Volume Purchase Programs (VPP) have that “necessary evil” reputation when it comes to enterprise mobile application management. They can be as frustrating as the apps themselves can be empowering, but many resign themselves to suffering along with VPP for the sake of accessing all the productivity-improving power that mobile apps afford.
If you’ve seen our latest infographic, you know that we have never been satisfied with out-of-the-box VPP. We found ways to make it more efficient and more cost effective because, like just about everyone, we know that mobility is great for the enterprise.
We appreciate the kudos for taking VPP to the next level, but interestingly enough, we’ve learned that there are plenty of people who didn’t even know about VPP in the first place. If that’s you, take a minute to check it out (and pardon us while we shudder at the thought of how you’re currently handling volume mobile app management), then you’ll get a sense of how much more effective it is when enhanced a la App47.
Aside from that knowledge gap, the second VPP challenge we’ve encountered has to do with mobile app licensing — an organization’s ability to reclaim those licenses, specifically. This is where we need to do a little apples-to-apples (to Apple?) comparison.
When it comes to VPP, we’re talking about distribution to all individuals within your company that need to be using a particular mobile app, and you, as an organization, needing to manage its performance, push upgrades, etc. Some say that the inability to reclaim an app license, once distributed, means VPP is not cost effective.
Let’s crunch the numbers: We’re talking about apps that cost around three bucks, maybe five to ten bucks tops. True, some very specialized apps can cost more than $200 per user, and reclaiming the license for an app like that makes sense. But for a more generalized app that’s going to improve biz ops and give your workforce welcome mobile power? The tradeoff speaks for itself. For a three-buck app, even on the enterprise side, to not use VPP just because you can’t reclaim the license just isn’t cost effective.
VPP (especially App47’s approach to VPP) makes app distro and management practically painless. See step four of our infographic: no more hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.
The few bucks spent for that kind of headache-free mobile app management existence, even if it means not being able to reclaim an app license, is definitely worth it. Consider it the negligible price for ongoing app maintenance, and consider that what you’re recouping in personnel productivity more than makes up for that modest price in the first place. For the enterprise interested in the best approach to large-scale mobile app distribution and management, it has to be VPP.
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