How Rentokil builds mobile applications without the bugs

Rentokil build apps step-by-step, says Rentokil's head of design Ian Morris

"Rentokil as a business has been using mobile devices for at least 10, maybe even 15 years," according to Ian Morris, head of design at Rentokil. "We've got a lot of surveyors and technicians working in the field and we need to deliver information to them."

Furthermore, the company also has sales and other staff now going out into the field with laptops and tablet computers who also need specialised apps to do their jobs.

The problem was that Rentokil's mobile applications were all based on clunky, ageing technology – Windows CE – that did not compare well with modern mobile operating systems and the devices they run on.

"Our employees were looking at what they had in their hands, comparing it to the mobile device they have got in their other hands and saying, 'What is this? This is not good'," said Morris.

Morris was speaking at a Computing web seminar focusing on mobile app development, sponsored by application platform provider Kony.

However, the technical challenge of developing those modern mobile apps was complicated by the plethora of different enterprise applications that staff needed to be securely connected to, a challenge compounded by the added complexity posed by the variety of systems the company runs due to the various acquisitions it has made over the years.

And making mobile apps for different types of audiences – for the business, consumers, partners etc – is also a very different process, said Morris, while the question of what mobile operating system platform was also complicated by the fact that Rentokil is a global company and whereas Apple iOS is popular in North America, in other markets it trails behind Android, and even Windows Phone.

"We're a global business and we have to cover all of these areas. That's where the challenge really starts to bite because we are trying to deliver globally. We were trying to do a global enterprise application that is responsive to regional demand," said Morris.

Age and infirmity
Because the infirmity of the company's existing mobile infrastructure was recognised at the very top, getting business buy-in was not a problem. Indeed, the board itself was keen for the company to modernise its apps and the project was therefore well funded.

Even so, the business demanded to see results fast, not a year or more later. Mobile app development therefore needs to be done in bite-sized chunks towards an overall end-goal, said Morris, so that results can be quickly demonstrated and improved upon.

"You can have the overall aim, but the key is to take it in bite-sized chunks and deliver a small part of the 'puzzle' at each step," he said.

In other words, he said, organisations need to use agile or agile-like approaches in order to iterate the app regularly so that it becomes the app that the business originally envisaged – not one designed entirely around IT's (mis)understanding of what the app should look like.

"You can't start something and then nine months later pop it out," said Jay Bopa Rai, director of technical services EMEA at app platform provider Kony.

"I think you can take different approaches to it. It's not all or nothing: so you can look at it in terms of what you want to achieve and your goal. Start small, and work in a series of steps. People's experience is that mobile applications get updated frequently... that's the expectation and experience."

Bopa Rai continued: "You need to think around what's the minimal viable 'product' we can deliver that's useful, develop that and deliver it into the hands of the users, get the feedback – because the chances are you won't have got everything right first time – and then use that feedback iteratively to build the application as you go."

It also helps to have an organisation-wide development platform, too, rather than developing ad hoc apps with platform-dependent, proprietary tools. Not only does this speed up development, but it also helps in porting those apps to different operating systems, whether iOS, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry, and keeping them up-to-date when those operating systems change.

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How Rentokil builds mobile applications without the bugs

Rentokil build apps step-by-step, says Rentokil's head of design Ian Morris

"Not only does that [the mobile development platform] give us building blocks that can be retained from application to application across operating systems and devices, those same 'hooks' into the data can remain whether providing customer information to a service technician or a sales consultant. It makes no difference – it's the same 'base plate' that we are able to reuse," said Morris.

In this way, not only does it help the organisation to better "future proof" its mobile applications, but it can speed up development by reusing code.

"It doesn't matter which way the future goes, we have got some sense of security that we can move with it, and with the confidence that we will be able to meet that continuing change in demand in the business," said Morris, "because their needs are going to be continually changing."

Indeed, if IT isn't responsive in terms of the mobile apps it provides then people throughout the business will simply find and download alternatives, he added.

According to Bopa Rai, even companies that make a conscious decision to focus purely on the biggest mobile operating systems – Apple iOS and Google Android – can be stumped when they are updated, or as they go from one version to another.

"A couple of days ago, Apple announced that it was moving away from Objective C into more of a scripting language. That changes the way that applications are developed," said Bopa Rai.

Suddenly, not only do companies developing for the Apple mobile environment need to learn a new development language, which may entail learning entirely new development paradigms, but they will also have two different environments to support on the one platform.

In hindsight, Morris said that he was somewhat cautious about the mobile app developments at Rentokil – but that others in the design team were very much keener to drive it forward at speed.

The company also looked at, and rejected, the possibility of basing its mobile applications on HTML 5, the latest version of the mark-up language intended to make web apps more interactive. The company had a number of reasons for eschewing HTML 5, said Morris, ranging from its immaturity to the practical: "If you open a browser and run HTML 5 through it, you are running multiple processes. How long is that battery going to last?" he asked.

It goes without saying, of course, that for a company like Rentokil, bug-fixing was a key part of the development process.