On May 5^th, after the announcement of the SAP-Apple Partnership was published Mike Ettling, the president of SAP SuccessFactors tweeted:

The Apple – SAP partnership leverages the role of mobile applications in the business world and transforms the mobile work experience for business users. The reinvented and new iPhone and iPad apps will let customers access the rich data in their enterprise systems and reinvent how work gets done on the go.

The huge market of the mobile workforce (+1 billion) creates an enormous opportunity for HR organizations to boost the productivity and satisfaction of the employees by bringing HR processes closer to their daily jobs through the mobile applications. HR must meet a growing demand for employees to be able to access employee self-service capabilities and for managers to be able to view key HR KPIs, analyze their workforce, and have access to their direct reports’ information, anywhere, anytime. SAP SuccessFactors has been fulfilling the need by mobilizing HR data effectively and securely and helping organizations to maximize the return of their investment in HR solutions and make a workplace of flexible, engaged and productive employees. Now, the new Apple – SAP partnership will help SAP SuccessFactors to redesign the existing iOS apps and experiences so all the functionalities are integrated and take advantage of the full potential and the latest capabilities of iOS. SAP SuccessFactors apps empower users to access the critical data, processes and user experience they need to make decisions and take action on the fly.

iOS as one of the most popular mobile operating systems provides a secure and easy access to native mobile applications that empower ever-expanding mobile workforce and their ubiquitous utilization of mobile devices all around the world.

Today, 98% of fortune 500 companies deploy iOS devices and 76% of global business transactions touch an SAP system, these numbers prove the importance of the new partnership between SAP and Apple. This partnership motivates us to think deeper, one more time, about the importance of mobile applications, the usage trends and the evolution of native iOS apps in particular.

To have a better understanding of the mobility trends and the technology is going, let’s review some statistics and information.

• The number of global mobile users in 2014 exceeded the desktop users and started a new era for businesses adopting the mobile design approaches.

• iOS applications play a major role in the growth of the mobile market. As of June 2015, 1.5 million mobile apps were available in the Apple App store. The number of apps downloaded from the Apple Store reached the 100 billion mark for the first time in June 2015 with the total number of 25 billion iOS app downloads in one year.

Cumulative number of apps downloaded in Apple store

• On the other side, we shouldn’t forget that it is estimated that 25 percent of apps downloaded by mobile app users worldwide, were only used once during the first six months of ownership.

Only consumer grade applications with intuitive, simple and interactive design can engage the users and satisfy their high-level expectations in this very competitive market.

• In March 2016, business apps were the second-most popular category, with a share of 10.31 percent of active all apps being business apps. Business category is closely followed by the education category, Lifestyle, and entertainment. These last two, lifestyle and entertainment, have a broad market reach as they both had about a 78 percent reach among global iOS mobile users as of March 2016.
• The percentage of time spent on mobile web and apps on connected devices in 2013 and 2014 reveals the user preferences. In 2013, 80 percent of all time spent on connected mobile devices was spent on mobile apps and in 2014, this share increased to 86 percent. These figures reveal that users prefer to spend their time on apps rather than the internet when using their mobile devices.

Users, worldwide, are looking for applications that are purpose-built for native mobile use cases to get their job done whenever and wherever they are. Business users and HR organizations are not isolated from this trend. They need reinvented HR applications that boost the productivity of the employees by maximizing the user engagement. The applications should be humanized to retain the users, keep them involved and simplify the business processes in the digital economy and help the businesses to thrive. This reinforces the value of the integrated mobile high-quality user experience and highlights the need for it to be a much more strategic prioritization than a single functional initiative would ever accomplish. In short, if you are not reducing your organizational and daily process complexity across the enterprise and consequently in your enterprise mobility strategy and execution all the way through to the end-user experience you will be left behind. (source: IDC, Nov 2015).

The new partnership between SAP and Apple will bring innovative ways for iPhone and iPad users to manage their business operations, HR processes and workforce collaborations running on SAP SuccessFactors powerful native iOS apps.

For more information about the Apple – SAP partnership check the press release here.