Apps by UK law, accountancy and property firms – Are we ...€¦ · Apps by UK law, accountancy...

Apps by UK law, accountancy and property firms – Are we missing the mobile revolution?

K i m T a s s o

R e d S t a r K i m L i m i t e d

w w w . k i m t a s s o . c o m

1 s t J u n e 2 0 1 2

A short paper providing an introduction to

Apps from the legal, accountancy and

property sectors in the UK and some

guidance for those who are starting to

think about developing their own App

© Kim Tasso 2012 www.kimtasso.com Page | 1

Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 2

Early professional firm Apps .................................................................................................. 3

Property Apps ....................................................................................................................... 3

Legal Apps ............................................................................................................................ 3

Family law Apps ................................................................................................................ 3

Employment law Apps ....................................................................................................... 4

Other commercial law Apps ............................................................................................... 4

Accountants and tax adviser Apps ........................................................................................ 5

Big Four Apps .................................................................................................................... 5

Professional institutions ........................................................................................................ 6

Current App categories ......................................................................................................... 6

Types of professional firm Apps ............................................................................................ 6

Professional firm App grading ............................................................................................... 7

Potential for other professional service firm Apps .................................................................. 7

Ideas for professional service firm Apps ................................................................................ 8

Gerd Leonhard – Futurologist ideas .................................................................................. 8

My ideas ............................................................................................................................ 9

All professions ............................................................................................................... 9

Legal .............................................................................................................................. 9

Property ........................................................................................................................... 10

Accountancy .................................................................................................................... 10

App development costs ....................................................................................................... 11

Planning and design ........................................................................................................ 12

Build ................................................................................................................................ 12

A strategic vacuum? ........................................................................................................... 13

A way forward? ................................................................................................................... 13

About Kim Tasso ................................................................................................................. 16

* Mobile Web Design ....................................................................................................... 17

Appendix - Additional research information ......................................................................... 17


Introduction The mobile revolution has been revving up for a while – there are now more mobile phones in the UK

than people and UK shoppers are predicted to spend £19.3 billion using their mobile phones and

tablets within the next ten years (compared with the £1.3 billion spent today), according to research

by Barclays Corporate.

Commentators have suggested that in 10 years’ time there will be no perceived difference between

mobile and web – the phone will be the technology we use almost all of the time. Ofcom research

says 27 per cent of UK adults (about 50 million) now have a smartphone – that’s a lot of people.

Globally, more people now have mobile phones than have bank accounts and in some Asian

countries phones are rapidly replacing cash and credit cards. E-commerce is being replaced with m-

commerce.

While many professional service firms (PSFs) are still unaware that their web sites might not be

mobile*, others have already begun to exploit the opportunities by developing an App. As many early

PSF web sites were little more than on-line brochures, so it is with Apps. But the process of identifying

and developing a suitable App is not so much a marketing communications exercise but more akin to

new product development – with considerable management and technical input - not an area that the

professions have excelled at in the past.

There are already plenty of examples of firms adopting a defensive “me too” strategy – rushing out an

ill-conceived, “off the shelf” App for fear that they may lose clients to other firms who already have

one. Whilst some firms may fear that Apps are simply just another way to commoditise their services

and wipe out their markets and profits, others look at ways to use the technology to add real value,

enhance the client experience, lock clients into their systems, enter or create new markets, truly

differentiate their service and generate new sources of revenue and profit.

Where clients go, their advisers must follow. Respondents to KPMG’s recent Legal Pulse Survey

found that 45 per cent suggest their clients are showing an increase in demand for outsourcing

services. When asked to identify the top functions where outsourcing demand is high, the

development of Apps (62 per cent) topped the list.

I’ve been monitoring Apps from the UK legal, accountancy and property professions for some time.

Being a bit of a geek, I’ve even set up a spread sheet to compare their relative strengths and

weaknesses. Once you start looking seriously at Apps it becomes highly technical rather quickly, so I

thought I would share some basic information and guidance if you are an App Amateur (or App

Agnostic).

There are plenty of Apps to support professionals in their work (for example, CrimeLine Law allows

you to search 76 databases) but I have focused on those designed to provide an additional or

different service to their clients. Whilst mostly concerned with UK Apps, once or twice I have been

struck at the value of a US or other non-UK PSF App and have included information where relevant.

Here are my observations for those who haven’t looked at the topic yet to get you up to speed quickly.

There’s also some basic guidance – whether you are focusing on consumer (B2C) or commercial

(B2B) markets – should you wish to explore the possibility of an App development project at your firm.

I will continue to collect and analyse information about Apps in the professions. Please let me know if

you have any additional material, ideas, research information or experiences that might be of value to

others. I will endeavour to produce further documents with updates if it would be appreciated.

Kim Tasso


Early professional firm Apps There were some good and some awful early starts. On the good side, I liked US law firm Morrison +

Foerster’s (MoFo2Go) App. It was amongst the first. It was clean and simple but did little more than

provide a mobile directory of its people and offices. In a similar vein, there was Advisers2Go from MSI

Global Alliance which is an international group of accountants and lawyers.

