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.