9 Considerations for iPad Adoption in Financial Services

This is a guest blog post written by Shahab Choudhry, co-Founder and Partner at Propelics, focusing on iPad Strategy and iOS Application Design and Development for the Enterprise. He can be reached at shahab.choudhry@propelics.com and you can read his blog posts at http://www.propelics.com/blog.

In my previous blog post I wrote about the various app categories that make up the app portfolio in Financial Services firms. A clear understanding of the app categories and the associated value is an important first step. The other side of the value equation is the cost associated with each category of the portfolio. The planning and implementation considerations for each category are different. As an example, security is an important consideration across the entire portfolio. However, in the case of consumer-focused apps, banks do not have to worry about deployment considerations typically associated with Mobile Device Management (MDM). Likewise the enforcement of enterprise governance and policies is applicable only in enterprise-focused apps.

For financial services firms seeking to climb the iPad value curve quickly, there are several considerations:

• Establish goals for your iPad innovation strategy. The cachet of the iPad, firms' legitimate desire to restore some coolness to their reputation, and the competitive urgency of iPad adoption understandably creates a climate of Ready, Fire, Aim. But the upshot could be costly starts and stops, along with customer and employee frustration. Take the time to understand your own company's iPad drivers and set clear goals for your iPad app innovation. But don't take too much time – there are proven frameworks for this process – you don't have to recreate your own.
   
• Make sure all parties to your innovation clearly distinguish between consumer use apps and one-on-one customer interaction apps. The former is table stakes, but the latter is money in the bank. That's not to say neglect consumer use apps – you need them to meet customer expectations, but don't look for game-changing iPad app development until you are squarely ensconced in one-on-one consumer interaction apps.
   
• Use ideation to come up with truly innovative ideas. Remember, optimizing is good but marginal. You want creative innovation that challenges the status quo by getting away from just looking at current processes. Your best ideas will come from facilitated sessions with your people who deal directly with customers (and their complaints or wishes) and from people who can look at something that has nothing whatsoever to do with a bank and imagine how to apply it for better banking. Again, this doesn't mean turning your bank into an enterprisewide think tank for iPad development. Bankers need to bank. But there are proven frameworks for deploying ideation effectively.
   
• Use concept generation techniques to visualize scenarios in your iPad app portfolio. Use storyboarding, role playing and quick prototyping to envision new ways of customer interaction around your business processes. In other words, don't take great ideas, turn them straight into requirements and toss them over the wall and expect a great app to get tossed back over. Get the full user input into the development process.
   
• Create an immersive user experience that supports the envisioned interaction. If the goal of the app in question is to help the customer understand the products and options that make the most sense for them, then don't bother the customer about the app's features and functions. They care about content. Your focus is on making the content relevant, elegantly displayed and intuitive to navigate.
   
• Don't lose sight of the technical and infrastructure considerations. Your applications need to be grounded in your mobility infrastructure. Nothing will damage your iPad cred like putting out an app that is poorly supported by your infrastructure or puts the bank at risk. Remember, your customers might well be ahead of you in using great apps; make sure you don't disappoint their expectations with technology shortcomings that other companies they deal with have solved.
   
• Have a clearly defined plan for the governance and enforcement of device and application level policies. Have a well-defined approach to handle challenges such as the handling personal vs. corporate devices, application access policies, separation of personal and corporate data, and the issues that originate from the support of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) approaches.
   
• 8. Work with the Risk Management Office to create a Security and Compliance Plan. This is plan needs to be able to address the risks associated with consumer facing apps as well as internal use apps. The plan should address the enforcement of passwords, both at the device and application level. Other critical security aspects such as; remote wipe capabilities, device locking, local data encryption and authentication, need to be a part of this plan.
   
• And finally, don't forget to prioritize and pilot. As excitement gathers around this unique source of value, it will be easy to overwhelm developers, employees, and customers. With the innovation portfolio in place, it is important to find the "sweet spot" of apps that deliver the objectives set out in the innovation strategy. Use a few of these scenarios to create prototypes to pilot. Gather feedback from customers in real world scenarios.