Description
Business Intelligence (BI) and Mobility Applications are top priorities for todays retail business.
Retail Industry Executive Summary
Business Intelligence (BI) and Mobility Applications are top priorities for today’s
retail business. BI is key for retailers increasingly driven to optimize revenue,
inventory and profits down to the store and department level. Mobile application
access also plays a vital role as managers and other key decision makers are
often out of the office moving throughout the region or store assessing, diagnosing
and fixing customer problems and operating conditions.
The mobile workforce is often equipped with a smartphone to keep in contact via
voice and email while they are away from their desks. However, the information
needed to be fully informed and empowered to act on the most up-to-date
business data is often not available to them while they are mobile. The
investments made in BI and mobility do not reach their full potential until the
business brings the BI data to the mobile worker so better decisions can be
made wherever the work is being done.
Mobile Business
Intelligence: Better
Decisions Anywhere
You Do Business
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2
Executive Summary continued
There are three basic approaches to mobile BI:
• Event-based alerts – provide a mobile indication
(e.g., text message, email, voice message) of particular
situations such as a point-of-sale malfunction or
alarm on the property. This approach is useful for
communicating that something has happened.
• Static mobile reports – provide mobile access to daily
or weekly reports that are viewed on the smartphone.
This approach provides some information that the
mobile worker can use to determine why a situation
has occurred without returning to the office.
• Mobile BI dashboards – connect directly to the backend
BI system and allow the user to dynamically access
and interact with the data in tables or graphic formats.
This approach provides the mobile worker with the
ability to analyze current data and determine the
best action to take in response to a situation.
The goal of mobile BI is to provide the worker with the
contextually relevant information to make the best decisions.
The mobile BI dashboard approach provides access to the
most up-to-date data and the interface and interaction with
that data to effectively analyze the data on mobile devices.
The resulting improved decision making can be a significant
competitive advantage, enhancing customer satisfaction and
business performance.
Mobile BI can be implemented as a point solution that
provides narrow capability, or by targeted mobile applications
that use a mobile framework, such as Vaultus mobiScaler™,
that can access data from BI systems and other key
operational databases.
Real world results in the retail industry show that making the
best decisions – decisions that properly address the customer
experience and the financial impacts in the moment of need
wherever the manager is – often requires access to
information that is beyond the reach of the point solutions.
An application that uses a mobile framework that can access
the BI data, the other key data sources, and an interface that
provides the best interaction on the mobile device is often the
right choice.
For example, while a manager is walking the floor, she can
analyze the current shelf stock in the context of recent sales
trends – comparing the latest sales information and trends with
in-store inventory levels; verifying merchandising placements
against plans and sales targets. Combining real world, real-time
observations at the store with up-to-date sales, inventory and
merchandising information – obtained from the BI system and in
other retailer-specific databases – can drive a more efficient
operation and more customer sales.
By teaming with AT&T and Vaultus for mobile BI, retailers
can access a leading application platform certified on
AT&T mobile network, and AT&T retail industry solutions
consulting practice, to get the maximum value from
investments in business intelligence and mobile workforce.
Mobile Business Intelligence Strategy is Key
BI and Mobility Applications top the list of CIO priorities in today’s
competitive business environment. But without a strategy to put the
wealth of BI data in the hands of mobile workers, even organizations
with significant investments in data warehouses, reporting tools,
and mobile access to CRM and ERP can fall behind their peers in
the industry.
Business Intelligence is key for organizations increasingly driven by
metrics to optimize revenue, performance, and profit. Managers can
make better strategic and tactical decisions by using advanced
analytical tools to slice and dice historical, current and projected
data stored in massive data warehouses. However, in today’s
volatile, fast-paced competitive environment, it is more critical than
ever for managers and executives to have this data always at their
fingertips, enabling them to address challenges and opportunities
in real-time.
Maximizing mobile employees’ productivity and customer
responsiveness is a top priority, even in times of tight budgets.
Understanding the current marketplace and changing business
conditions as well as building and maintaining all of the necessary
relationships between employees, partners and customers requires
that more work be done away from the office than ever before. The
number of mobile workers continues to increase since growth and,
in some cases, survival depends on work and decisions made on
the front line, at the point of customer or partner contact, on the
shop floor, on the road and away from the office.
The mobile workforce is growing in every region
of the world. And, by 2011, nearly 3 of every 4
people in the U.S. workforce will be mobile.
Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2007-2011 Forecast
(IDC#209813)
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3
With rapid advancements in mobile applications as well as data
storage and warehousing, business intelligence and mobility have
emerged as important IT and business drivers at the same time.
