Sysco LABS Sri Lanka, the innovation arm of Sysco, the world’s global foodservice leader presented an interesting panel discussion recently titled ‘Enterprise Mobile Development – Patterns, Perils and Platforms’ featuring local and international Enterprise mobile experts who shared a wealth of insights with an audience of mobile technology enthusiasts from the industry.
The discussion served as a platform to capture detailed aspects such as architecture, testing, development, and the building of a multi-discipline mobile application for use by enterprise organizations and was moderated by Ashan Dhanapala, Senior Technical Lead at Sysco LABS Sri Lanka
With the rising demand for enterprise mobile apps, the development of such apps requires a multi- disciplinary approach. Helping to revisit problems outside the normal boundaries in Enterprise Mobile App Development by sharing their experiences, solutions, and tips, were Robert Spinneweber – Director Mobile Engineering and Charles ‘Chuck’ Imperato – Software Engineer from Sysco LABS Austin. These two respected specialists have held various industry roles, with over a decade of experience individually in developing enterprise grade mobile apps for global corporations.
Tasked with the responsibility for delivery of the successful Sysco Shop mobile app, Robert elaborated on the challenges that enterprise organizations may face in dealing with mobile development on a larger scale. He said, “one of the main challenges and burdens is Operating System (OS) fragmentation. It varies across platforms, with seemingly endless combinations of manufacturers, building devices with form factors and screen sizes etc. As an organization, analyze expected usage patterns and tailor your focus.”
Robert further noted, “as app developers, we have a duty to protect data as best we can, and I think that is one of the unique technical advantages on mobile.”
He cautioned of working in departmental silos, oblivious to what is going on around you and advised, “one huge challenge is the encouragement and facilitation of cross-team communication.”
Responding to a query on ‘how architecture matters in an enterprise mobile app’, Chuck said, “the obvious thing is we need to be as efficient. With small teams it is much easier to have constant collaboration and communication. By modularizing and breaking our app up into self-sufficient modules or components, we can inherently gain some scalability and allow teams to work as independently as possible as we practice at Sysco.” To learn more about the concepts, tools and frameworks discussed at the session visit https://youtu.be/lztwpUpAKMg. To stay in the know about upcoming discussions and events visit www.facebook.com/syscolabssl.
