App'ification of Enterprise Software - Evaluating Mobile App Characteristics Enabling Online Purchase And Their Portability To Enterprise Application Software

摘要

Enterprise application software vendors seek to re-produce the success story of consumer mobile apps in their domain. Like private users, business users ask for flexible, consumer-grade applications for their daily work. However, enterprise software applications do not meet those expectations and are not ready for the u201cApp Store Modelu201d. Therefore, IT departments are facing new challenges with consumerization and u201cshadow ITu201d. Practitioners and researchers expect to counteract these issues if enterprise software was more flexible and consumer-like u2013 in other words, if enterprise software was appu2019ified. Therefore, this study investigates typical u201capp characteristicsu201d from the business usersu2019 perspective. Special focus is on the characteristics that are relevant for online purchases. Furthermore, it is evaluated if app characteristics can be applied to enterprise application software. To study the u201capp phenomenonu201d, a self-completion questionnaire and mainly quantitative data analyses have been used. The results are addressed to both IS researchers and practitioners. For IS research this study offers insights into the under-investigated topic of apps as an own concept. Enterprise software vendors and IT departments can use the results to design enterprise software which targets an employee-driven adoption using online channels or to assess existing applications and app store initiatives.