Top 5 Myths About Mobile BI that Enterprises Need to Watch

In the last post we were discussing about Business Intelligence of leading-edge organizations goes mobile and how mobile BI helps the businesses and today we will discuss about “Mobile BI Myths” in this article.

Mobile dashboards and BI are among the hottest topics in the industry and justifiably so: mobile access to data is a critical tool for decision making.

Today we will examine the five common myths associated with mobile business intelligence and uncover the facts about cost, implementation, and capabilities. We will also explain why companies should move forward with their mobile business intelligence projects.

#1 Same Mobile BI to All Users

Mid-sized and larger companies would find themselves hard pressed to move their entire mobile workforce onto the same device – making the successful widespread use of mobile BI nearly impossible.

In the past, most of the companies originally deployed their BI applications on Blackberry devices because they were it was most popular among business users and provided the easiest way of accessing corporate information. That has changed with the introduction of the iPhone, Android-based devices and the iPad, mobile users expressed a preference for iPhones and Android-based phones. In addition, web browsers have become device-independent, allowing them to deliver BI content to almost any device.

#2 Each Mobile Device required a Native Application

Most business intelligence tools on the market these days lack the ability to exploit each device’s native capabilities, therefore require companies to build custom reporting and analysis applications for each type of device in use.

With thousands on mobile users of different versions of difference mobile devices will be using mobile BI in an enterprise. With the wrong mobile BI platform in place could be an obstacle that IT simply cannot overcome.

There are a few rare, advanced solutions designed to eliminate the time and effort associated with creating and maintaining multiple versions of various BI assets for each mobile platform.

#3 Mobile BI is only consumed on mobile phones and smartphones.

Few years ago when the majority of mobile BI consumers used BlackBerry and Palm devices, then came iPhone, Android based phones. Devices such as the iPad eliminate the shortcomings of iPhones (mostly related to small screen size) and are actually driving the trend toward large-scale BI adoption for obtaining a high-level view of business operations.

#4 Mobile Users Are Always Connected

Many mobile BI solution vendors aren’t including features that allow users to perform reporting and analysis when disconnected. There are times when Internet connections – particularly Wi-Fi – may be rather slow. This can frustrate users, forcing them to disconnect from the web, but they may still need to gather important intelligence on their way to a meeting or a customer visit.

It’s important to make sure that capability is included in a mobile BI platform and empowering them to work in disconnected mode.

#5 Mobile BI users can’t perform ad hoc or deep analysis.

Many companies shy away from mobile business intelligence because their users need the ability to interact extensively with data from their smartphones and tablets. Some of the more advanced platforms can deliver advanced reporting and analysis tools without the need for specialized software by leveraging the native capabilities of any mobile browser “to empower mobile workers with analytic functionality that can be applied to virtually any data from any enterprise source.”

In spite of the abounding myths, mobile business intelligence doesn’t have to be expensive, hard to implement, or difficult to use. In fact, companies that chooses the right solution, with the right capabilities, will realize low TCO and rapid ROI, while empowering their mobile users with the ability to access and interact with timely, complete corporate information from any smartphone or tablet.

Business Intelligence of leading-edge organizations goes mobile

BI, as most of us know is defined as the ability for an organization to take all its capabilities and convert them into knowledge, ultimately, getting the right information to the right people, at the right time, via the right channel. It majorly involves using computers to identify, extract and analyze business information and data. In plain terms, intelligence in business involves computers analyzing data. With too much having said and told about Business Intelligence, let us take a dive and see the progression in this domain— Mobile Business Intelligence

What is mobile BI?

Mobile business intelligence software extends desktop business intelligence (BI) to mobile devices. They optimize traditional BI reports so they can be viewed easily on a small screen and are ideal for displaying Key Performance Indicators and alerts with simple charts, graphs and spark lines. 

The use of mobile BI software on an upswing!!

Of late, the use of mobile business intelligence (BI) software has been on an upswing and it’s easy to see why. The following major factors have combined to create a potent fertilizer for fuelling the technology’s growth namely: 

The rise of smartphones and tablet computers usage that provides anytime anywhere access and ease of usage 

Demand from business users for up-to-the-minute data to help support decision-making have

According to David Roe, four major trends will emerge in 2014. He notes that Gartner Inc. predicts that mobile analytics will be one of the leading trends. This predication suggests that mobile BI is likely to be adopted throughout entire enterprises with multiple business units adopting mobile BI. By 2014, 33% of business intelligence will be garnered through mobile devices. This adoption and utilization will not be limited to C-level executives.

