Build or Buy?

Are there solutions available that are industry standard and work for you and your competitors equally well?

Determine what processesand assets make your company different.

What makes you different?

How you support your customers?

How you manage your supply chain?

What information you have available?

How you price your products or services?

How you sell your products or services?

How you deliver your products or services?

How you communicate with your customers and partners?

Will your requirements change?

Business, competition, politics, people, markets – even the weather impacts companies in unforeseeable ways.

What does this mean for enterprise applications? How do you prepare for change?

Do you expect your business or market conditions to change?

Do you have all your user requirementssolidly defined?

Can you implement all requirements in one single phase?

Will your users ever change their minds?

Do you have requirements from different user types, locations and business units covered?

Have you built this type of application before?

How are your users considered?

One of the most cited reasons for failed projects in enterprise software is the lack of user involvement and the inability to respond to changing needs

Are users part of the entire process?

Can users see results early and often?

Can users provide feedback easily?

Can you turn around feedback quickly?

Can users change their mind?

How to include your eco-system?

Companies rely on a multitude of systems to manage their business and automate many processes.

Many systems have been around for years and are running established back-end processes. However they often do not support the changing needs of the business and users.

Do you rely on data from other systems?

Will other systems rely on input fromthe new app?

Are multiple systems part of a

combined workflow?

How do you integrate?

Are there any other technologiesneeded to enable integration?

Do you rely on others?

Some systems rely solely on services provided and orchestrated by other systems.

While it is efficient to re-use and integrate with existing data and functionality, most enterprise systems are needed to create and manage significant data and processes.

What type of data will your app need from other systems?

Will external data be combinedwith data created in your new app?

Will users of the new app need to create or manipulate data?

Are the external systems ready to provide the web services you need?

When will you need your next app?

Businesses require new apps all the time, as the business moves forward and responds to market needs, competition and technical advances.

Am I the only one that needs an app?

After a quick and successful implementation will my users ask for more?

Will we need similar type of apps in other departments or business units?

Enterprise Apps or Website?

Do I want to have an informational intranet or document management system, or do I actually want to to collect, track, automate and analyze complex processes with significant amounts of data.

Do you have to collect, store process and analyze data?

Do you have to integrate with other systems?

Do you want to be able to customize processes and workflow?

Do you need to respond to business changes quickly?

How do I deploy the app quickly?

Deployment issues are the hidden, and underestimated cost and drag on many projects.

Where will this app be deployed?

Who will be responsible for infrastructure?

What’s the purchasing lead time?

What other software for database, server, security, etc do we need to purchase?

What if we don’t know the expected load?

What if we need multiple test environments?

What if usage changes quickly?

Who will maintain and manage deployment over the long run?

Mobile – what about the back-end?

Mobile apps don’t live on an island in the enterprise. They are a growing and increasingly important part of workflows and business processesacross a company.

How do I manage back-end data maintenance and reporting for mobile apps?

Do my mobile apps integrate with other enterprise systems?

How many different types of devices do I need to support?

How do I include activities from mobile apps in other workflow and processes

How do I manage change as my business processes change?

Do I have to treat deployment differently for mobile apps?

How to ensure great user experience?

In a world where users are experiencing more and easier to use apps than ever in their personal lives, expectations for the user experience of enterprise apps have grown exponentially.

Will customers, prospects or partners interact with the app?

Are you concerned how your app will reflect on your company’s about the brand image?

Will your users compare this app to apps they have used on their home computer or smart phone

Are users complaining about lost productivity by old, outdated systems?

Are your users interacting with others?

Will users trigger tasks or activities for other users, customers or partners?

How does IT know what’s going on?

IT teams serve a key role in organizations not only as technology innovators but also safeguarding mission critical intellectual property, ensuring compliance with regulation and enabling efficient and state-of-the-art operations.

Is everything being backed-up?

Who has access to what?

What if the sole developer of an application leaves the company?

What password policies do we have in place?

What if we need more processing, storage or bandwidth capacity?

What infrastructure software is in place – is it up-to-date?

About Mendix

Mendix is the app platform company for the enterprise. We enable companies to build, integrate and deploy web and mobile applications faster and with better results, effectively driving ROI in days not months. Learn more, join our user community and get started for free at

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