Enterprises want business intelligence to become more mobile and collaborative, an approach that will empower more employees to work together from multiple devices.
It's off to a slow start -- today, in 43 percent of organizations, less than one-third of mobile device users leverage business intelligence, according to a new report on next-generation BI by Ventana Research (free with registration). Within the next 12 months, though, 69 percent of participants will use mobile BI, the study found. When it comes to collaboration, about one-fifth are using it now and another one-fifth expect to do so within a year, Ventana said.
Now, although not every employee within an organization is mobile, practically everybody can be collaborative to some degree, said Tony Cosentino, vice president and research director at Ventana, during a Webinar earlier today. Survey respondents plan to add collaboration to 14 functions; by comparison, they expect to add mobility to only eight, said Cosentino: "The entire org does not need to get mobile devices. Collaboration, on the other hand, is going to hit every area of an organization."
In the past, enterprise business leaders wanted collaboration tools that enabled folder sharing, videoconferencing, and instant messages. Today, managers want to give dispersed employees access to discussion forums, Facebook-like wall postings, and Twitter-like broadcast capabilities, Ventana determined.
They want mobile BI to improve workflow productivity; enhance BI or performance management initiatives; improve customer service; broaden collaboration; and increase sales. Increasingly, enterprises use tablets for mobile BI, adding to the complexity of today's bring-your-own-device conundrum, said Cosentino, referring to responses Ventana collected from a mix of job roles and titles.
"On mobile, they are looking to directed communications. On tablets, we need much more directional. We are seeing an increase in organizations wanting to centrally manage. In the future whether we'll be carrying around two tablets is an interesting question."
Global manufacturer and distributor Dorel Industries -- which owns brands such as Schwinn, Mongoose, Safety 1st, and Cosco -- needed a way for managers to gain better access and share critical information for timely operations planning, as well as create a unified solution to streamline planning and forecasting, as well as facilitate regulatory compliance. After an eight-month evaluation process, Dorel Industries chose a suite of IBM Cognos solutions, including Cognos Business Intelligence and Controller. The second phase featured IBM Cognos Mobile, which empowered executives with mobile access to analytics via their BlackBerry devices, according to an IBM case study.
As Ian Farthing, vice president, corporate services at Dorel Industries, said: "I've been to board meetings, and I see the CFO with access to real-time information that is fully up-to-date. He can talk about this division and that division, and this customer and that customer in a way that's a lot more confident, backed up by data. And I think that's very powerful."
When it comes to analyzing the data itself, employees are crunching more information from a diverse number of sources including locations. However, many enterprises have yet to act on location-based data, Cosentino said. That will, no doubt, change soon, he noted.
Like many technologies, adoption of mobile BI is partially stymied by security and network concerns. Sharing proprietary data with employees spread all over a state, nation, or world can put a company's information, customers, workers, and partners at risk. Operating systems, the built-in insecurities of mobile devices, and connectivity safeguards are key to ensuring mobile BI's success.
In part because of security concerns, in part because mobile and collaboration are so critical to the future success of their analytics implementations, and in part because of a relatively low satisfaction rate, brand loyalty is decreasing, Ventana reported. Only 28 percent said they are satisfied with their mobile BI solutions; only 32 percent said they feel that way about their collaborative BI solutions, the research firm found.
This provides developers with the opportunity to woo new customers -- and impress existing clients with new capabilities, features, or services. And mobile, collaborative BI gives businesses a chance to do the same for their customers, too.
What if there was a sudden shift in computing. As devices become more powerful and smaller, and come in all shapes and sizes.. are here any current BYOD standards industry wide?
BI sounds like a bright idea, but it could be the wrong time to push that right now. With so many people being against the idea of BYOD, it would make sense as to why this would be slow to grow. It is all connected to each other, which thus brings in the threat of lean security. Once the IT world figures out a path to make it as secure and easy as they can, I think then we will be hearing a lot more about it. But if anything has to take place first, it would have to be BYODpolicies taking off first.
Alison, that's how marketing purists would probably look at it. I do agree that any electronic tool or social media should be used to complement or complete a strategy rather than being the strategy.
So, maybe not mobile BI.
Buuuuuttttttttttt, I don't know. I think there's something to it. Maybe it's just in the way it is segmented, ie, rapid response construction management or front porch real estate options.
The mobile speaks to the immediacy and usefulness of the information.
Perhaps, then, the easiest route to adoption is through vertical applications? Rather than trying to tackle this amorphous "mobile" or "wireless" blob, it makes more sense to target real estate, construction, retail, insurance, or other applications within specific verticals? That way, you get those wonderful business use cases that everyone loves! It's so much easier to develop, then sell, because the developer and then the sales person are targeting something so minute, in the scheme of things. It's then simpler to measure ROI, whether in hard money or time/productivity. You can then cross over to a similar horizontal: From insurance to healthcare, for example; from construction to manufacturing, maybe...
You're even eliminating the entire techno-speak from the equation because you're selling a solution that allows real estate pros to get up-to-date MLS in seconds, from their cars/houses etc. on their phones/tablets vs. laptops, or whatever the case may be. You don't need to go into the technology at all.
Brian, I believed in mobile in the early 2000's for retail. I presented retail mobile business solutions, and heard lots of pushback just ten years ago. This was partly due to the cost and confidence in mobile technologies being able to scale for the needs of the business. I suspect that BI for mobile will go through a similar process of viability and acceptance, especially today with BYOD.
As much as I know BI is so important for the actual business side, I have to agree with you @dcawrey that security is a huge issue. There's enough problems with security breaches as, and mobile is just not ready yet as far as I've heard. Collaboration is so important, but so is securing that data to keep consumer trust and to prevent liability issues.
Joanne, I agree with your real estate example and it brings up another broad thought. Speciically, mobile is a broad topic, too.
I once talked with a guy from some snazzy consultant group, not snazzy enough, though, that I remember the name. I mentioned wireless to him and he immediately asked, "What do you mean, wireless?" I worked at Sprint so it seemed straightforward to me, but then it opened my eyes (this was about 8 years ago) about all things wireless and the many flavors that all fell under the simple wireless umbrella.
Similarly, I think mobile has so many arms and legs. I initially thought your application wouldn't be that good on a phone, but great on a tablet. The new iPhone, though, maybe....and the new Galaxy where the agent could possibly bump the findings to the buyer's phone would be cool, too.
That's a great point. When it comes to Bi, you need to think about those instances when employees have said "I could have made a better decision if I'd known X, Y, or Z" or if "I'd realized A, B, or C earlier." This is the type of info that can help IT design the best solution for a specific need, rather than just throwing tech at a problem that no one's defined.
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