of a large government department (one of the biggest) admitted the war on paper (and indeed even fax machines) was still being waged.  And yet, when I look at the range of things mobile apps are now enabling us to do you could argue we’ve never been further away from such old fashioned processes.

We're getting there... 

When I arrive at the station in the morning my ticket is already purchased and on my phone, my parking is purchased with a few clicks on another app & then I can buy my coffee via a simple scan of a 3rd app.  Later that day if I want to order a taxi, submit a meter reading, transfer money or even get a price on the bottle of wine I’m drinking then I can do this with a speed incomparable to even three years ago. 

Business Apps have a long way to go 

Maybe the speed of technological change has driven us to a point where the gap between the old world and the new world has never been greater.  The truth is that most organizations have only mobilised a handful of their existing core business processes (and actually some of those applications are even now looking dated, but that’s another topic).  

One further truth is that if we carry on at this rate our existing paper or spreadsheet-based processes will very soon look as incongruous as a fax machine would in many offices.

How to become an App Company

There are many strands to becoming an app company, but the key amongst them is speed.  Apps have to become tactical and disposal not large and pervasive and they cannot be the sole domain of IT.  If building apps became truly easy maybe I’d receive less post and the war on paper could be banished to the history books, alongside those fax machines. 

I shared further thoughts on this topic and went into much more detail of the 'how' during this How to Become an App Company Webinar which you can now watch on-demand… Alternatively contact me @iawaters and I might even share my fax number.