On the bad side were some horrible legal Apps. There were will writing Apps with no introduction, no

explanation and no help which expected users to know what additional clauses they wanted to add!

The personal injury market had some horrendous Apps but there were one or two good ones – helpful

“scene of the accident” support that prompted you through the things to photograph and note and a

way to keep all this information together until you emailed it to a solicitor. Another did its bit to fuel the

compensation culture by showing you the range of compensation awards that you might receive for

different types of injury.

Property Apps Property folk embraced the technology early on although most did little more than provide the same

sort of property search facilities (rent or buy) available on-line - although I liked the quirky “search

properties by lifestyle” concept from Knight Frank.

The Commercial Property Database (CPD) offers agents a simple App development tool that allows

users to search for properties and then emails the agents with the properties of interest. The web site

says that the set up costs are £400 + VAT and annual cost is £300 but I couldn’t find any examples of

firms having adopted this off the shelf approach.

Rightmove (allowing for QR code scanning) and Zoopla (possibly my favourite App – searching for

properties for sale and to rent as well as providing historical transaction details – so you can see what

nearby properties sold for, area values and direct links to particulars) changed the game though.

On property management there is Property Master (the lite version allows you to track two units)

although it’s a bit basic. iPropertyMgr may be helpful to surveyors doing inspections although you

need another account which may incur fees.

I haven’t found anything on UK property law although there are US Apps on Landlord and Tenant law

(law listings).There’s also US tenant guides, Smart Landlord (£2.99) and a £1.49 US lease negotiator

App (Forlease) which contains lots of useful calculators.

More recently, estates today and Metropolis produced CityOffices for Mobile which is available for

£295 a year subscription. However, the demonstration video indicates that as well as providing a list

of all the major players in the sector (developers, agents, contractors, architects) and their

developments and news feeds this has a valuable database showing all the completed, under

construction and pipeline developments in the Square Mile. I should imagine some City agents are a

bit worried by that one.

Legal Apps As there are so many different areas of law, I have looked at Apps in some of the main categories. I

have mentioned will writing and personal injury Apps above. To avoid defamation actions, I didn’t

name the offending Apps or their creators.

Family law Apps


There are a fair few family law Apps. Some are silly but some are jolly good in terms of providing

helpful information. £1.49 secures a LegalAid divorce video – not much use now that the rules

have changed. Lawyers might like to check out the Jordan Family Law Reports which is free.

Early free Apps were from The Family Law Solicitors and Pannone.

Mills & Reeve’s DivorceUK has nice photos, a good FAQ section, questions about finance or

divorce that lead you to the relevant information (sometimes presented as a video) and the

procedure section is presented as a satnav journey.

Divorce? by OGR Stock Denton was rated as a top legal App by the Sunday Times and, whereas

most professional service Apps are free, costs £9.99. It has well organised and well written

information on a range of common topics (legal basis for divorce, divorce procedure, claiming

costs etc). Probably most helpful is the budget which prompts you through detailed budgets for

housing, car, leisure etc although this could be extended for what if and comparative analyses.

Employment law Apps Employment law fares well too. WorkRights by 36 Bedford Row (barristers) is designed for

employees who have been unfairly dismissed, discriminated against or treated badly at work and

provides a series of simple diagnostic questions with embedded definitions.

Eversheds Guide to International Employment and Pensions Law for HR Professionals allows

comparisons across jurisdictions. There are four steps – choose a category (including pensions,

family rights, TUPE, restrictive covenants, employment contracts), choose a country, choose an

issue and finally you are given your information. The ability to email the information obtained is

useful – and a lot of Apps fail to provide this most basic functionality.

However, my favourite employment App is from Squire Sanders. It has legal facts, practical check

lists and pay calculators. I really like the automatic push alerts for changes in UK legislation and

the ability to register interest in numerous (paying) training events although there are lots of areas

where you are pushed out of the App onto the web site.

As you would expect, the Penisular A-Z guide to UK employment lawyers is good – a list of

common topics (e.g. Ageism, Self certification, Social Networking etc) with clear explanations and

advice and a separate section on leave entitlement.

Other commercial law Apps Allen & Overy has two Apps. The first is A&O Connect which bears an attractive red molecular

design on the front which basically allows you to search its people, offices and practices from

menus. It’s pretty basic. The second is A&O Investment Perspectives which is about global

investment flows from publically available data. You are presented with a world map with

attractively animated bubbles indicating the world ranking for 2005 to 2010 (GBR ranked 7th) and

some short key trends. There are options for table and chart views also and a good filtering

facility. You can also download some publications.

As a patent coach, IP Guide provides a whole lot of well structured (but not searchable) technical

US legal information on copyright and patents taking you through the steps and legal definitions

and tests. It’s difficult to read as it has tiny, tiny print and no diagrams.

There are various litigation support Apps – most for the US and many linked to the online services

of specific firms. Although it lacks real functionality, I like the App from US firm Valorem Law –

and not just because it starts with the message “other attorneys would be billing you for this time”.

