An app that stands still is an app that falls behind

Congratulations, your app is live! But do not sit back just yet. The real work starts now. An app that is live is anything but the end of the line. Your organisation, the market and the world around you keep changing. So an app that stands still is an app that falls behind. From now on, the job is to keep your app relevant, usable and secure. In this article we go through everything you need to think about in the period after going live.

Make your app more and more valuable to your users

You have a fine app, but it can always be better. By continuing to develop your app, you make sure users enjoy it more and more. These are the main reasons to keep developing your app:

Implementing requirements you postponed earlier

The initial budget may not have left room to implement everything you wanted straight away. As soon as budget frees up again, you will probably want to work through that wish list after all.

Learning from user feedback

Only once an app is in use do you really start learning. You get feedback from users, or you may notice yourself that certain things do not work as conveniently as expected. The insights you gain after launch let you optimise your app further.

Changes in the market

The market moves, trends change and users develop new expectations. How adaptable your app is determines whether you stay ahead or fall behind.

Further digitalisation and automation

An app can smooth out processes considerably and make them more efficient. As you experience the benefits, the wish to digitalise and automate even more business processes often follows.

Prevent digital ailments

Maintenance is crucial if you want your app to keep running well. Without good monitoring and regular updates, your app can develop all kinds of digital ailments. That is because the code of your app stays the same, while everything around it changes continuously. Operating systems get updates, bad actors think up new ways to attack your app, and regulations change. So your app will have to change along with them. These are the main reasons to maintain your app properly:

Monitoring outages

However stable your app is, things can still go wrong. Your app may well fail, or work badly, at a crucial moment. By monitoring the app you know about an outage immediately and can fix it quickly.

Security holes

If an app has not been updated for a long time, security holes can appear. Bad actors are constantly looking for new ways to get around security measures. At some point, older security measures are no longer enough.

Operating system updates and upgrades

Operating systems such as Android and iOS get updates and upgrades regularly. That can affect how your app works. If you do not maintain the app properly, features of your app can break.

New regulations

To be listed in the App Store or the Play Store, you have to meet certain requirements set by Google and Apple. Changes to those requirements can make changes to your app necessary.

Social media updates

You may give users the option to use social media features in your app. When logging in, for example. Those features have to stay up to date, to stop them working badly or not at all.

Do it yourself or hand it over (to us, for instance)

You can of course take on the further development and maintenance of your app yourself. That is great if you have the knowledge and the capacity in house. And if you do not? Or if you have a small technical team and want good back-up when there are issues? We can take the further development and maintenance of your app off your hands. Even if we did not build the app.

We offer several options for that:

1. Flexible support

You get in touch when you need us. We get to work as soon as we have time. You get an invoice based on the hours we have spent.

Cost: hourly rate

2. Fixed support

We agree a fixed number of hours per week or per month in which we support you. We always keep those hours free for you. We can do all sorts of things in those hours. Pick up incidents, carry out management tasks or implement new requirements, for example.

Cost: depends on the number of hours agreed

3. Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Is it important that your app always keeps working well? Then it is smart to take out an SLA. In an SLA we set out agreements about our maximum response time and the maximum time within which we resolve a problem for you. If you have an SLA with us, we always keep room free in our planning for possible incidents. If a problem arises, we drop everything to resolve it as quickly as possible.

4. Maintenance package

We explained above that maintenance is enormously important to keep your app working well. Some clients do the maintenance themselves, but you can also outsource it to us. We use JamOps to monitor your application continuously, carry out updates when needed, renew expired certificates and fix bugs when they appear.

Turn your app into a lasting success story

Running an app does not stop at launch. On the contrary, that is the start of a continuous process of improvement and maintenance. Whether it is implementing new features, keeping up with regulations or closing security holes. Continuing to develop and maintain your app is what keeps users enjoying it.