For many years, "pervasive" business intelligence (BI) was considered nirvana, a state achieved when operational insights are immediately accessible to decision makers, wherever and whenever they are needed. Mobile data access platforms are among the technologies considered integral to helping organizations convert the blue-sky vision of just-in-time (JIT) data into actionable knowledge.

2. I Mobility
BI Goes Mobile:
The Future of
Information is Here
A brave new world of real-time knowledge is emerging, courtesy
of smartphones and tablet computers that report, alert or enable
on-demand sharing of business intelligence to support more collaborative
and virtual ways of working.
By Parth Sarathi Mukherjee and Karthik Krishnamurthy
For many years, “pervasive” business intelligence (BI) was considered nirvana, a state achieved when
operational insights in the form of data and/or reports are immediately accessible to decision makers,
wherever and whenever they are needed. To others, the concept is little more than a pipe dream.
Why the schism? Organizations have struggled to define exactly how pervasive they intend to be, even as
technologies emerge that can enable “everyone” in the organization to have the “right information at the
right time.” Mobile data access platforms are among the technologies considered integral to helping
organizations convert the blue-sky vision of just-in-time (JIT) data into actionable knowledge.
As the workplace evolves, the ways in which knowledge is created, accumulated, stored and applied will
radically change. That’s important as more fully globalized and virtualized workplaces emerge, where
knowledge workers (armed with smartphones and tablet PCs) will need to access information and business
processes that live increasingly in the cloud.
Without tools to deliver and distill raw information into more immediately useful forms, organizations will
be challenged to unlock the more collaborative and productive ways of working that the future of work
promises.
Mobile BI will help organizations realize the pervasive BI dream today by delivering time-sensitive reports
to on-the-go CXOs before they enter a critical meeting or providing traveling sales and service organizations
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3. with JIT customer/order information. In the longer term, mobile BI will enable better employee engagement
by providing personalized, location-based intelligence for personal use and also acting as a source of
collated customer information.
What Innovators Are Doing
In the mobile BI space, three key areas of immediate application are emerging:
1. Executive reports delivered to smart devices on pre-defined information needs, interlinked
with the ability to initiate action based on these insights.
2. Mobile apps as the delivery mechanism for operational alerts, providing employees such
as buyers and sales personnel with real-time alerts on operational developments, such as
stock-outs, non-fulfillment of orders, product rejects and returns.
3. On-demand reports pulled by the field force (sales, service, etc.) to meet customized
information needs based on live business requirements.
Some of our clients have already embarked upon initiatives in each of the aforementioned directions. Here’s
a look at some of these projects in detail.
Mobile Reporting for CXOs
In the future, workers and work will be increasingly mobile. CXOs, in particular, will increasingly find
themselves untethered to a desktop or even a laptop and more reliant on smartphones and tablet computers.
Between rushing from a satellite office to a business dinner, the information-hungry and savvy CXO will seek
Forewarned is Forearmed
The following are the key issues organizations need to be aware of before taking the mobile BI
plunge:
Security: Data residing in mobile phones and tablets require robust protection mechanisms, as
these devices are prone to being lost or stolen. Organizations need to establish strong
authentication, authorization and encryption practices to protect the remote usage of confidential
information.
Governance: Creation and publication of BI content needs to be centralized to make the pervasive
environment more manageable and scalable. In order to ensure data integrity, organizations must
establish centralized change management, cube management and data stewardship for mobile
BI applications.
BI Design: The data sent to users via handheld devices needs to be subjected to more scrutiny
and standards than a regular desktop-accessed dashboard. With remotely situated employees
already suffering from a multiplicity of distractions, mobile BI apps will see stiff competition for
user attention. Designers of mobile BI apps must verify the content is important enough to be
required when mobile, ensure a simple interface, provide information in a logical or hierarchical
format, and use aesthetics that are crisp and enhance readability.
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4. better (and more timely) information through his or her smart device. Already, the bulk of North American
CXOs now own either a BlackBerry or an iPhone (or both).1 Research firm Forrester reports that increased
smartphone demand sets the stage for a surge in the use of personal smartphones for information work.2
CXOs at our client companies are increasingly relying on smartphones or tablet PCs such as the Apple iPad
for information gathering and analysis tasks. Applications ported to mobile platforms include financial
approval systems, enterprise KPI dashboards and strategy maps. The CEO of an entertainment company with
which we work uses his BlackBerry to access BU-level business indicators and full reports before his weekly
meetings with respective BU leaders. Mobile BI enables him to be closer to the action and gain a better
appreciation of key business dynamics, in real time.
Mobile Operational Alerts
With more and more employees on the move, organizations will need to push alerts to handheld devices
that can enable immediate action. Some business situations demand quick response; a delayed response
can result in top-line or bottom-line harm. For example, a peripatetic purchasing manager should be alerted
to an out-of-stock situation of raw material to prevent delays in fulfilling an important order.
Competitive intelligence is another area where mobile alerts can play a strategic delivery role. Competitive
product introductions and sales promotions will require an immediate response from the sales and
marketing team, and mobile alerts will play a key role here. The benefits of mobile operational alerts can
also be extended to other areas. Roving sales personnel can receive alerts on product sales and
merchandising information based on the geographic area in which they are traveling. Sales personnel on
the move can map sales data to pinpoint the highest revenue-generating areas and analyze the
demographics of those areas to improve promotional and marketing efforts.