To take this one step further, Aberdeen’s research suggests that the organizations with mobile business intelligence in place or those currently considering it: 

Have high performers deploy and then refine role-specific systems that provide the appropriate analytics to the appropriate employees to help in decision making; 

Track productivity gains and demonstrate return on investment; 

Ensure that the BI infrastructure can support the mobile BI challenge.

 

Top trends in Mobile BI

By far, the number one trend in mobile BI is how rapidly top-level executives make decisions using it. Because information is readily available to organizations utilizing mobile BI, they take, on average, about one-third of the time to make decisions than organizations that have not employed mobile BI strategies.

Mobile BI addresses a big complaint against analytics and information management for many years – not being easy to consume, chart and data overload, devices not secure.  Not anymore. Tablet devices are just right for mobile BI – small enough to carry and large enough to be effective. The early success of the iPad for BI has caught many experts by surprise.

Tablets’ big screen size and touch screen facility makes Mobile BI Services more user-friendly and easy-to-use. There are many Mobile BI apps coming in the market, but we need to mention Apples’ iPad, for growing popularity of tablets among users. Other Mobile BI apps include BIRT Mobile, Roambi, Micro Strategy Mobile, SAS Mobile, IBM Cognos 8 Go!

With senior/middle management employers kept available on a 24×7 basis, more organizations will are adopting this technology and Mobile BI will continue to grow rapidly which is transforming the BI platform for the better.

Business Intelligence & Analytics – Changing Trend

Business Intelligence came into light when Data Warehouse rose during 1980’s. Notable players like Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft introduced BI tools that helped Business users to generate Business Intelligence report from Data Warehouse Environment. During 1990’s, due to rapid growth in web data, the Business Intelligence market rose to new height, and new players such as Business Objects, Cognos, Informatica came into Business Intelligence market. Due to the fact that the data become available everywhere, mid 2000’s market introduced a new and advance Business Intelligence tools (BI 2.0) with more reporting and connecting capabilities.

Today, Business Users started expecting Business Intelligence to collaborate, search, communicate, help for decision making and predict the opportunity and growth. With new innovations in Cloud and Mobility, Business Analytics and Intelligence reports made available anywhere, anytime via any device.  Business Intelligence on Cloud helps Enterprises to implement Business Intelligence environment easily and quickly.  

The objective of this article will be achieved if we discuss about the current Business Intelligence trends.

1. Business Intelligence for User Centric Collaboration and Social Media – merging Business Intelligence and Social Networking tools will increase the accuracy of critical data that will help the Enterprises to take the right decision. Today everyone uses atleast one Social Media for collaboration and to connect with people. With this, Social Media started providing quality data to the Enterprises for generating Intelligence Business Analytical Reports which enable business users to discover new and innovative ideas and to compete with innovation demanding market. 
2. Visualization – The business users expect to view their analytical data in high quality visualization and real-time interactive charts and bars rather than viewing the reports in traditional rows and column format.
3. Mobile Business Intelligence – An attractive topic that goes around all most all industry atleast for last three years. With new releases of Apple iPad, Blackberry Playbook and Android Tablets, created more demand for Business Intelligence and Analytical reports, interactive dashboards and scorecards to fit into these smart devices. Due to ease of use and interactive mobile applications, the ability to deliver Business Intelligence and Analytical Reports become relatively simple with all the mobile technology available out there.
4. Predictive Analytics – Business users started realizing the use of using historical data to identify the pattern of opportunity and business growth. As a result, they started leaning towards Predictive Analytical Intelligence Reports that heavily helps and guides them to take the right decision keeping future in mind. 
5. Agile Business Intelligence – Technology deliverables moves towards continuous deliverables of quality Business Intelligence solution to keep the business user satisfied. The business users and decision makers expect dynamics and real time Business Analytics that enable flexibility and allows the user to work with the data often and do necessary changes on fly. Agile Business Intelligence triggers the technological options for Self-service Business Intelligence and Cloud based Business Intelligence.
6. Cloud based Business Intelligence – Business Intelligence and Analytical Reports, Interactive Dashboards and Scorecards are developed, published and consumed on Cloud without worrying about infrastructure setup, hardware and software installations. To grow and maintain the competitive technological edge, it’s absolutely essential and became important to adopt Cloud computing and Business Intelligence together. Cloud Business Intelligence solution brings in new business opportunities and growths by address the challenges such as security, complex pricing, moving large amount of data and integrations. Business user enjoys the benefits such as scalability, easy and simple implementation, reduced cost, accessibility and computing instances.

With the current change in Business Intelligence and Analytical trends, it become vital for IT industry and Business users to adopt the changes to maintain and grow their business successfully.