It has nice photos and I like its “tip of the day” (even if you can’t search them). There’s a cute


clock picture where you can tap it to smash it – there’s a gratifying noise and, with a sense of

humour, directs you to their web site for your anger management issues. The lawyer profiles

(including one for Atticus Finch!) are clear and have humour and real information about the

people and their work.

Corporate Counsel (WestLaw) is based on the magazine – and you can do simple searches – but

it only relates to US law. The same with the Litigation Management magazine App.

Accountants and tax adviser Apps There are numerous accountancy and tax oriented Apps but few are from actual professional firms.

Accountant for Ipad (£2.99) is a single column calculator with large calculator buttons or keypad. It’s

pretty basic but allows invoicing, tax returns, percentage and other calculations. ISpreadsheet costs

1.99.

There are numerous free stand-alone tax calculator Apps and some you have to pay for (e.g. UK Tax

Tool 2012 from Michael Imperato). Many accountancy firms provide tax rates and contact details as

well as calculators. I liked the colourful images on the Burgis and Bullock UK Tax Rates App. Several

of the Apps I reviewed had a suspiciously similar look and feel (e.g. Abercrombie Gemmell and

Newby Castleman and Albert Goodman). Mullen Stoker offers calculators for company cars,

corporation tax and whether to incorporate. Nixon Willliams has a tax calculator for freelancers and

contractors.

Moore and Smalley’s App offers insights into various tax savings schemes for individuals – but it looks

like an “off the shelf” App as those from Michael Bell & Co, hph and mfw (nice LinkedIn integration)

are very similar.

There’s VATMate (69p) and VAT Toolbox which is a simple calculator and VAT Number validator and

you can edit the rates. CalcVAT (69p) validates VAT numbers and you can select rates for any

country in Europe and set custom VAT rates (BBC4 MoneyBox recommends this App).

UK PAYE PAYE Salary Wage Calculator costs 69p and is produced by ListenToTaxman.com. Yet the

HMRC TaxCalc is free.

The only business start-up Apps that I could find were from banks or books or US based (e.g. VC

Money which is excellent and Small Business Finance by smallbusiness.co.uk is mainly a paid for

subscription service). There are plenty of business planning Apps – but none from accountants as far

as I can see.

Big Four Apps You would expect the bigger firms to be ahead of the game. PwC UK’s App is basically a

news and blog feed of global and commercial developments driven by blogs. They get top

marks though for occasionally including some great infomatics and the odd embedded video.

There are lots of Apps from Deloitte – uktaxmobile, Deloitte Review, Deloitte on technology,

Deloitte Insight (South African practice’s articles), Deloitte Audit Committee and so on – many

are summaries of research reports such as Human Capital Trends.

Ernst & Young has numerous Apps too – but similar to Deloittes: insights (nice use of

carousel images and numerous short videos to download), events, magazine, reporting, rapid

growth markets and TaxLawNL.


KPMG has a similar offering although it offers some slightly different Apps. It has trademarked

its KPMG VAT Quest (an interactive training game with great graphics) and KPMG Go is

about developing your personal brand and transitioning from school to the professional world.

For Grant Thornton I could find only simple Apps for non-UK territories.

Professional institutions I had thought that the professional bodies would lead the way – especially the RICS (Royal Institution

of Chartered Surveyors) as its global brand is so strong and its marketing is highly acclaimed – but I

couldn’t find one (although the Society of Chartered Surveyors in Ireland has Rebuilding Cost Guide).

There is a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Journal iPad App – I expected this to only be

available to those who subscribe to the magazine but it allows you to download a sample edition in

exchange for an email address – that’s smart marketing and good lead generation.

The only Law Society App appears to be that of South Australia which looks like a basic directory.

The ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) has the Financial Reporting

Faculty. The ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) has various Apps (produced with

Chartered Education) to support those studying for its examinations.

Current App categories The success of legal, accountancy and surveying driven Apps may be thwarted by the categories that

are used by App sales platforms such as iTunes. For example, the most likely categories on iTunes

are reference, business, finance and lifestyle.

The Sunday Times Apps list is a little more helpful – with a section on legal Apps although it has a

consumer focus as you would expect. Currently there are only four Apps listed here:

Which? Your Rights A pocket-sized legal guide FREE

SpeedUp Conveyancing Keep track of the house-buying process £1.19

Divorce UK Helpful, jargon-free legal guidance FREE (see above)

AutoWill A DIY will kit for your iPhone £4.99

Types of professional firm Apps Looking at all the apps I have found in my searching, it was relatively easy to start categorising them

into types:

Directory – Listing organisations and/or people

Information/reference – Glossaries, processes and explanations of situations. The legal and tax rate Apps are mostly in this area.

Calculator – Entering values and having various tax rates or statutory rules applied to calculate rates, liabilities or due dates.

Form filling – Either to automate a process where you usually seek advice from a professional that then does the job or is sent to a professional for consideration or to capture information about a particular situation (e.g. a car accident) where the information is effectively generating a lead or enquiry for a firm.

