Mobile apps in business-to-business operations are on course to become more integrated with one another and external data sources, and technology executives need to take steps to ensure their proper operation and security, Forrester Research Inc. says.

As helpful as mobile apps have been in helping companies better connect and share such information as order status and inventory levels with their customers and employees, apps are on course to become far more useful, Forrester says in a recent report, “The Future of B2B Mobile Enterprise Services—Evolving From App Silos to Open Ecoysystems.”

The report notes that mobile apps are on course to go beyond their current roles, that typically relate to specific business processes like procuring products, checking product data and diving into sales analytics data. Despite all the excitement concerning automation, Forrester says, “smart mobile devices still rely on direct user instructions. Business customers and employees have to dive into and out of dedicated mobile apps to obtain support for specific business processes.”

But going forward, B2B mobile apps will become connected to broad bases of data sources, making a single app far more useful, it adds. For example, an app that once only showed the shipment status of a customer order will soon also show complementary information, constantly updated, on such matters as the status of related invoices, payment confirmations—and even weather conditions that might affect the scheduled delivery of the order.

To keep up with this trend in B2B apps, Forrester recommends I.T. executives take several steps, including:

Develop a system of APIs, or application programming interfaces, that businesses managers can use to modify apps to the particular needs of their departments;

Explore ways of using new technologies like artificial intelligence, which can be built into apps to provide such services as access to online “chatbots” that companies like John Deere are using to help customers repair farm equipment in the field. A chatbot uses artificial intelligence technology to let people request information from a software application, and receive it via text messages or audio files without human assistance;

As apps begin to constantly pull data from multiple new sources, it raises data transmission costs and concerns about limitations in mobile connectivity. One way to address these concerns is to explore more options in distributed cloud computing, which can both lower costs and make connectivity more constant.

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