Six Steps To Billion Dollar Apps

Since the introduction of the iPhone in June 2007, mobile apps have become one of the most transformational and disruptive developments in the history of information technology.

Picture this:  I was at the Technology Pioneers gathering at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2008. There I was, clutching my Blackberry, when we went around the room introducing ourselves. When AdMob introduced themselves I harrumphed under my breath about the folly of mobile advertising and thought that they didn’t belong in the same legion as hard core technology companies like the rest of us. It’s a good thing nobody asked me my opinion because a few years later AdMob was acquired by Google (who outbid Apple ) for $750 million. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, the global advertising and public relations giant, was sitting next to me and he made a beeline for AdMob after their introduction.

Six and a half years later, mobile apps are everywhere. While consumer-facing apps generate the most buzz and discussion in social media, the wisest companies are re-engineering business processes by incorporating mobile technology into enterprise apps. When done right, they can provide numerous benefits to corporations such as efficiency gains, improved customer service, cost reductions and better data integrity.

In the second quarter of 2014, mobile Internet investments quintupled to $5.5 billion from the year earlier period according to Digi-Capital’s Mobile Internet Investment Review. The enterprise/B2B space, while only a fraction of the overall mobile Internet market, was still a healthy $0.8 billion for the last 12 months.

Enter Alex Bratton. Alex is the Chief Geek and CEO of Lextech Global Services, a mobile app development firm in the Chicago area. Alex has documented his considerable expertise about the benefits that corporations can derive from mobile apps in his new book, Billion Dollar Apps: How to Find and Implement a Winning Mobile Strategy. He doesn’t talk about apps like “Yo” or “Tinder”, but rather functional apps that solve unique business problems—the enterprise/B2B space. The book provides a useful framework for anyone thinking about mobile apps, and it also describes how to justify their development.

“Our clients are using mobile to disrupt their industries,” says Bratton. “Take Sonic Automotive, for example. They set out to radically improve the car buying experience by creating a suite of apps that reduce transactions from a three hour process to just 45 minutes. Sonic was a $10 billion dollar company before this process change. Imagine what that will do to their revenue.”

The guidelines he offers strike me as being similar to the ones we used decades ago when I was a large account sales rep for IBM . Mobile technology today, however, creates opportunities to apply information technology in ways that have never been possible before…which brings along with it new benefits.

“Solving business problems with technology by focusing on workflows is the key today just as it was in the mainframe era,”  Bratton commented. “Process change coupled with technology is having an impact much bigger than the web did. I regularly see 70% or more process efficiency improvements.”

His book provides a six step framework for an enterprise mobile app strategy. The graphic below describes the process outlined in the book.

The book and Lextech’s website are chock full of good examples and case studies. If you’re in a position to be a change agent in your company and recommend mobile apps, you’ll find this a great resource. Maybe there’s a Billion Dollar App in your company waiting for you to uncover it.

Neil Kane (@neildkane) is the president of Illinois Partners which helps companies, universities and investors with innovation strategies and technology commercialization.