Yet, it’s awe-inspiring to see individuals and teams, all across the world, finding and building solutions to common challenges. Many are taking their business offerings and turning them into solutions for social good. For example, companies like Unilever announced they’d be giving away free sanitizer, soap, bleach, and food. AstraZeneca donated 9 million face masks to support healthcare workers worldwide. Audible announced they’d make hundreds of audiobooks available for free.

Businesses are finding ways to help everyone make it through this situation posed by COVID-19. We’re doing the same, with our focus on Salesforce Care. Salesforce Care gives teams the resources to create solutions that can be deployed quickly and at no charge for at least 90 days. As part of that effort, our employees have also created a free AppExchange app to help with business continuity.

The Salesforce Labs Crisis Response app gives customers a central hub to manage crisis situations. It helps companies ensure employees are healthy and taken care of, while reducing workplace anxiety by mitigating workforce and business impact during times of crisis. A cross-functional team of Salesforce employees — from solution engineering, emerging tech, customer success, product marketing, Salesforce Labs, and creative — recognized the importance of a centralized crisis hub and took the challenge head-on to create a solution that can be deployed to do the following:

• Address the workforce impact. Track employees’ health and safety status and monitoring locations, all in one centralized hub

• Respond quickly to employees’ needs. Institute outreach and assistance programs to address the well-being of the workforce and provide the best possible care

• Keep employees in the loop effectively. Deploy a crisis-centric employee portal to disseminate news and information and collect updated employee status.

• Ensure business continuity. Activate continuity plans and measure overall business impact to manage future business operations

• Optional: For those in healthcare, shorten patient wait time by implementing an intelligent solution that transforms images of state-issued IDs into text within Salesforce. This reduces manual data entry and provides an accurate data trail, especially for services working with drive-up care. Additionally, use artificial intelligence to understand how employees are feeling based on communication channels to respond with empathy and direct them to the appropriate resources.

Get access to the free crisis response app here. For more resources, check out the AppExchange COVID-19 page, a dedicated resource center with solutions and content to help respond to the needs of your employees, customers, and community during this time.

For more tips on navigating change, read other articles in our Leading Through Change series.

• Here are five ways we help our employees navigate work now

• See how you can maintain customer relationships when you can’t meet in person

• Learn why you need a crisis comms plan

The post Deploy a Crisis Response App to Support Your Workforce and Business Continuity appeared first on Salesforce.

In “How to stay one step ahead of disruptors in the app economy,” the newspaper looked at how companies like Uber are competing with the taxi industry, and Airbnb is shaking up the hospitality sector. The Post suggested the stakes are high if Canadian firms don’t want to get left behind.

“To avoid disruption and to capitalize on opportunities, companies should already be exploring and investing in apps applicable to their market and relevant to their customers,” the story said. “But they will also need to be mindful of getting it right.”

Of course, “getting it right” doesn’t necessarily mean trying to act like a Silicon Valley startup. In fact, it may mean that more Canadian firms should simply look at how apps could improve the way they operate first, then develop their mobile strategy.

These are just a few of the questions you and your team should be discussing as you get started.

What kind of apps made sense for our business?

As with any project, it only makes sense to move forward with mobile apps if they benefit the business. Start internally by looking at the processes and tasks that would work even better if employees and team members had access to data and the ability to perform functions away from their cubicles or the office. According to a global study released in June that was conducted by 451 Research, the most common functions being “appified” include customer relationship management (CRM) apps for sales, marketing and services, customer engagement and general employee productivity apps. These might be some good areas for Canadian firms to think about too, particularly since there are apps like this already on the market and they don’t necessarily have to build them themselves.

How can we make sure a business app gets used?

Adoption of new technologies has long been a challenge in companies, but the rise of mobile apps in the consumer space could offer some clues about the kind of design and user experience people expect. Look at the 2015 Mobile Personas report, which profiles Canadian app usage across a variety of demographics. Among other findings, it shows that social networking, weather and gaming apps tend to be the top three categories in Canada. Study some examples and think about how employees will want to navigate through a business-oriented mobile experience.

What kind of devices would best display a particular business app experience?

It may seem like most consumer apps are entirely focused around smartphones, but that could change soon, particularly in Canada. A few months ago, for example, mobile research firm Flurry posted data showed 14 percent of us are using “phablets,” or a cross between a smartphone and a tablet. With smartwatches, smart eyewear and other wearable devices now hitting the mainstream market, there may be business apps that make better sense for those form factors, too. Think through the entire range of use-case scenarios as you choose or develop an app.

What’s the best way to measure the results of a business mobile app initiative?

The prospect of having absolute freedom to manage key parts of a company from anywhere, anytime may seem far-fetched, but the numbers show it’s not. MobileSyrup recently reported on an Angus Reid poll, for instance, where 55 per cent of Canadian small business owners said they can run their entire operation from a smartphone or tablet. That’s more than half of your peers (or competitors) who are already mobile-first. While keeping a constant eye on sales, cost savings, productivity improvements and other areas, making sure your company isn’t a latecomer to mobile apps may be one of the first ways to think about your return on investment.

Learn how the services of the Salesforce Platform can help you build any kind of app, connect everything, and inspire everyone. Faster.

The post What Every Business Should Ask Themselves Before Developing Mobile Apps appeared first on Salesforce.