However, the need for businesses to take full advantage of their
business intelligence investments while simultaneously supporting
an increasingly mobile workforce presents some significant
challenges. In fact, at times it can appear that business intelligence
and mobility exert conflicting forces on the people doing the work in
the field, as well as IT organizations supporting them.
If the analytical data and the decision-making tools are locked on
the desktop, the business intelligence function acts like a magnetic
force pulling the workers back to the office to use it. Conversely, we
have seen that the true context of today’s business – on the road, in
the field, with the partners and customers – is already acting as an
opposing magnetic force, pulling the workers away from the office.
However, the real power of a mobile workforce is achieved by
allowing people to work remotely without sacrificing access to the
tools that have become critical to their success.
Maximizing BI and Mobility investments means giving mobile
workers the data analysis tools otherwise available only in the office,
but with the advantage of having on-the-spot insight from real-time
observations and discussions in the field.
The End Result: Improved Decision Making
Decisions can be made faster since the decision maker has access
to all of the tools and data without having to return to the office. The
quality and outcome of the decisions themselves is also improved
since the decision maker can focus on the best data from the BI
system and use it to analyze the current business conditions while
interacting with their peers, partners and customers in context.
Approaches to Mobile Business Intelligence
Realizing that the value of the investments made in business
intelligence do not reach their full potential until a business closes
the gap between the BI system and their mobile workers is an
‘a ha!’ moment.
The next step is getting started. A review of companies who
recognize the need to mobilize their investment in business
intelligence shows that there are three common approaches to
mobile business intelligence: event-based alerts, static mobile
reports and mobile BI dashboards.
The Value of Interactive Mobile BI
The real value of mobile BI is achieved as remote workers are given
actionable insight into the data that is being viewed and analyzed.
Often, this value is realized in a progression from the user learning
what has happened, expanding into some understanding of why
the situation has happened, and providing the tools necessary to
know how to respond and address the situation effectively.
Approach
Description
Advantage
Disadvantage
Event-Based Alerts
Alert/Notification (text message, email or
voice mail) sent to workers from an agent
that identifies a pre-specified condition
has been met. (e.g., Sales in store XYZ
have declined more than 5% versus
year ago
• Requires little, if any, additional
infrastructure to detect an event
• Proactively makes users aware of an
event or change that may require
attention
• Reactionary: Alerts received only after
an event has happened
• Lack of context and details that led to
the alert means the user has little
information to determine the best
course of action
Static Mobile Reports
Static snapshots generated by the
backend BI system, possibly with
some formatting to fit the mobile
device screen size, and delivered as
an email attachment
• Reports are likely already created
and available for desktop users
• Users can access more details
behind events (getting some context
of why something happened)
• Reports are static snapshots that
provide some context and detail but
lack the interaction necessary to
maximize decision making
• Users cannot manipulate, sort, or
drill into the data
• Even if formatted for a mobile
screen, the data is not optimized for
mobile usage (requires a great deal
of scrolling and searching)
Mobile BI Dashboards
• A mobile application connected to the
backend BI system accesses and
presents metrics in near real-time
• User can manipulate and interact with
data, and display comparisons graphically
• Specially formatted and designed for
a mobile device. Multiple levels of
data drill down. Ex: Region – Store –
Department – Category
• Does not require a packaged BI system
and can easily link directly to a data
warehouse or database
• Application is constantly updated with
granular data directly from the backend
source giving users access to the most
current data available
• Easier to use since data is optimized
for a mobile device and dashboards are
designed to make usage of data as
simple and intuitive as possible
• Ability to manipulate data allows users
to spot trends and opportunities more
quickly and take proactive action
• Requires additional tools and
infrastructure to roll out and support
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4
Each step in the progression builds on the previous steps to provide
more and more power to the user.
What has Happened?
Sending alerts informs remote workers of unexpected or noteworthy
events and data. However, this approach only indicates that a
situation possibly needs to be assessed. The enterprise has still not
solved the central business issue because the user has only been
informed of a change; he/she is not equipped with the necessary
information and tools to make an informed decision that solves the
problem or acts on the opportunity.
Why has the Situation Occurred?
Static Mobile Reports take a step toward solving the central
business issue by providing the user some insight into an event via
access to their BI/Reporting data. However, the inability of a user to
manipulate and drill into the data severely limits the value a user can
extract from the information. Even if the report is formatted for a
mobile screen, it is often difficult and time consuming for the user to
actually mine the information from the mobile device.