A peripatetic purchasing manager should
be alerted to an out-of-stock situation of raw
material to prevent delays in fulfilling an
important order.
The application goes beyond sales and marketing. For example, one of Europe’s busiest airports implemented
a mobile BI solution that helped air traffic managers improve their interactions with airline personnel. About
32% of total flights from the airport were delayed, and managers spent too much time shuttling between their
office desktops, the printer and the airline office to discuss reasons for these delays. By deploying a mobile
BI application, the airline has greatly improved this process, with managers accessing previous flight and
delay histories from their handheld devices. With the move to mobile devices, BI adoption and end-user
satisfaction rates at the airport have spiked.
On-Demand Reports
As many customer-facing executives will corroborate, better customer attention and service is largely
dependent on having the right information when it’s needed most. Whether it’s the status of an order or a
service request, there are times when sales and service personnel have been without required information.
Mobile BI applications that can provide on-demand information to end users are slightly more challenging
to implement than the two static and pre-defined needs described above. They require a mobile BI
application that interacts with the enterprise data warehouse and BI system. Doing so, however, raises
data security issues that need to be seriously considered and overcome. While organizations have built
such systems already, and more and more new products are emerging that promise such capabilities, this
more mature form of mobile BI has yet to find popular acceptance.
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5. These concerns did not deter a California-based technology company from adopting a real-time financial
auditing and compliance analysis solution on a mobile platform. Initially, the company’s auditors would
assign scores in a spreadsheet and then manually enter them using a PC. From there, it would take about
a week for auditors to see a report to gauge discrepancies from historical performance and targets. With
the mobile BI application, auditors enter real-time scores directly into the mobile device and receive a
historical trend analysis and comparison with target values. This leads to immediate discussions, analysis
and documentation of follow-up activities.
Businesses that regularly use mobile
phones as a medium to communicate with
their employees will be among the earliest
adopters of mobile planning applications.
What Innovators Will Do
While organizations have already started creating value-enhancing mobile BI solutions that make
information more pervasive across the organization, there is still room for further development. In the future
of work, we envisage mobile BI solutions playing a more important role. Two of these projects are described
below: A mobile BI application for better employee engagement and mobile devices as data sources for BI
systems.
Employee Engagement
As the workplace becomes more globally dispersed and business is increasingly performed by distributed
teams, customizing and sharing work plans will become increasingly virtual. Employees in innovative
organizations will require a mobile application to plan, collaborate and determine their activities and
workload in an increasingly dynamic way. Businesses that regularly use mobile phones as a medium to
communicate with their employees will be among the earliest adopters of mobile planning applications.
These organizations will use smartphones to deliver location-specific intelligence to employees (by either
push or pull from the enterprise data warehouse) for business planning purposes. While sales force and area
managers are already using these applications for sales management, all employees can benefit from such
intelligence.
Organizations looking to apply a millennial mindset might even open up these applications to help employees
more effectively plan leisure activities (weekends and holidays). Solutions like these will enable employees
to create better work-life balance, and allow organizations to deliver a more engaging work experience,
which will enable them to attract and retain the best and brightest of the millennial generation.
Mobile Phones as Data Sources
Mobile phones are already being used as data sources, more famously in the not-for-profit sector. UNICEF
takes this approach with food distribution in drought-struck Ethiopia, while other non-government
organizations have used mobile devices to collect data for healthcare and research activities. With the
proliferation of Java-enabled smartphones that can tap Internet applications, such devices will become
integral to collecting key customer and behavioral information for advanced customer analysis.
As smartphones evolve into a preferred payment method for all kinds of purchases, they will also become
an ever-important data source for understanding consumer buying behavior and product/service preferences.
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6. JIT Knowledge for Road Warriors
As mobility and BI technologies converge, smartphones and tablet devices are being increasingly used to
supply employees “on-the-move” with actionable intelligence. Several organizations, including those
mentioned above, are already benefitting from these solutions. The role of mobile BI applications in creating
a truly pervasive BI environment is unquestionable. Organizations that are spreading over diverse
geographies with perennially mobile or dispersed employees will increasingly benefit from enhanced
operational flexibility and timely availability of knowledge.
Employees in innovative organizations will
require a mobile application to plan, collaborate
and determine their activities and workload in
an increasingly dynamic way.
In the future of work, mobile BI applications will have to play a “last-mile” role in delivering insights in
increasingly virtual organizations. Companies adopting mobile BI must understand who in their organizations
will benefit from using this technological capability. In its current form, mobile BI cannot replace mainstream
BI applications. This makes it imperative for the organization to limit where and when it enables mobile BI
and for which key business processes. The correct set of users with the right kinds of alerts, dashboards and
on-demand information accessible from their smartphones will help to herald the future of any workplace.
Karthik Krishnamurthy is the Global Business Leader for Cognizant’s Data Warehouse Business
Intelligence and Performance Management Practice. Karthik holds a diploma in Business Administration
from IIM Lucknow. He can be reached at Karthik_Krishnamurthy@cognizant.com.
Footnote
1
“2010 U.S. CXOs' Choice: Mobile Computing Products and Services,” Frost & Sullivan, March 8, 2010.
2
“Collaboration Needs Will Fuel A Smartphone Surge,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 6, 2010.
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