Diagnostic – Some of the form filling Apps have progressed into diagnostic aids that then present the information required without too much further effort from the user


Database search – Typically for the property where GPS is harnessed

Integrated – Few are integrated with an online application to provide, for instance, details of an existing matter or case, the ability to link to the relevant people in your professional team or information on work in progress or billing. But I suspect that these Apps exist but are not available for public inspection. These would, of course, be the most valuable to professional firms as they would effectively offer something different to clients, become a vital day-to-day tool and “lock in” the clients to the firm.

The following diagram summarises the current range of functionality:

Professional firm App grading When web sites started appearing, there were numerous analyses of the quality of those web sites

with various criteria for assessing their relative strengths and weaknesses. I have not finalised a

grading system for Apps but I currently take into account the following factors:

Information content

Information presentation (including multimedia)

Ease of use

Interaction/User experience

Processing capability

Novelty

Professionalism

Fit with organisation’s strategy and brand

No doubt other criteria will emerge as the technology develops and the market matures. It feels like

the exercise I did when professional firms started using web sites – progress was slow and shaky to

start and then accelerated.

Potential for other professional service firm Apps Other sectors seem pretty switched on with Apps – for example, many major trade events have their

own Apps to support delegates navigate conference programmes, exhibitors, personal itineraries and


maps of the local area. There’s no reason why the same couldn’t be done for technical legal

conferences for in-house lawyers.

The professions could do well to explore what’s happening in other sectors and to consider those

Apps which – as consumers – they find most useful. Most of my heavily used Apps are either for

news (national and sectors), social media, journey planning, online shopping (what would I do without

my Amazon App?) or productivity aids (notes, to do lists, organising).

I’m not a great gamer but I can see huge potential for using some of the concepts and approaches

here in helping people navigate tricky personal or business situations where they might historically

have gone to a professional adviser for help. There are some cute Apps simulating a discussion with

a psychotherapist – the technology used to recognise key points in natural language might ultimately

be used to virtually emulate discussions with professional advisers!

Ideas for professional service firm Apps The impact of technology on the professions is well documented – particularly for the legal market in

the work of Richard Susskind. However, I was also intrigued to hear Gerd Leonhard, a leading

futurologist, speak recently. Much of what he says seems to me to be directly relevant to future

product and service development in the professions – and the potential for Apps.

Gerd Leonhard – Futurologist ideas He talked about the changing relationship between organisations and customers noting that we are

now all part of the chain of communication and all content creators as well as content consumers. He

noted that despite the incredible amount of free information on offer, people still pay to access their

preferred information sources – because they trust the source, value the filtering or prefer a particular

way of packaging the information.

He suggested that information providers need to find new ways to add value all the time particularly

with the loss of “default expert” status – indicating that “sharing is the new owning”. He mentioned the

famous McKinsey report which warned those industries that are still trading on information

asymmetries.

And he suggested new value paradigms where you might offer something free to capture a large

audience and then concentrate on encouraging some of the audience to pay for the next level. He

said that the law model – where lawyers produce content – will be challenged as it was based on

scarcity and we are now in a digital society where information is ubiquitous. But he also said that

“trust is the new currency”. He explained that MIT had put its entire course library on line and

available to all – yet still received a 38% increase in requests to attend – people don’t want the

knowledge, but the experience.

His final point was about the move from the age of software to the age of data – and said that we

must move to “data curation” and quoted Umair Haque (HBR) on the need to shift “from value chain to

value circles”. He said we are all content businesses, brands who publish and that interaction comes

before transaction. Return on Investment is being replaced with Return on Involvement, and

commoditisation with collaboration.

Summarising, he said that the future was Social, Local, Mobile, Video – and all at speed. That “like

economics” will dominate (we need to find new reasons why people come to us), trust the new

currency, data the new oil, to consider return on involvement, to seek interaction before transaction

and to accept the loss of control.


My ideas It’s hard to imagine what Apps might have broad appeal to merit a mass consumer or business

market, or to consider how Apps might evolve in the future. But for fun and to possibly provoke some

more serious thinking on the subject, I put my mind to trying to think of some ideas that go a little

beyond what is currently available in professional services.

Please bear in mind that I am not qualified in law, accountancy or property and therefore I may have

completely misunderstood the nature of the relevant legislation or regulations. However, I am good at

reflecting what the mobile and App Aware consumer or business client may expect from future Apps.

All professions Training and education – Whilst there is lots of information on a range of professional topics on the

web, there is little that has taken full advantage of the latest e-learning technology to present the

information in interesting and entertaining ways through the use of integrated video, sound and

interactive assessments. For example, divorce Apps could include video material of mediation

sessions and how to negotiate child care arrangements. Accountancy Apps could include walk-

throughs on the development of key financial analyses using spread sheets. Property Apps could use

videos and photos and checklists to help people undertake a simple examination of the structural

aspects of a building (before hiring a professional!).

Enhanced service – Professionals could provide an App to clients before they attended a meeting

with a professional adviser so that they could learn a bit more about the topic, select or highlight those

questions that are relevant to them and that they may want to raise (and even send them to the

adviser in advance of the meeting), scan and upload relevant documents to a secure server that they

wish the professional adviser to see. It might also be possible to video or record meetings so that

clients can replay them when they are back at their home or office so that they are reminded of what

was covered. With tablet technology, it should be possible for notes written during the meeting onto a

device to be incorporated into an App for immediate use.