How Should the Situation be Addressed?
Mobile BI Dashboards help companies move beyond just
‘informing’ mobile workers by providing true interaction with the
underlying BI data that actively supports the decision maker and the
decision making process. Extracting the highest possible value from
the BI infrastructure – as well as your backend data – requires a
mobile solution that can do more than display alerts and two-
dimensional data tables. It must provide the user with the ability to
drill into the data and refine the data to identify the root cause of a
problem or opportunity. Only with this deep level of interaction with
the data and in the context of the problem or opportunity – in the
store, on the road, or at the job site – can the decision maker make
the best decisions and choose the best course of action.
As companies move from simple alerting to actually informing and
arming the mobile worker with actionable intelligence on the
business, the market and their competition, the gap between factual
data and actionable data closes and presents a significant
competitive advantage to the user and their company.
Mobile Middleware: Point Solution vs. Platform
Point Solutions
As a business chooses an approach to mobile BI, it is common to
begin by looking at the mobile solutions that their BI or ERP provider
can deliver. These point solutions have a narrow focus – to get
information from the BI system to remote workers and present it on
mobile devices.
However, the ease with which these point solutions can be deployed
brings along some limitations. Since these solutions are designed
and built to provide specific kinds of access to the specific kinds of
data that are known to be in the BI system, they are constrained
from providing access to data that is beyond the boundaries of the
BI system.
Companies that begin their mobilization efforts by adopting a point
BI solution often use the experience from their initial mobile BI
deployment to identify other areas in the business where a
mobilization effort could yield tangible business value. They soon
realize that mobilizing these other areas cannot be accomplished
with the point solution. If they adopt yet another vendor’s mobility
application, they quickly build up a portfolio of disparate point
solutions that can’t be integrated with each other and that are
subject to different implementation and deployment constraints.
Choosing this path can quickly lead to dissatisfied users who need
to use separate (and often dissimilar) user interfaces for all their
mobility needs and a dissatisfied data center staff who must
maintain and support the large number of point solutions that the
business chooses.
Mobile Middleware Platforms
Recognizing the value of mobilizing multiple backend applications
(such as CRM, SFA, Supply Chain, Help Desk, Store Service
Operations, etc.), many organizations look at mobile BI as just one
aspect of a larger mobile strategy. Each new point solution (i.e.
Mobile CRM, Mobile Supply Chain, etc.) can create additional
support, management, and cost burdens on the business.
Mobilizing BI with a true mobile middleware platform, on the other
hand, can provide the company with a leverage-able mobile
foundation that can readily mobilize new applications and new
groups of users.
Forward looking businesses put mobilizing BI systems within the
context of an enterprise-wide mobilization strategy – and have
looked to leading mobile middleware platforms, such as Vaultus
mobiScaler™.
By leveraging the core facilities, expertise and support capabilities
of a true mobile middleware platform, companies can create a
single foundation that is capable of addressing an extremely broad
range of mobile workforce needs. As the mobile middleware
platform is used across more and more applications and processes,
the platform provides leverage and integration that makes a
business’ mobilization effort more than a set of mobilized
applications. Instead, it orchestrates a suite of interconnected
mobilized applications that can take advantage of economies of
scale and allow interdisciplinary data analysis and decision making.
In effect, this gives mobile users the ability to analyze the data and
Level of Interactivity
Mobile Alerts
Acknowledge:
What has happened
Acknowledge:
What has happened
Inform:
Why has the
situation occured
Inform:
Why has the
situation occured
Act:
How to address
the situation
Acknowledge:
What has happened
Mobile Reports
Mobile
Dashboards
B
u
s
i
n
e
s
s
V
a
l
u
e
Mobile: Stepping up the Value of
Your Business Intelligence
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5
make better decisions in the store, in the field, or on the road while
working with the staff, the partners, or the customers – without
needing to return to the office.
Key Considerations in Selecting a Mobile Technology
Obtaining the full value from your investment in business intelligence
requires that the BI system be accessible and useful for the mobile
workforce. Regardless of whether a BI point solution or mobile
middleware approach is selected, it is important to consider other
major factors in the solution. Your choices of software vendor,
hardware partner and carrier network are key considerations and
below are some critical things to keep in mind:
User Interface and User Experience
Getting the best decisions from the mobile workforce requires that
the mobile BI application meets the workers’ needs. The right data
needs to be presented at the right time whenever possible and it
needs to be in a usable format that can be easily manipulated,
regardless of location or environment. The UI and user experience
challenge is even greater for mobile applications than it is for
desktop applications. Limited screen space, network speed and
device processing capabilities amplify usability issues, especially
with data intensive applications like BI. Additionally, gaining full
advantage from a mobile BI solution requires complex interactions
with the data that let the user drill into, sort and refine the data. This
often requires a mobile application rather than a browser-based
approach since many mobile browsers do not yet effectively
provide the rendering and processing capabilities needed to
support interactions. How usable is your solution when real people
use it to solve real problems? Can the users perform all the tasks
they need to perform effectively on the mobile device(s)?
