Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: System Integration

More and more mobile devices are becoming connected with the software that runs on them. But the true value of mobility can’t be realized until these devices take advantage of the necessary integration among the underlying systems. The same principles hold true for mobile business intelligence (BI). Therefore, when you’re developing a mobile BI strategy, you need to capitalize on opportunities for system integration that can enhance your end product. Typically, system integration in mobile BI can be categorized into three options.

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Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: Business Processes

When developing a mobile business intelligence (BI) strategy, you can’t ignore the role that business processes may play. In many cases, the introduction of BI content into the portfolio of mobile BI assets provides opportunities to not only eliminate the gaps in your business operations, but to improve the existing processes. Often, the impact is seen in two main ways. First, the current business processes may require you to change your mobile BI approach. Second, the mobile BI solution may highlight gaps that may require a redesign of your business processes to improve your mobile BI assets and your business operations.

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Big Data is In Fashion

Big data is, of course, one of the business world’s most in vogue buzz words. It may even be having an impact on how various industries function. Case in point, today’s Wall Street Journal reports that several firms are selling data and services to fashion brands and retailers (Fashion Industry Meets Big Data, Sep 9).

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Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: Communication

I am often amazed to discover that the lack of communication in technology projects stems not from a lack of resources but from wrong assumptions made about what’s perceived to be communication as part of a mobile business intelligence (BI) strategy. Just as we know that social media analytics isn’t just about counting Facebook likes or Twitter tweets, we should know that in mobile BI an announcement e-mail along with an attached instruction document alone isn’t synonymous with communication. When developing a mobile BI strategy, you must consider all facets of communication—that includes not only multiple channels but also different formats. Moreover, you must pay attention to both quality (effectiveness) and quantity (volume and frequency) of the content to ensure its maximum effectiveness.

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Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: Support Infrastructure

When people think of support activities, they typically consider the post-Go-Live time frame. I believe support—in a holistic view—starts before you Go Live. Whether we’re doing beta testing or entering the UAT phase, we’re already interacting with real users, or at least, we should be. This is an important opportunity to test not only your support infrastructure, but also your rollout documentation and any other artifacts that will supplement your support strategy.

As a best practice, you want to include as many of the real users of your mobile platform as possible. Moreover, for multi-audience solutions, you want to include as many roles and regions as feasible. In mobile BI, this could mean different regions to ensure different networks, local customizations, and so on are tested and validated.

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Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: Talent Management

When I bring up talent management as part of a mobile business intelligence strategy, I’m often met with that “deer caught in the headlights” look. I realize that talent management is typically used in the context of human resources, but I also see it playing an important part in the development of a mobile BI strategy. As with any technology project, in mobile BI we need to effectively manage three basic resources: technology (hardware, software, network), processes (business or technical), and people. Of the three, I believe talent is the most important one that we need to get right the first time.

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Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: Design

When the term design is used in mobile business intelligence (BI), it often refers to the user interface (UI). However, when I consider the question of design in developing a mobile BI strategy, I go beyond what a report or dashboard looks like. As I wrote in a previous post, when designing a mobile BI solution we need to consider all facets of user interactions and take a holistic approach in dealing with all aspects of the user experience. Here are three areas of design to consider when developing a mobile BI strategy.

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Predicting Outcomes, Providing Guidelines, Being Nostradamus

I have a gripe with the accounting profession. My gripe is with the fact that accounting information delivered to most business owners is old news. Stuff happened, the professional properly recorded it and reported on it, you paid your taxes, and that’s that. Game over.

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Ten Mobile BI Strategy Questions: Technology Infrastructure

When an organization is considering implementing a mobile BI strategy, it needs to ask/consider if its current information technology (IT) and business intelligence (BI) infrastructure can support mobile BI. It must determine if there are any gaps that need to be addressed prior to going live.

When we think of an end-to-end mobile BI solution, there are several areas that can impact the user experience. I refer to them as choke points. Some of the risks associated with these choke points can be eliminated; others will have to be mitigated. Depending on the business model and how the IT organization is set up, these choke points may be dependent on the configuration of technology or they may hinge on processes that are embedded into business or IT operations. Evaluating both infrastructures for mobile BI readiness is the first step.

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Leveraging Rapid Deployment Solutions For Analytics And Beyond

Today, organizations face multifaceted problems and need to quickly realize the value of their technology solutions whether it’s for business intelligence(BI) or other technology implementations. Business challenges have become more complex and are often riddled with ambiguity that makes it harder to address using traditional methodologies in analytics and beyond.

As a result, to answer the most pressing business questions, we’re still left with an age—old problem—balancing functionality against scarce time and resources. Rapid deployment solutions (RDS) can provide an alternative method by providing an accelerated timetable and the right foundation to scale up as needed.

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