Business application development has one purpose: optimizing an organization’s numerous workflows. This could encompass helping managers and employees prioritize tasks, automating mundane tasks, taking care of marketing, or human resources. Business applications help you optimize your internal and external processes, making life easier and more comfortable.
In today’s world, the question is no longer why develop a business app, but when. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of business app development to give you a head start on your next project. Let’s jump straight in!
Table of Contents
What Is Business App Development?
Business applications can be defined as digital solutions designed to streamline an organization's external or internal operations and processes. The apps can be either third-party ready-made solutions or fully custom products created by expert vendors. They can be accessed through dedicated mobile apps, the cloud or hosting platforms, web browsers, or even intranet infrastructures, which continue to remain relevant for businesses.
Typically, custom business application development will include all traditional parts of application development, from requirement setting through research to actual development and launch. The main difference between readily available and tailored business solutions is that they can be calibrated to address your organization’s specific needs and will be better at handling the increased workload as your business continues to grow.
Types of Business Applications
As mentioned above, these custom or off-the-shelf solutions can handle a wide range of tasks based on specific business and industry needs. Experts usually categorize them into the following main types:
- Productivity apps
- Customer relationship management (CRM) apps
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP) apps
- Project management apps
- Accounting software
- eCommerce platforms
- Human resource management applications
- Communication and collaboration tools
- Marketing automation software
Productivity Apps
Productivity applications mostly help with internal processes, aiming to help teams create different assets such as databases, presentations, graphs, documents, worksheets, audio clips, and video material. In addition to assisting staff to perform their assigned tasks, these solutions can also aid in collaboration and communication.
A great example of a productivity app is Figma, a collaborative interface design tool that enables multiple users to work on the same project, letting them see and discuss changes in real time. Other well-known examples are Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Apps
CRM applications such as Salesforce, Zoho, and Pipedrive help your sales teams manage interactions with both current and potential customers. These apps offer a wide range of functions, such as contact management, sales tracking, lead management, sales analytics, comprehensive reporting, and even integration with marketing automation software.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Apps
Just like ERP consultants, these solutions offer a digitized way for organizations to oversee and centralize their everyday business processes, like accounting, project management, procurement, compliance, supply chain operations, and risk management.
Apps like Oracle ERP or SAP offer several benefits for businesses such as improved internal process visibility, centralized data, enhanced data security, organized workflows, and scalability as your business grows.
Project Management Apps
Project management software like ClickUp or Teamwork does exactly what the name implies: helps managers and team members monitor and update different workflows and tasks. These apps aim to streamline project organization and collaboration between employees and external and internal teams. Most solutions also provide features such as time tracking and comprehensive project reporting capacities, helping teams with analytics and project timeline assessment.
Accounting Software
Accounting solutions offer various bookkeeping services, helping track expenses, generate financial report, and manage transactions. Comprehensive systems such as Quickbooks, keep track of a company’s assets, revenues, liabilities, and expenses.
The system keeps a record of every financial transaction, enabling you to generate monthly, quarterly, or annual financial statements, from cash flows, through stakeholder equity, income statements, and balance sheets. Usually, these solutions are available as components of a larger ERP system.
eCommerce Platforms
Solutions such as WooCommerce and Shopify enable you to turn your website into an online store and sell your services and products online. These apps also offer inventory management, payment processing, and more.
For instance, WooCommerce is a plugin that turns your WordPress website into an online store, enabling you to customize your pages, manage your products and catalogs, oversee orders and inventory, use different payment gateways, and integrate different shipping methods. The plugin also offers content creation tools to help with your marketing and SEO efforts.
Human Resource Management Applications
HR management apps are excellent for streamlining HR processes like onboarding, payroll, recruitment, employee performance, management, and more, contributing to a well-rounded strategic HR management approach.
Solutions like BambooHR offer a comprehensive list of HR features and keep all employee data in a unified database. It also boasts analytics and reporting features that can help eliminate mundane tasks and free up your HR team’s time to focus on more creative endeavors.
Communication and Collaboration Tools
Slack, Skype, and Microsoft Teams are great examples of communication applications that help employees communicate with one another, regardless of their location. These tools are invaluable for remote or hybrid businesses but can also be handy and effective if you are outsourcing some of your operations.
Marketing Automation Tools
This group includes apps that help with automating different marketing tasks, including lead generation, social media posting, or email campaigns. Solutions like MailChimp and SocialSprout offer a range of automation features, such as setting up and executing email campaigns, and comprehensive marketing reporting. They even support faster content creation with the help of generative AI solutions.
