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Cape Town - Slow deployments of applications present a real risk to companies as they ignore the move toward mobile at their peril, new research shows.
According to research by OutSystems, a rapid application delivery platform (PaaS) provider, the overall majority of companies have a serious backlog in terms of application development.
"The survey revealed that 85% of companies have a mobile backlog of between one and 20 applications, with a majority (50%) having a backlog of between 10 and 20 apps. With the average application taking at least three and up to 12 months to get out the door," said OutSystems South Africa director Craig Terblanche.
The study, titled Mobile App Backlog is Directly Damaging Revenue in the Enterprise, found that while almost all companies recognised that mobile application development was important, they had serious shortcomings.
At least 63% of respondents said they had between 11% and 25% open vacancies for developers as a percentage of current team size, and over one quarter (29%) had as high as between 26% and 50% open vacancies.
OutSystems told Fin24 that results of the study are sourced from other countries, but the company is planning to do a South African specific survey.
Data demand
"To make matters worse, as demand for mobile app developers grows, companies will continue to have a challenge hiring developers. Not only will they be increasingly hard to find, they will also be increasingly expensive," said Terblanche.
According to the GSMA Mobile Economy 2014: Sub-Saharan Africa, unique mobile subscribers in the region are set to pass the half billion mark by 2020.
"The mobile industry has transformed the lives of millions of people across Sub-Saharan Africa, providing not just connectivity but also an essential gateway to a wide range of healthcare, education and financial services," said Anne Bouverot, director general of the GSMA.
And those people in the region will demand data as they conduct internet e-commerce, consume rich media, and engage in social networks.
Retail vouchers make it easy for people who don't have credit cards to buy digital content. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)
According to data from Ericsson's Mobile Data Traffic Growth report for 2013 to 2019, the region's data appetite is expected to grow at 65% to 2019 and beyond.
Put into perspective, mobile data in the region was at 37 000 terabytes (TB) per month in 2013, and that will jump to 76 000TB by the end of 2014, on its way to a mammoth 764 000TB by the end of 2019.
"It's clear that organisations are struggling to deal with a deluge of mobile app requests, multiple platforms to support, hundreds of change requests, and complex backend integrations," Terblanche said.
Budget, time constraints
The focus on mobile applications means that developers in SA specifically and on the continent in general have to be capable of building apps that reach the demographic.
A South African student team recently won an international competition aimed at developing a networked society and sponsored by global communications giant, Ericsson.
Team WorkMode earned €25 000 in prize money at a ceremony in Sweden and was selected from over 300 representing 63 countries.
Worryingly, OutSystems found that companies take between three to six months to deliver an application, with a small percentage (6%) taking one year.
Terblanche argued that the slow process due to budget, skill and other constraints may see firms lose their competitive advantage to more nimble rivals.
"This may sound harsh but the new economy is an app economy, especially in Africa."
Watch this video that explains how to build cross-platform apps.
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