In a recent conversation with CIO’s Andrew Birmingham, Digital Rehab’s Principal Consultant and Owner, Alisdair Blackman, explored the growing tension between responsive design and native app development.
As digital expectations rise, businesses face a strategic dilemma:
How do you deliver seamless, scalable experiences across devices – without compromising on speed, cost, or enterprise integrity?
Competing Priorities: Business vs IT
- Business leaders prioritise speed to market, customer experience, and competitive advantage
- IT teams focus on data architecture, security, scalability, and long-term sustainability
The challenge lies in reconciling these priorities – especially when delivering mobile experiences across an unpredictable landscape of devices and platforms.
Why Responsive Design Is Gaining Ground
With users accessing content on everything from smartphones to tablets to desktops, IT departments are increasingly embracing responsive web design as a practical alternative to native apps.
Benefits include:
- Device-agnostic delivery
- Lower build and support costs
- Faster deployment cycles
- Simplified maintenance across platforms (iOS, Android, etc.)
Responsive design enables organisations to deliver consistent user experiences, without the overhead of managing multiple app versions.
Native Apps: When They Still Make Sense
While responsive design suits many use cases, native apps still have a role, particularly when:
- Deep device integration is required
- Offline functionality is critical
- Performance demands are high
- Brand experience needs to be tightly controlled
The key is to match the delivery model to the business need – not the trend.
Final Thought
Responsive design isn’t a silver bullet – but it’s a smart, scalable solution for many enterprise challenges.
When aligned with business goals and IT architecture, it can deliver speed, savings, and simplicity.