Graduate recruitment – There has to be scope for a useful tool to help graduates navigate the milk-

rounds, keep notes from any discussions that they have, manage their preferences, compare their

options, manage their contacts, monitor applications and responses and so on.

Legal Document vault – It should be relatively easy for clients to put legal documents, official papers and

relevant correspondence onto an App – with facilities for changes to be made or with hyperlinks to

provide explanation or show notes. Not only would this be valuable to private clients – having an easy

way to store and manage all their key documents – but it could “lock in” clients to that particular

adviser.

Asset register – Similar to the above, develop an App to maintain a list of critical documents – with

the ability to upload and securely store and search – such as legal contracts, birth and marriage

certificates, insurance and savings policies, mortgage deeds, loan documentation. This could be

wrapped up with a checking service so they were easily sent to fixed price review services. This sort

of App might be developed by collaborating private client lawyers, tax advisers and financial planners

and wealth managers.

Reputation monitor – Defamation and intellectual property lawyers (perhaps in collaboration with PR

consultancies) could produce an App that linked to the numerous widely available tools to track and

monitor mentions of an individual’s, brand’s or company’s name. The App could also offer guidance


(e.g. relevant defamation, privacy and intellectual property law) and help on what to do in emergency

situations.

Pre-nuptial Preparation – This App could provide a prompt and aide-memoire to those considering

marriage. It could tailor advice depending on the age, assets and dependents of the couple (whether

straight or gay) and provide prompted lists of issues to consider in advance of marriage. The App

might also provide help for managing such delicate discussions and noting particular issues for the

couple.

Family and child contact – Research shows that too often, the non resident parent loses contact

with the children as the resident parent is antagonistic or refuses to adhere to Court directions. In

these circumstances, the non resident parent is directed to keep a log of all incidents, texts and

emails. An App that provides a diary to monitor child contact arrangements or the behaviour of an

errant spouse or former spouse would be valuable.

Criminal law – An App could provide a facility for keeping track of and organising abusive texts, calls,

emails, videos, social media posts etc as evidence for a stalking or family case.

Property Proximity warnings - The GPS facilities on phones must mean that there are a lot of potential Apps for the property sector. Imagine being able to have proximity alerts when you approach a location, development or building that meets your pre-set criteria or those of items in your current portfolio. Property terriers – These systems are usually available to clients online but elements could be

available on an App to help staff working in the field. Naturally, these would need connections to

traditional proprietary database systems.

Property buyer or landlord coach – An App could provide help, guidance and examples of what to

look for or at when inspecting a property that a person or organisation intends to rent or buy. It might

also allow photographs and videos to be taken and annotated for closer inspection by a property

professional.

Property investment guide - An App could be loaded with details of your property portfolio and

provided with a yields calculator and monitor as well as integrated look up tables to the latest IPD

database so that performance comparisons could be easily made on the move.

Architects plans – An App for those having a new home built and/or major refurbishments or

extensions. It could include links to notes on proposed materials and costs and allow a “what if?”

analysis to change certain parameters. There could be links to planning and building regulations as

well as the ability to interrogate the plans and see them from different perspectives. Augmented reality

might enable users to see how the proposed development might look against the current building.

Area guides – Most people seek information from agents relating to the local area - schools, safety,

parking, local rates, restaurants etc. It would be relatively easy to develop an App that links into the

wealth of information publically available from numerous sources and for agents to regularly provide

additional insights over time to provide a unique reference guide. The App could be extended into a

community tool allowing a variety of people and organisations to provide additional content.

Accountancy Management information – It must be possible to upload key information from annual reports and

accounts and apply tools within the App to interrogate them and produce exception and comparison

reports, charts and presentations. Or the ability to drill down into key parts of the reports and see the


detail underneath. Integration with other systems might also mean you could have up to date balance

sheets and do cash flow and investment analyses. Hopefully, all with an easy way to contact your

accountant (through text, voice, email or Skype) to discuss any points of interest or concern.

Subsidiary or branch monitor – Similar to the above idea, it might be possible to load key financial

information for a range of branches, offices, locations or subsidiaries so that comparisons against

target, the best performers and others in the market are easily possible.

Business start up – Perhaps with lawyers, accountants and property professionals (and other

specialists) collaborating it might be possible to produce an App that takes a new business owner

step by step through the various things that they must, ought or might do as they begin a new

venture. Going beyond basic checklists and guidance, the App might extend to have natural language

recognition, fuzzy logic and elementary artificial intelligence and to help identify potential issues and

solutions. An App that is really a virtual adviser?

But even being as App-Happy as I am, I am sure that those with a greater understanding of mobile

technology – and where it will go in the future – and the legal, accountancy and property professions

– will be able to have far better ideas.

App development costs Whilst there appears to be a host of Internet offers for cheap and easy App development (e.g. $2599

for an owned licence or $599 set up costs and $59 pcm) you would do well to seek expert advice

before embarking on a development project. Otherwise, you risk having one of those horribly basic

and amateur Apps that does your firm more harm than good (How do you react to one of the “off the

shelf” web sites that are so common?).

