BI systems migrate on mobile phones

Adaptation of BI solutions for mobile platforms should become trend number one in this segment of the market. Two years ago analyst of Aberdeen Group Inc. David Hatch prepared a research of best practices of use of mobile technologies in BI.

Then only 17% of the companies polled by researchers stated that they already use BI on mobile platforms whereas 78% of respondents noted the high interest in similar technology model. Then a number of vendors offered the first mobile versions of the BI systems. Then, according to Hatcha, rapid development of a trend was interfered by recession of world economy.

However, world crisis did not stop development of new functional mobile gadgets, such as iPhone, iPad and number of smartphones on Android. Their entry into the market completely predetermined further future BI, the expert considers. The answer of users followed without delay. In May, 2010 during the new research in Aberdeen established that already 23% of respondents use mobile BI, and another 31% were going to implement them within this year.

Among factors which decline business users for benefit of mobile BI solutions, according to Andrew Borg, the analyst of Aberdeen that they allow to make decisions in real time, increase their efficiency, do workflow by more flexible and increase the speed of reply to the requests of clients.

According to the most general determination, BI systems allow to consolidate large volumes of separate data and to transform them to visually more clear forms (for example, diagrams or charts) that does their analysis to much more effective. Transferring of this process to the mobile plane will allow the companies to interact in real time with customers and partners, increasing service and efficiency of work.

Meanwhile, producers of software renew the initiatives in the field of a mobile business intelligence, and the largest vendors took a number of steps in this direction just recently: SAS Institute added mobile "board" in April, SAP provided SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPhone and iPad recently, and IBM in June showed the new interface of mobile Cognos Go Mobile. In this regard it is worth mentioning also a number of startups like Mellmo and Leapfactor which offer "cloud" services for delivery of BI-applications to smartphones. Samir Sakpal, the analyst of Frost & Sullivan, predicts that the mobile analytics will be beyond the niche industries like the financial sector and will become a mass trend.

For example, the Manoy company of Manoj Prasad did not stop developing the first mobile BI-application yet, and he already plans following release. "We will see a celebration of mobile technologies soon", - Prasad, the vice president for industrial architecture, applications for global markets and to testing of the Californian company Life Technologies Corp says.

Actually Prasad made mobile BI solutions strategic priorities of the department for 2010. Initially its purpose consisted in developing mobile application which would allow 800 managers of the company to obtain more up-to-date data about products which Life Technologies develops and sells to scientific researchers. "All industrial companies will begin to move towards mobility", - Prasad predicts, noting that this trend will be supported with expansion of a possibility of smarfton to display of the graphic information and development of intuitive graphical interfaces for a bigger visualization in the course of the analysis.

When advantages of mobile BI were revealed in practice, Prasad asked development team to develop data migration mechanisms from [1] the SAP Business Objects and IBM Cognos BI systems on BlackBerrie and iPhone which are used by employees. Developers in turn offered the application for data visualization of Roambi which allows to transfer data of BI from different sources to iPhone and iPad which was applied to formation of a number of daily sales reports. "I showed result of CIO, and it was enraptured, also as well as a number of clients to whom it was shown", - Prasad says. Now the solution is used by about 50 employees of the company, further their number is going to increase, including at the expense of users of BlackBerry.

If Life Technologies "novichok" in this area, then the veteran of implementation of mobile BI is Fraport AG, the organizer of transportations for the airport of Frankfurt. According to the chief manager of business systems of the company Dieter Steinmann, the company began the BI project six years ago. Initially the purpose stood in consolidation within the BI solution of the data on work of the airport (arrival and a departure of runs, their delays and so on) updated each five minutes 24 hours a day. In 2008 the solution was transformed to mobile version with which 100 employees of the third largest European airport, as capacity of 50 million passengers a year work. About 800 more employees have access to a system from SAS Institute by means of mobile phones.

The example of Fraport is indicative. "Running forward, we will see the whole series of similar solutions for sales managers and departments of service and support soon", - the analyst of IDCStephen Drake said. According to him, as base for mobile BI reshleny not only BlackBerry, but also "tablets" like iPad and new phones like HTC Evo which have screens of high resolution that in this case has a crucial role will be used.

One of insignificant problems at the moment remains the fact that it is still difficult to measure efficiency of use of such solutions. According to Shteynmen, he cannot estimate in terms of money advantage of the solution used in Fraport, however, its fact widely of application demonstrates efficiency, the representative of the company considers. "Such applications have advantages unevident at first sight", - Prasad agrees. However, despite the hidden indicator of ROI (return of investments), he considers that mobile BI will become the main driver in fight for productivity.