The Great Challenges of Digital and Mobile Applications in 2021

Between the novelties linked to mobile, the need for digitization related to the COVID-19  pandemic, and mobile General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance requirements, many challenges await the mobile application development area in 2021.

With the pandemic, which is unfortunately still present, digitalization efforts are both national and international and are affecting all sectors of business, including small, local business owners. More than ever, the objective is to access information at any time, quickly and easily. Mobile applications fully meet these various challenges, so the mobile applications race has begun.

I am proud of having more than 10 years of experience in mobile development. My role at CTG is to support our key account customers in the development of mobile applications, helping them overcome challenges related to the development and continuous improvement of their apps.

My daily role is to ensure the quality of the mobile applications entrusted to us. The quality of an application depends, above all, on the production of excellent deliverables and adherence to good development practices: code review, incident monitoring, SLA guarantee, monitoring of indicators, etc.

The deployment of the Agile methodology—daily, sprint planning and review, retrospective, backlog refinement, etc.—and collaborative tools such as JIRA, Confluence, GIT, Zeplin, and Microsoft Teams, have allowed us to quickly adapt to constraints related to lockdowns and to a 100% remote workforce without any service interruption.

As Operations Director, I am in charge of managing projects in an Agile way. This includes finance follow up, features planning, monitoring the team, and anything else that needs to be done. I am therefore the technical and functional link between the product owner and management.

I am also in charge of the system's continuous improvement strategy: leading workshops to identify areas for progress and improvement planning, analyzing customer and user feedback, and defining product roadmaps.

The continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) approach makes it possible to increase the frequency of application distribution by introducing automation at the development stages: integration, distribution, testing, and deployment. This approach ensures automation and monitoring throughout the application lifecycle.

The human aspect remains paramount, and as such, I must guarantee the maintenance of skills, in particular through an integration plan for employees. This includes monitoring their abilities, continuously training, and developing a strategy of knowledge sharing and backup.

We are also working on the security of data storage on mobile terminals and are carrying out security audits for our clients’ mobile applications.

Today more than ever, user privacy and data usage is a major issue for any mobile application that leverages user data. Apple recently released iOS 14 and announced new measures such as the App Tracking Transparency framework, in which Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) will no longer be available, and the new display of the App Privacy, which describes how the application uses data. Privacy issues are clearly addressed in this new version of iOS.

A reprieve has been granted to mobile marketing players until the beginning of 2021, so now is the time to do what is necessary. 2021 also means the appearance of new GDPR regulations that will notably concern mobile, which is why our teams have explored this subject for our clients.

If these topics are a major challenge for your organization, do not hesitate to contact your Business Manager or send an email to [email protected].

You can also consult our mobile services offering on our website, and we will be happy to discuss these topics.