After understanding how your mobile BI approach maps to
the capabilities of the mobile device, it is equally important to
understand how the solution will work in the field. Even the best
networks can have coverage gaps and sub-optimal speeds,
meaning the mobile BI solution must be designed with the
recognition that users may occasionally need to use the solution in
less-than-perfect conditions. Failure to adequately address these
needs in the selection of a mobilization approach will limit the
effectiveness and lower the return derived from the solution. How
well does your solution provide optimal and effective use of the
network bandwidth that is available?
Access to Multiple Back-End Databases
Mobilizing your BI resources requires that the mobile solution you
choose be able to access the data in the BI system. The BI vendor
point solutions provide excellent access to the data that is already in
the BI system. However, they may not offer access to data that
reside in other corporate databases or ERP systems which you may
want to combine into your mobile solution. Mobile middleware
platforms often provide access to BI data as well as other corporate
data that exists in a number of other backend databases. When
choosing a BI mobilization solution, you should consider your
long-term data access needs in addition to the short-term ones.
Can your selected solution accommodate multiple data sources
or is it limited to a single data store stovepipe?
Ability to Drive the Business Process
A successful mobile BI deployment results in processes and
application(s) that enable business managers to make more
informed decisions, perhaps in different places and times than
today. Line of business managers know the data they need and
how they want to view it to understand, and act on, a particular
situation. When choosing a mobile BI solution, ensure that your
solution presents the right information in a format that is useful for
decision making. Simply mobilizing data that is easy to mobilize
may provide little value to users, since they may not have valid
comparisons or contextually relevant data grouped together.
Decisions on which data to mobilize should be driven by the needs
of the business user, rather than which data is easiest to mobilize.
Ability to Enable Real-Time Collaboration
The goal of the mobile BI effort is to close the gaps between your
mobile workforce and their connections to people, applications and
data. BI in the mobile workforce will undoubtedly exist in an
environment where the remote data analysis and decision making is
taking place in the context of a phone call or conference call with
other people. Therefore, your mobile solution should plan for BI and
other application usage that can occur simultaneously with a voice
conversation, or even a video sharing session on a mobile handset.
Speakerphones and headsets can make this sort of activity feel as
normal as speaking on the phone while on a desktop computer.
Can you effectively navigate and use your mobile BI solution while
you’re talking on your phone?
Support for Multiple Mobile Device Types
As mobile devices have penetrated business and consumer
markets, businesses are less able to impose standardization of
devices to a single device or class. Therefore, the carrier network
and BI solution you choose should be capable of supporting a
variety of devices and mobile computing platforms such as
BlackBerry
®
, Windows Mobile
®
, and iPhone. Selection of handsets
and platforms are something to keep in mind when selecting your
telecom partner. Even if your business can standardize on a
particular device type (e.g., BlackBerry
®
), there are a still a number
of variations in that device class with a variety of screen sizes and
interface types (keyboard vs. touchscreen). Is your organization
committed to a single device type? Does your solution (software,
hardware and network) accommodate the devices that your users
can use and want to use?
Next Steps
Your business has already made a significant investment in
Business Intelligence and Mobility. If your business intelligence
system requires that your mobile workers return to an office to
perform analysis, your business is losing productivity, reducing the
return on your BI investment, and – perhaps more importantly – being
less agile than your competitors. Your mobile workforce is growing
and your mobile workforce needs to make decisions quickly in the
context of where your business actually happens – at the storefront,
in the field, with the partner, or with the customer. In this operating
environment, businesses need to make smarter decisions and make
them faster than ever to keep costs down and margins optimized.
Here’s how you can get started now.
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6
Adopt an Approach
Getting alerts or static reports to your mobile workers can get you
started quickly and keep your mobile workers informed. However,
your initial successes may not be able to scale and more decision
making into the field. A mobile BI dashboard approach will provide
the BI data and many of the business analysis tools to your mobile
workers on their smartphone. Do you want your mobile workers to
be informed? Or do you want your mobile workers equipped to
take action?