I asked for help in this section and Fresh 01 (who recently won an award for a complex e-learning

App that it developed for Lockheed) was kind enough to oblige.

App development is not for the feint hearted. But like a lot of complex things if you can organise it into

bite size pieces it can be an enjoyable experience and many rewards can be reaped. There are

broadly four stages to getting things right on an App development project - if there is a weakness at

any point, things are likely to get sticky and expensive.

1. Planning 2. UX design and architecture 3. Build and development 4. Testing and deployment

Different types of Apps can be grouped roughly as follows:

Apps that rely on a database whether that’s pulling information from the web or from a database stored on the device itself

Gaming Apps ranging from simple to complex (remember how simple Atari games were compared to angry birds!)

Fully dynamic Apps that rely entirely on external pulls of data from news and social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter

Productive Apps like Numbers or Keynote that allow users to control and input content and reuse, interact with and share it


Apps that use the controls on the device like camera or accelerometer and improve or manipulate – current favourites are Planets and QR scanners and the Torch that uses the light from the camera

Bespoke Apps that take into consideration some or all of the above even the use of GPS

Planning and design It is interesting to look at the Apps’ purpose from a business perspective - what is the ultimate benefit,

return on investment and value once it is completed and shared amongst the population. Assuming all

these green lights are on, it sounds obvious - but this is where you must plan and plan and plan

again.

Work out the paths and routes throughout the App. Think of the user experience (UX) and don't get

hung up on the technology at this stage. The idea is to make this experience bullet proof and the user

must understand exactly what to do and not get lost or break the workflow.

There needs to be decisions about what functionality of the device will be used for example: touch

screen, track pad, front and back cameras, accelerometer, GPS and location tracking,

personalisation, pushing and pulling content. There also needs to be thought into how the App is to be

delivered and what security might be needed for data stored or transferred and any user information.

Depending on the scale of the App the above stages can take anywhere from two weeks to three

months (insert the piece of string analogy here!) to get a decent set of parameters before you can

think of getting it costed for development, and at professional agency rates averaging about

£700/$1150 per day you need to be very confident and prepared.

A lot of complex enterprise Apps get start up funding by what we call a JAD or joint application

development. Where the client agrees to pays for a 'scope' . This is a wise move for a comparatively

smaller amount of money to see if your concept has legs.

The output is a detailed document that professionally maps out the project and includes all skills sets

and effort expressed in man days. These more intense and heavy JAD can be expected at a

minimum of 10 days agency work for at least three people (ux designer, technical architect and a

strategic consultant). Don't forget that you will also need to commit to time here too as it is a joint

effort.

Build In the main, most enterprise Apps will be created targeting a single phone type and screen size

(usually defined by user groups and target market i.e. what is the main phone used by the target

users). This is a starting point for building using MVC design pattern (Model-View-Controller - a

technique of building that makes porting to different target phones easier as each layer is independent

of each other).

This is the most efficient way to attack the multiple phone problem and will cut port and rebuild costs

down to about 40-55% of the original project per phone platform (it’s still not cheap but cheaper than

rebuilding from scratch each time).

Once the creative and build process begins every screen that is to be made needs to be documented

and templates created in what at Fresh01 is called a guard book. All instructions that relate to MVC

are created and annotated so that no stone is unturned. How the screens behave on different phone

types is documented.


Prototypes and wireframes should be made to test the workflow and all user interface components (all

the buttons and rollovers that make the App interactive).

The process is broken into key stages to test micro parts of the project - like how a certain bit of

bespoke functionality will work and then in an agile way the project moves forward until a first alpha

release.

As mentioned, professional agency rates are £600-900 per day. For a simple App – such as PDF of a

brochure in App format, the cost can be as little as £7,000-£8,000 per brochure. Other text based

Apps cost in the region of £15,000. Typically, entry Apps can cost as little as £10,000 if these are

simple Apps with very light data driven technologies like magazines, brochure ware or photo library.

Complex and more bespoke Apps that require much more in-depth detail can scale upwards of

£150,000-£200,000 and then even more for further releases and upgrades on top of that. Apps have

to be treated as software engineering - they are not websites or intranets. There is no 'off the shelf

solution' that will be a cheap way of creating an App successfully.

With many thanks to Kurt Ozficici of Fresh01 for his help with this section of the report

www.fresh01.com

A strategic vacuum? At the moment, the use of Apps is rather undeveloped in the professions. It’s a bit like when web sites

and social media first emerged – the early adopters doing a shoot-from-the-hip response to be seen

to use a new technological platform without really thinking about either the strategic reasons, what

clients might actually find useful or beyond the narrow thinking of “what information do we have that

we can package up as an App?”

The bigger firms seem to lack control over their brands as they have numerous Apps with different

offerings in different geographical markets and sectors – it is simply not joined up. Goodness knows

what reputational damage might be done by a far away territory pushing out a Micky Mouse effort into

the global market.