The Benefits of Business App Development
While we’ve primarily focused on off-the-shelf solutions, custom software development typically offers more tailored features and streamlined processes.
A custom app is designed and developed to meet the specific requirements of your brand and business needs, with scalability as a key consideration. While the initial costs may be higher, you ultimately receive an app that is exclusively yours, eliminating concerns about monthly fees and expiring licenses.
Business application development provides several additional benefits:
- Increased efficiency: In the cases of ERP, CRM, HR, and marketing automation software, you can automate repetitive and mundane tasks, save time, improve workflows, and reduce the chances of human error.
- Improved data management: Nearly all business applications allow you to store pertaining data in a centralized location, enabling better organization, faster access, and analytics. Comprehensive reporting features can also offer valuable insights from the compiled data, enabling you to make smarter business decisions.
- Better collaboration efforts: Robust tools such as Slack offer several integrations with other apps, turning a simple messaging tool into a comprehensive productivity app that can improve several workflows besides communications.
- Scalability: Custom app development lifecycle usually occurs with scalability in mind, meaning that as your business grows, the app will be able to adapt to its shifting needs, often allowing you to easily expand its functionalities.
- Cost savings: Streamlined operations, the reduction of human errors, optimized human resources, and data-driven decision-making can all reduce overhead costs and boost revenue.
Business Application Development in 6 Steps
How do experts develop these custom business applications? Let’s explore the different stages of the development lifecycle.
Research
In this first stage, you and your stakeholders usually determine the type of application you’re looking for and highlight the primary goals you want to achieve. Then, together with your development team, you define the scope of the project and perform the necessary industry and user research.
After all the requirements, basic features, and work scope have been established, it’s time to create a detailed project roadmap with estimated timelines for deliverables, milestones, and resources.
App Design
In recent years, design-thinking or the design-first approach has become increasingly popular, meaning that designers prioritize wireframing first, along with the information architecture and UX and UI design tasks. This approach allows development teams to accommodate the technical aspects of the application, ensuring that the user experience, navigation, and ease of use remain uncompromised.
App Development
This is the process of creating the actual app, where developers write all the necessary code, build the essential components, and define the business logic that controls the application. At this stage, developers will also integrate your application with other alternative systems and your existing infrastructure to improve data organization, interactivity, and overall usability.
Comprehensive Testing
Software testing consists of different methods that assess the application functionality. Depending on the type of application, this phase may include functional testing, which examines whether the final product meets the predetermined functions and requirements expected from it. There’s also performance testing, which assesses whether the application can handle the workload it was designed to do without freezing or crashing.
This stage may also include user acceptance or UAT testing, where end-users (most likely your teams) use the application to spot any issues testers may have missed.
Deployment
At this point, the application is ready to be fully integrated with your systems and enter your organization’s workflow. Together with your development team, you will choose the right hosting option so the app can perform optimally and scale together with your business over time.
Right before deployment, teams may need adequate training to use the application properly to avoid confusion and initial errors.
Continuous Maintenance
To keep your app performing optimally, you need to maintain it regularly. Frequent security monitoring may be a major concern if you use an app that heavily relies on online features or is accessed via different devices with different IP addresses. Constant monitoring helps locate system vulnerabilities and address them before a security breach happens.
In addition to this, regular maintenance can help you assess whether you need to expand the functionality of your app and integrate it with other, more advanced systems.
Business App Development Takeaways
Developing a business app can be looked at as creating an extension for your business and allowing customers to connect, especially if you are running an online store. Or it can serve as a helpful internal tool to make complex processes more streamlined and less error-prone.
No matter how you look at it, organizations can only win with sophisticated app development. It can help them nurture customer relationships and stay afloat in an increasingly automated business world where no space for errors and mistakes is allowed.
Business App Development FAQs
1. Is app development necessary for every company?
No. Smaller businesses may be able to streamline their processes without the help of applications, and others may do well with off-the-shelf solutions. In other cases, businesses may not have the necessary resources. However, for larger, and international corporations, custom ERP and HR solutions may help with everyday operations, and ensure compliance in cross-globe settings.
2. What are the most useful business applications?
The answer will depend on the needs of your organization and the challenges it faces. As mentioned above, larger businesses may need comprehensive ERP and HR applications to help them manage their budgeting and staffing. A brick-and-mortar store may opt for a feature-rich eCommerce platform to create another source of revenue.
3. How long does app development usually take?
Typically, app development may take anywhere from six months to over a year. However, everything depends on the project’s complexity, platforms (web, iOS, Android), app features, and your available resources.
