How to Mitigate Business Risks During Mobile App Development

Business mobile apps can bring a lot of growth to companies, but they also come with a lot of business risks. Getting started can be a tricky game — especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Whether it’s being used for a B2B web platform, internal tools or a B2C mobile app, you can find usage and drive business to any outlet of your choosing. It’s easy to see why companies might be eager to get started, but it’s important to consider the potential risks that come with the commitment of creating a mobile app.

While we’re going to take you through each of these risks, we’re also going to tell you how to avoid each and every one. All it takes is a little planning and preparation.

Read on to learn more.

Before you learn potential risks and how to mitigate them, it’s best to understand where they can stem from.

Having an established plan, setting boundaries and communicating expectations are important to do from the very beginning of your project, especially if you’re working with an app developer. Lacking proper communication and expectations can result in failure later down the road.

The other place these risks can stem from simply depends on who you’re working with. It’s best to look into third party reviews or expertise on any company you’re wanting to work with before making any final decisions. You can even schedule consultations and get quotes from a few different developers before you make your final decision. 

So, now you know where risks can stem from, but how can you work to mitigate them? Here are some risks to avoid:

This is a big thing to remember. Overwhelming yourself with small details or being nitpicky from the beginning is something that should be avoided at all costs. Not only can it lead to burnout, but it can slow down the entire app development process.

How can you avoid it, though?

As things are taking off, it’s best to prioritize your concerns. While the small details matter, it’s best to focus on the most crucial points of your app’s functionality before diving headfirst into all the nitty-gritty. Realistically, the first release of your app should be the minimum viable product (MVP).

This not only gets the product into your client’s hands but also allows them to start using your app and providing feedback. You can then use that feedback to improve upon what you’ve already created.

While doing too much can present a potential problem, so can being completely unprepared. It’s best to create an outline of the things you want your mobile app to accomplish, and then work off that outline to achieve these goals. This plan should encompass the time before, during, and after your company’s mobile app launch.

You probably already have a vision for your app, and this outline is going to help bring it to life, but it’s also going to ground your plans down into reality. Let’s face it, not every app is going to serve a greater purpose, nor is it going to do well in every market.

What does work, however, is keeping your vision in mind while creating something that still benefits your target audience. That’s the best way to get a large return-on-investment (ROI) for your app.

You can do this by describing your target audience in detail, performing market research, obtaining user feedback, ensuring you have a plan for ongoing preventative maintenance.

This one plays back into not having a plan. Setting unrealistic goals is going to all but ensure that your app doesn’t do as well as you hope, or simply fail altogether. A big thing way you may find yourself directly contributing to this is by setting your standards too high, or misinterpreting what success can look like for app development.

You can avoid this by taking a step back and dividing those goals into chunks. What’s the most important one for you to reach upon launch? What can you set aside for updates that come later down the road?

The best place to start is with your app development team. A decent digital agency isn’t going to let you set unrealistic standards for your app or its launch. It’s not going to make huge promises and guarantee to fill them.

The truth is, nothing is guaranteed when it comes to an app’s success.

You can, however, project realistic numbers based on your current following, analytics, and even how much reaction you get from your audience. An expert can turn those numbers into something tangible for your app and its success.

What you can do is communicate any end goals to your app developers, and they can work to tell you what’s realistic from the get-go and what isn’t. Here are a few examples of realistic goals:

While the specific numbers you’re going to gain cannot be guaranteed, you can set these goals and work to achieve them from the beginning.

Platform selection is another thing that deserves careful consideration. Which platform you decide on is going to depend solely on your business, its needs, your target audience, and even integration and security requirements.

The thing that usually leads to negative platform selection is a lack of planning, but that’s easy to avoid.

The number one thing to consider is this project’s specific needs. Arbitrarily selecting a platform, or simply using the same one you have in the past is a bad idea and can lead to a world of struggle.

For example, if you have an app that requires integration with location services, then a mobile app would be preferred. If your clientele base is filled with one-time users, however, then focusing on a web app might work best.

This is another place where working with your development team is crucial. Be sure to communicate clearly with them, and consider your target audience’s preferred platform. Your development team is going to be able to tell you the risks and advantages that come with each platform, and they’re going to be able to help you make the best decision possible.

Remember, don’t assume. Conduct a market survey if you don’t have specific answers, but get as detailed as possible with this step, because it can make or break your mobile app’s success.

Risk avoidance is easy to successfully carry out when you have a realistic number set for the potential traffic you’re going to see.

This point goes back into planning for the right platform. If you have the wrong one, or an inadequate one, then you’re not going to be able to handle large amounts of traffic if you forecast for that on launch day.

If you aim too high, however, then you’ve probably wasted time and money on ensuring you have enough space for the traffic you’re simply not going to see.

This might seem like an obvious thing to keep up with, but it’s surprisingly easy to get backtracked when it comes to regular and effective communication with your development team. Not only is it up to them to provide you with regular updates, but it’s up to you to check in from time to time — especially if they’re not updating you.

Avoiding this issue is fairly simple to do. Set up a schedule before things start moving forward with your app. From there, set dates for the app development team to update you. These can be as frequent or as infrequent as you’d like. You can attend daily meetings, or you can set up face to face conversations once every two weeks.

The end goal here is to keep communication constant so there aren’t any surprises later down the road, and so you know your development team is keeping up with your expectations.

It’s also important that other stakeholders stay updated as well. This means people like the designers or the marketing team. It’s going to ensure things stay on track not only throughout development but also throughout your launch period.

The most important thing you need to develop a successful app is resources. Without resources, you have no way of building, developing or sharing the things you want to see in your app. There’s also no way of knowing whether or not customers are going to be happy with what they were provided.

This can look like not having enough on-staff support to handle the development of the app, or even realizing halfway through development that you don’t have the resources you actually need, which can lead to spending too much time and money on the entire project.

You can either hire enough talent to ensure there’s an in-house team that can carry the app’s development from beginning to end, or you can outsource and bring in a team of experts that specialize in that area.

The right team is going to have enough resources to carry you from beginning to end without a hitch, and they’re going to help ensure that things get done smoothly and efficiently. They’re also going to be able to provide you with talent as needed, rather than you having to hire a new person as things come up.

Not only is this going to save you time, but it’s also going to save you money and ensure that you can stay on your budget. Some of the most successful companies around take advantage of outsourcing whenever they can because they know it works.

Outsourcing to a separate team is going to ensure that you have access to experts in whatever service it is that you’re needing. Instead of onboarding individuals or hiring freelancers, you can hand the task off to a separate firm to ensure they get the job done.

From there, they’ll bring you options and you can make the final decisions. You can work to set up timeframes for each hire, or you can hand over the reins entirely and oversee the app development itself.

With whatever decision you make, outsourcing is going to make app development easier and it’s going to help mitigate business risks over the long run. With a bit of preparation and a lot of thorough planning, you ensure the success of your business over the long run.

When you take these business risks into account, it becomes monumentally easier to know exactly what it is that you shouldn’t do when you’re developing a mobile app. Building a plan or framework around the entire process can make things easier for you in the long run, but it’s important to remember that things do veer off the rails every once in a while.

You don’t have to follow your plan exactly. In fact, you may find things changing a lot throughout the entire process. It’s best to adopt an open mindset and trust that your app is on the right track.

If you’re ready to mitigate business risks with the help of top-notch Sydney app developers, look no further than EB Pearls. Contact us today to get started.