Simplifying work one app at a time

Mobile Apps are taking the world by storm, changing our lives and our businesses – and even creating millionaires overnight. David Collins might not have got to that heady stage yet – his business, NZ App Factory, is less than a year old. But by focussing

FROM CORPORATE-WORKER to companyowner, David Collins has followed his gut on where business is going next.

“My background was in IT service and infrastructure for corporates – I loved using apps, and could see the value in applying them to business processes, so decided to retrain. We launched NZ App Factory earlier this year and haven’t looked back.”

Wife Camille has since joined David on the journey, saying that work tends to spill over onto the dinner table and brain-storming sessions in the middle of the night – but she wouldn’t have it any other way. David says the market has matured over the past couple of years. “The 2012 gold rush of ‘whoopee cushion’ apps making you millions seems to have passed. Businesses realise apps can be useful tools, not just time-waster games.

“We’ve quickly realised that our ideal client is only 3% of the New Zealand market – businesses with 20+ staff. They’re looking for ways to streamline processes, and remove duplication of effort by automating their systems … apps can help them do that.”

Take a current brief for a large firm, which wants to make its sales process more efficient.

“At the moment they get leads through a web form, phone or at trade shows, and then have to email those leads around to specific regional agents. It’s time- consuming, there’s double-up, and there’s no reliable way to track when a lead converts and where they came from.”

“We’re working with them to create a central sales database, all run via an app. It does everything. They’ll finally be able to quantify the value of their leads.” A common problem, according to David, is that app developers tend to start “outside in” – that is, they build apps that look great but the processes still require hand holding or hand offs.

“There shouldn’t be double-handling of data anymore – it’s not necessary. A good app will be so seamlessly knitted into a company’s operations that it saves you time, cost, and effort. This takes careful business analysis at the first