Tough issues of application development financial assessment for small and medium businesses

This article is devoted to describing the results of a study of the problems of financial assessment of mobile application development projects for small and medium-sized businesses. The article criticizes the discounting method and argues in favor of other valuation methods. The article highlights and describes the main goals of developing mobile applications from the perspective of representatives of small and medium-sized businesses, which can be divided into three groups: goals of increasing revenue, goals of reducing costs/expenses, marketing goals for collecting information about their clients with a subsequent increase in revenue and/or cost/ expense reduction. We have systematized six main stages of working with a development company: introductory, consulting, preparatory, development, testing and release, warranty support. The need for a more accurate financial assessment arises between the second and third stages for both parties; however, a preliminary assessment is given to business representatives already at the first stage. The article describes the main problems of financial assessment of application development for small and medium-sized businesses. Developing an application for small and medium-sized businesses and expecting results from its use is a short-term process, so we came to the conclusion that the use of cost-based financial valuation methods is more appropriate in this case. 

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