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.
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