SMB Adoption of Mobile Apps on the Rise: New reports

Adoption of mobile apps by small to medium-sized businesses SMBs has been picking up in recent years, with new data indicating that 55 percent of small companies and 65 percent of medium-sized firms now seeing these tools are being "critical" to their businesses. Researchers also see increased activity among ERP vendors to provide apps that make more functions accessible to workers on mobile devices.

In two new reports, SMB Adoption Trends and Requirements: Mobile Applications and SMB Adoption Trends and Requirements: Mobile Management, SMB Group analyst Laurie McCabe details the state of SMB mobile solution adoption. The first SMB explores how SMBs are handling mobile management today, their future plans, and what they need vendors to do to better serve their needs.  The latter discusses how SMBs are handling mobile management today, their future plans, and what they need vendors to do to better serve their needs.  

"Firms are seeing mobile apps not only as a complement to their traditional business apps, but in some cases, maybe even replacing those traditional apps someday," says McCabe.

In assessing this year's findings, McCabe says 2015 appears to be the year that mobile apps become a definite requirement for firms that "risk getting left behind if they don't get on the bandwagon now." Within the ERP space, she says more vendors are developing apps that get users up and running in the mobile space. 

"We're seeing activity on ERP-related apps, including those that focus on time management, time capture, supply chain integration, inventory management, and expense and asset tracking," says McCabe. McCabe says she's also seeing ERP vendors developing business analytics-related apps that allow user to "pull up information" as they need it ...