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Business Intelligence Goes Mobile
Delaying deployment could be costly for enterprises, advises researcher Howard Dresner.
by Lori Janies
Howard Dresner has been a leading voice in business intelligence (BI) since 1989. After 13 years as a research fellow at Gartner, he continues to examine BI trends independently. He spoke with Teradata Magazine recently about his latest findings, which reveal how extensively mobile BI is transforming the market.
First, how do you define mobile BI?
Dresner: It’s the technology that allows businesses and individuals to use mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, to explore data and develop insights from anywhere, rather than being tied to a desktop or laptop computer.
You updated your “Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study” in February 2011. What initially prompted this research?
Dresner: The critical moment was the first time I picked up an iPad. When I used it with a BI application, I realized how important this was. I literally changed my research agenda. I had to do some primary research on the whole emerging area of mobile BI to test my hypothesis that business intelligence—and the world—are changing dramatically. And it turns out they are.
Who is using mobile BI and what are they doing?
Dresner: Mobile BI is used by everybody in all industries, but retail has always been ahead of the curve because things change rapidly and retail managers need information when on the floor. Without mobile BI, they have to act on intuition. With it, they are connected to real-time data, so they get the latest information about what inventory and products are moving, or aren’t moving, in a very usable format. Accordingly, they can determine where items need to be located to sell the best—at eye level or on the end of an aisle.
What kind of return on investment [ROI] are organizations achieving?
Dresner: One large retailer I looked at has realized millions of dollars in increased revenue in two years by giving its executives, like regional sales managers, real-time information they can access without time-consuming preparations when they visit stores and conduct reviews. They track whatever information is needed for immediate use, including point-of-sale data, trends and geographic variations. By making their organization much more efficient and effective, they’re moving more product or increasing the value of their transactions simply by understanding what’s going on within all of the stores inside a particular geography.
Moving forward, how is this trend evolving?
Dresner: Currently, most mobile BI applications are business-focused, but that’s changing as more applications are geared toward helping consumers do a wide range of things, such as analyzing their spending habits, determining their personal power utilization, or getting real-time gas prices.
Is the future all about the iPad? What other devices are making a difference?
Dresner: Since Apple and its devices are perceived as cool and chic, consumers have purchased them in droves—injecting tremendous urgency into the market. Whenever a new market emerges, people get excited and start proclaiming that Device A will replace all others. It doesn’t happen that way.
BI is most effective if you can deploy it broadly. For example, mobile phones are good for access but can be limited in the amount of BI they can easily deliver; tablets overcome that problem. However, the largest, most established platform out there is BlackBerry, and it should not be overlooked. Phones using Android, Windows and Apple operating systems all have to be leveraged as well.
What role does the data warehouse play?
Dresner: Much emphasis is placed on how things look—the graphic displays, etc.—in the mobile BI world. But the data content, quality and reliability are actually much more critical. Sadly, with a truly great interface on poor data, you can make bad decisions really fast. The quality of the data is more important than ever because now there will be more eyes on it, so the impact is far greater. Delivering real-time data to an expanding group of users requires the right platform.
How fast is this trend moving? How widespread is it likely to become?
Dresner: While North America is leading the world, other regions are showing increased interest. In my study, the lion’s share of respondents—70 percent—said that in two years, a quarter of their user population would be exclusively mobile, meaning they won’t use BI on a laptop or desktop computer at all. Another 23 percent said half of their users would be exclusively mobile in the near future. Those big numbers indicate a fundamental shift.
How urgent is the need to develop a mobile strategy?
Dresner: Corporate leaders must understand that over the next couple of years they will have to invest in the necessary technology, infrastructure, applications, training and processes. There are companies out there that are already way ahead of the pack. Anyone who is just getting started is already behind the early adopters. But that’s OK. You can still catch up now. Two years from now, I don’t know if you’ll be able to.
Lori Janies writes about business and technology for various publications.