Furthermore, as there is little research data on how business people use mobile technology it is hard

to see why someone would take the trouble of searching for and downloading an App when they can

reach pretty much all the information they require by searching the Internet instead.

A way forward? The App space in the professions is crying out for some strategic planning, careful research,

innovative thinking and proper investment. And some courage to be the first to do something truly

different that offers real value to existing and potential clients, referrers and intermediaries or even

staff. Perhaps it is the fear of cannibalising existing traditional clients that holds firms back or maybe it

is that they lack the imagination of familiarity of the technology to dare to think innovatively about the

possibilities.

As I mentioned at the outset, there are Apps to help professionals. I ought to mention an App

produced by Landscape (a small, award-winning, full-service design team in Southwark) which

revolves around converting business documents to Apps. Training modules, tenders, employee or

partner induction packs, sales tools and other forms of corporate literature migrate very effectively into

compelling, interactive experiences on iPads. Internally valuable Apps might be a good way to

experiment with and increase your organisation’s knowledge of the technology and its capabilities

before trying to use it for client applications.

http://www.fresh01.com/


Similarly, after some basic education you might instruct your front line professionals to start talking to

clients about first, how they currently use mobile technology and second, how the current information

systems and services might be enhanced by taking advantage of mobile technology. Who knows, the

discussions might not reveal the need for a mobile App but for changes at a more fundamental level

of your offering.

Too often, new developments in a professional firm are driven by a “maverick” partner who has a bee

in his or her bonnet – sometimes generated by a close relationship with a client in the relevant

technology area. Whilst maverick developments can be successful, it might mean that the firm (and its

reputation, brand and resources) are taken on an expensive journey into a technology back water with

little commercial pay back.

So it might be sensible to gather interested parties (including someone senior to keep things under

control) and run a strategy brainstorm meeting and/or get the younger generation together and tap

into their ideas (chances are that they are already frustrated that your firm hasn’t embraced mobile

technology).

Your discussions might be helped by considering the following questions:

1. What are your business objectives? What do you hope to achieve within existing and new

markets, with established and new clients with the App? How will you assess the cost-

benefits? How will you measure return on investment? If a maverick is driving the quest to

explore App opportunities, has he or she produced a sound business plan?

2. What is your strategic reason for looking at Apps as a delivery mechanism? Is there a need

at a firm wide level, within a particular sector or in a particular area of expertise? Are your

markets amongst those that are early adopters of new technology? Do your plans fit within a

broader campaign or are you just hankering after the feel-good “follow” factor?

3. Do you have some specialist knowledge – that you can package and present in an

innovative way – that might be of value to existing or potential clients?

4. Are you looking at taking an existing process or information base onto an App platform or are

you genuinely thinking about how to reinvent a process, redefine a service or present the

information in a unique and innovative way that sets you apart from the competition and

adds real value to your clients?

5. Do you provide a service at present that clients might find useful if available on a mobile

device? Have you researched the need? If so, do you need an App or can you make do with

a good mobile web site?

6. Are you prepared to commit the management, development, promotional and support time

and cash resources to a properly appraised investment project?

7. Which of your people (both on the professional side and the support side) has familiarity with

the technology, what’s currently available, knowledge management, information processing,

expert systems and user needs? Are these people interested in development projects and do

they have the required time to do so? Do you have access to the relevant technical and

regulatory advice?

8. If you had an App – would it be to support existing lead generation or promotional activities? If

so, how would you integrate it into your existing off and on line campaigns? How would


you ensure that all of your people were aware of the App’s capabilities and were ready to

respond to client enquiries?

9. How good are you at managing projects internally and with external technical consultants?

Will your decision and approval processes take more time than the development cycle

allows?

10. Might there be another organisation – with the relevant brand klout, technical expertise or

management expertise – with whom you could collaborate to produce an App that moves

you outside of the narrow legal, accountancy or property arena to produce something that is

really focused on client needs and distinct from me-too Apps?

11. Do you plan to generate income from the App – if so, have you done the research to be sure

that there is demand for it, that you know what clients need and expect, that there are no

competing offers and that the market is prepared to pay the price?

These issues can be summarised in the following diagram:


About Kim Tasso Kim Tasso is an independent strategy, management and business development consultant,

specialising in the professional services sector, with over 30 years' experience. Qualified in

psychology, management, marketing, coach/mentoring and NLP, Kim started her career in sales and

marketing positions in the technology sector working with Comshare Inc, Honeywell and Logica.

She then worked in-house in senior business development roles at Deloitte management consultants

and Nabarro solicitors before establishing Practical Marketing Consultancy in January 1994. She has

since worked for over 300 clients including: solicitors, barristers, patent attorneys, accountants,

actuaries, surveyors and estate agents, educational establishments, psychologists, management

consultants and publishers. She is now Managing Director of RedStarKim Limited.

As a freelance journalist, she writes for a number of legal, marketing and property magazines and a

leading London portal. She was a part-time lecturer on post graduate marketing courses. Her first

book “Dynamic practice development – selling skills and techniques for the professions” was

published in 2000. “Media relations in property”, which she co-wrote with leading residential property

journalist Graham Norwood, was published by EG Books in 2006. “Growing your property partnership

– plans, promotion and people” was published in June 2009.

