Mobile business intelligence (BI) represents the ability to access business-critical information on any mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet. Due to massive improvements to mobile technology in the past few years, the idea of mobile BI just recently became interesting.
Mobile BI offers a lot of advantages for companies. Accessing business-critical data whenever you want is the most important advantage here. Unlike traditional BI tools, mobile BI is accessible outside company servers (or within). This means that anytime you need a view of your business, it's in the palm of your hands. Having access to this information can be the difference between capitalizing on a new opportunity before the competition, or meeting a challenge before it becomes a crisis.
Of course, not every company has need for Mobile Business Intelligence. In those companies which need or use mobile BI, usually there are three main groups who will benefit from the implementation of a mobile BI solution. These are executives, key sales people, and field service personnel.
The three fundamental internal drivers for Mobile BI are:
Increasing employee productivity
Increasing employee productivity is a key motivation for delivering BI to mobile devices.
Delivery of the right data at the right time, can significantly improve productivity by
empowering users with the fact-based information they need to execute their jobs effectively and reduce time wasted searching for data.
Improving data delivery efficiency
Improving information flow through an organization is a common overarching motivation for implementing Mobile BI. For mobile workers who are often away from their desks, a Mobile BI application provides direct access to organizational data assets.
The need to deliver real-time reporting and analytics
Mobile BI is about delivering real-time, or near real-time, access to data.
The potential benefits of mobile BI solution for a company are enormous.
Access to real-time information for the mobile worker has many benefits, like the ability to make better fact-based decisions anytime. Also, the increased workspace productivity and company-wide efficiency through acceleration the decision-making process, or improved understanding of customer needs and the customer decision making process.
Of course, lots of the benefits of mobile BI can also be equally applied with implementing a standard BI solution. But the four most commonly sought benefits of implementing a Mobile BI strategy are increased competitive advantage, increased productivity leading to greater profitability, and a clearly definable Return On Investment (ROI).