One-Third Of Organizations Used More Than 5 Mobile Business Apps In 2014

2nd Annual Canvas Mobile Business App survey indicates organizations rapidly building and deploying multiple mobile business apps

33 percent of organizations used more than 5 mobile business applications in 2014, while 68% of organizations were able to build a mobile business app in one day or less, according to Canvas’ 2nd Annual Mobile Business Application survey of business and IT decision makers.

The Canvas 2015 survey was completed by more than 1,600 decision makers from a broad range of company sizes and industries that have historically relied heavily on paper forms and manual processes, most prominently construction and contracting, field services, retail and distribution, healthcare, manufacturing, and government, and transportation & logistics.

“Organizations are not only using multiple mobile business apps, but also building and deploying them to their mobile workforces faster than ever before – an indication that businesses of all sizes are shifting from expensive, resource-intensive custom app builds to cloud-based mobile business app solutions,” said James Quigley, CEO and co-founder at Canvas. “The survey results also reaffirm that when organizations are able to easily share and learn from data collected via smartphones and tablets across the mobile workforce, the cost savings and productivity benefits can be significant.”

Key Survey Findings

• Organizations using multiple mobile business apps – Two-thirds of respondents indicated their organization used 1-5 mobile business apps in 2014, and a robust 20% of organizations used 10+ mobile business apps last year.
• Organizations saving money converting manual processes to mobile apps – Of those tracking their cost savings, 17% saved between $25,000-$100,000 annually switching to mobile apps, while 81% indicated cost savings between $1,000-$25,000.
• Mobile apps still used most heavily for inspections and work orders – When it comes to specific tasks businesses are using mobile apps for, inspections (52%), work orders (35%), checklists (20%) and surveys (20%) remain the four most popular – as was the casein last year’s survey.
• Signature capture and image capture popular features – The 2015 Canvas survey also tracked, for the first time, which mobile business app features organizations have used in the past 12 months. Image capture (56%), signature capture (52%), workflow (23%) and GPS (22%) were most popular.

Use of Core Business Applications
64 percent of businesses see value in integrating core business applications – such as Dropbox, Square, Salesforce, and Quickbooks – with mobile devices and tools, up 1 percent from last year’s survey. That said, significant usage gains were experienced by Box and Google Drive for cloud storage, and PayPal Here for credit card processing.

About Canvas

The survey of Canvas customers, conducted March 25th – April 7th, 2015, included companies from a broad range of industries and sizes. Of the respondents, 28% were from businesses with 500+ employees; 26% were from businesses with 101-500 employees; 19% worked at organizations with 26-100 employees; and 27% hailed from small businesses with 25 employees or less.

Canvas is transforming how companies collect and use business information through their cloud-based software service and mobile app platform. With customizable apps for smartphones and tablets, Canvas enables businesses to replace expensive and inefficient paper forms and processes, requiring no programming or IT. Canvas enables businesses to collect information using mobile devices, share that information and easily integrate with existing backend systems. Canvas also offers the first mobile business application store of its kind, allowing businesses from diverse industries to find mobile forms specific to their needs. For more information, visit http://www.goCanvas.com.