What is the Magic App?

This is a question we get asked a lot, an awful lot, far too often in fact.

The problem isn't with the elusive 'Magic App', the problem is that most businesses are trying to find it without knowing what they're actually looking for, why they want it or what they plan to do with it if they could find it.

It's all too common for businesses to try and create a return on investment after they've already paid out for the equipment and the technology is often deployed for the wrong reasons.

If everybody reading this article were to think about it and be honest with themselves, we'd wager that a good 60% would agree that they tried to find a use for technology after they'd already paid for it and in the mobile world this becomes the magical mystery hunt for that elusive magic app, and consultants like us are asked the question "What is the Magic App?"

So what should you do? You've already got the technology and you've got your management team asking where the Return On Investment is, and the hunt for the app has come up with nothing so far...

1. Plan. Don't just jump in and start pushing out 5 star recommended apps from the AppStore to your staff. Build a project plan that includes time for research, analysis, consultation, testing and most importantly measure it against the success criteria defined during your research.

2. What does success look like? Are you trying to improve efficiencies, reduce costs, eliminate double handling of data, increase your sales, eliminate data capture errors, the list goes on.

3. Look inwards. Your staff are your customers, forget what you think would be good for the business and ask them what is it that they need. You'll often be surprised about just how vocal some employees can be about apps that save them time that they're already using at work without your knowledge.

4. Don't be shy. Talk to your peers in other organisations or departments, find out what they use and what benefit it has for them, speak to the vendors at trade shows, bring in an independent consultant to look at your business without any bias or pre-conceived ideas.

5. Don't be a cheapskate. Sure there are plenty of free apps on the AppStore's that can do great things, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. You'll be paying for it one way or the other through advertising, data mining, data leakage, productivity inefficiencies or subscriptions when they change their terms and conditions.

6. Deploying the app is not the end. Businesses continually evolve, needs change and requirements can grow. It's important to review your applications and measure their impact. You may find that an application can do more than what you originally intended it for, or that you need to update it to meet a new business initiative.

Many organisations jump in without considering these basic things. We're are often told by our customers that they want to improve efficiency, which is a fantastic goal, but without knowing the costs associated with the targets audiences time, how do you measure that success?

More often then not, business don't really know how much saving 1 hours worth of time is going to benefit them, and what would their staff be capable of doing if they were given an extra hour in their week. Would they be able to make more sales, would it reduce stress and improve staff morale, would it result in more efficient travel times, would it be used to play games? If you don't know what your success criteria is before you start, it's very difficult to prove it afterwards.

So don't ask, what the magic app is and start with the star shaped peg, find out what shape the hole is first that you need to fill.