As well as providing strategic consultancy advice and managing key projects for her clients, she

spends a lot of time developing and presenting motivating training courses on subjects as diverse as

strategic planning, creativity and innovation, selling and social media and client relationship

management.

Kim is a single mum, a parent governor, a social media enthusiast and a regular visitor to places

which allow entry to Alfie – her long haired Chihuahua. Living in Twickenham, she regularly attends

international rugby matches.

07831 687882 [email protected] www.kimtasso.com Twitter: RedStarKim

http://www.kimtasso.com/


* Mobile Web Design

In case you are unfamiliar with mobile web design this short explanation is for you!

As so many people access the Internet via their smartphone, you need to ensure that there is a

mobile version of your web site. Yet you need to ensure that it works on Blackberries, iPhones, iPads,

netbooks and Kindles. You also need to accommodate all screen resolutions (and whether portrait or

landscape) – and goodness knows what other imminent new inventions.

Some believe that the answer is something called Responsive Web Design (RWD) that suggests that

design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen

size, platform and orientation.

The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and CSS (Cascading Style

Sheets). This means that the website has the technology to automatically respond to the user’s

preferences and eliminates the need for a different design and development phase for each new

gadget on the market.

Of course, for an m.web to work the device must be connected to the Internet whereas an App can

work without a connection. I’m not going to enter into the debate here about speed and the user

experience and whether a good mobile web site makes an App redundant!

Appendix - Additional research information Much of the research available tends to focus on what users want from general Apps – particularly consumer and retail applications. There’s hardly any research on what businesses might want from advisory or professional service Apps. What users want from mobile (Compuware Report) A 2011 survey of 4,014 global mobile web users

found that consumers have high expectations for mobile website and application performance.

Ultimately, 71% stated they expect websites to load as quickly, almost as quickly or faster on their

mobile phone compared to the computer they use at home – up from 58% in 2009. The survey “What

Users Want From Mobile” also revealed how unsatisfactory mobile web and application experiences

can negatively shape a consumer’s opinion of an organization.

Mobile Websites and Apps Optimization Best Practice Guide (Craig Sullivan, Econsultancy,

January 2012 - £250) Covers seven rules including: Know Thy Device, Get Good Mobile Analytics,

Hunt Opportunity, Not Myths, Kill Your Own Myths, End Device Discrimination Today, Mobile

Performance is Vital and It’s About the Audience, not the Religion.

App stats It’s hard to get to the reliable statistics on Apps. But this is a helpful resource:

http://www.weareapps.com/app_facts.html Some key facts stated:

6 billion iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) Apps are expected to be downloaded during 2012 and 8 billion Android apps. Source Ovum

98% of iPhone users use the data features of their phone, 88% use their iPhone to surf the internet and 75% download Apps. Source: The Neilson Company

In April 2011, the most popular App by usage in the UK was Google's Maps, followed by Yahoo Weather, Facebook, Google Mobile and YouTube. Source, GSMA and Comscore

Free Apps that break the top 50 are generally downloaded over 10,000 times daily. Source: AdMob

Mobile Analytics firm Flurry suggests an App ranked in the top five is downloaded more than 50,000 times a day. Source: imediaconnection.com.

The following site also provides statistics on the android market http://www.appbrain.com/stats/

http://www.weareapps.com/app_facts.html

http://www.appbrain.com/stats/


But the main site for reliable information is at TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/mobile/ and an older blog post provides some insight into the revenue potential for Apps http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/iphone-app-sales-exposed/ App market http://appmuse.com/appmusing/how-big-is-the-app-market/ provides the following information: World Mobile Applications Market reported in January 2011 that the mobile App market will grow from $6.8 billion in 2011 to $25 billion over the next four years. That same month, Gizmag.com reported that Gartner estimated 2013 App revenue at $29.5 billion. A month earlier, IDC estimated $35 billion in worldwide App revenue by 2014. Mobile marketing guidance The Chartered Institute of Marketing has a number of papers, books and courses relating to the broad topic of mobile marketing - www.cim.co.uk. There is also the Mobile Marketing Association http://www.mmaglobal.com/marketdata Mobile technology The following references are for those interested in mobile web site technology issues http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/12/guidelines-for-responsive-web-design/ and http://thinkvitamin.com/design/responsive-design-image-gotcha/) Technology trends Each of the national newspapers has a technology section where the latest developments in the App market are shown. For example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology

http://techcrunch.com/mobile/

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/iphone-app-sales-exposed/

http://appmuse.com/appmusing/how-big-is-the-app-market/

http://www.cim.co.uk/

http://www.mmaglobal.com/marketdata

http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/12/guidelines-for-responsive-web-design/

http://thinkvitamin.com/design/responsive-design-image-gotcha/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology

Apps by UK law, accountancy and property firms – Are we ...€¦ · Apps by UK law, accountancy...

Documents

Transcript of Apps by UK law, accountancy and property firms – Are we ...€¦ · Apps by UK law, accountancy...