Point Solution or Mobile Middleware Platform?
A point solution will give you mobile access to the data that’s already
in your BI system. Using a mobile middleware platform will support
your BI system and let your mobile strategy grow to support multiple
business functions. Using a common mobile middleware platform
provides robust application acceleration, data security,
synchronization, and network optimization techniques across all
of your mobilization efforts.
Choose Your Network and Mobile BI Solution
Mobilizing Business Intelligence applications requires a high
degree of coordination between your project team, mobile network
operator and mobile BI application provider. Whether your are
developing requirements and business case for the project, running
a pilot or planning full deployment, working with solutions that are
pre-tested and certified on a leading mobile network can reduce
deployment risk and maximize ROI. Vaultus can provide an
AT&T-certified suite of mobile applications, in collaboration with
AT&T mobility and industry application consulting and deployment
services, to put you on the road to mobile BI success.
Looking at your own business needs and investigating your options
can get you started with mobile BI today. Waiting is not an option in
getting the maximum value from your investment in either business
intelligence or your mobile workforce.
Vaultus Mobile Technologies, 263 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210 T: 617-338-9849 E: [email protected]
Copyright © 2009 Vaultus Mobile Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Vaultus, Vaultus Mobile Technologies, the Vaultus logo, mobiScaler, and mobiStudio are trademarks of Vaultus Mobile Technologies, Inc.
All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
04/24/09 AB-1573
© 2009 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property. The information in this document is provided by AT&T for informational purposes only.
AT&T does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information or commit to issue updates or corrections to the information. AT&T is not responsible for any damages resulting from use of or reliance
on the information.
For more information contact an AT&T Representative or visit www.att.com/business.
doc_729998435.pdf
Business Intelligence (BI) and Mobility Applications are top priorities for todays retail business.
Retail Industry Executive Summary
Business Intelligence (BI) and Mobility Applications are top priorities for today’s
retail business. BI is key for retailers increasingly driven to optimize revenue,
inventory and profits down to the store and department level. Mobile application
access also plays a vital role as managers and other key decision makers are
often out of the office moving throughout the region or store assessing, diagnosing
and fixing customer problems and operating conditions.
The mobile workforce is often equipped with a smartphone to keep in contact via
voice and email while they are away from their desks. However, the information
needed to be fully informed and empowered to act on the most up-to-date
business data is often not available to them while they are mobile. The
investments made in BI and mobility do not reach their full potential until the
business brings the BI data to the mobile worker so better decisions can be
made wherever the work is being done.
Mobile Business
Intelligence: Better
Decisions Anywhere
You Do Business
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2
Executive Summary continued
There are three basic approaches to mobile BI:
• Event-based alerts – provide a mobile indication
(e.g., text message, email, voice message) of particular
situations such as a point-of-sale malfunction or
alarm on the property. This approach is useful for
communicating that something has happened.
• Static mobile reports – provide mobile access to daily
or weekly reports that are viewed on the smartphone.
This approach provides some information that the
mobile worker can use to determine why a situation
has occurred without returning to the office.
• Mobile BI dashboards – connect directly to the backend
BI system and allow the user to dynamically access
and interact with the data in tables or graphic formats.
This approach provides the mobile worker with the
ability to analyze current data and determine the
best action to take in response to a situation.
The goal of mobile BI is to provide the worker with the
contextually relevant information to make the best decisions.
The mobile BI dashboard approach provides access to the
most up-to-date data and the interface and interaction with
that data to effectively analyze the data on mobile devices.
The resulting improved decision making can be a significant
competitive advantage, enhancing customer satisfaction and
business performance.
Mobile BI can be implemented as a point solution that
provides narrow capability, or by targeted mobile applications
that use a mobile framework, such as Vaultus mobiScaler™,
that can access data from BI systems and other key
operational databases.
Real world results in the retail industry show that making the
best decisions – decisions that properly address the customer
experience and the financial impacts in the moment of need
wherever the manager is – often requires access to
information that is beyond the reach of the point solutions.
An application that uses a mobile framework that can access
the BI data, the other key data sources, and an interface that
provides the best interaction on the mobile device is often the
right choice.
For example, while a manager is walking the floor, she can
analyze the current shelf stock in the context of recent sales
trends – comparing the latest sales information and trends with
in-store inventory levels; verifying merchandising placements
against plans and sales targets. Combining real world, real-time
observations at the store with up-to-date sales, inventory and
merchandising information – obtained from the BI system and in
other retailer-specific databases – can drive a more efficient
operation and more customer sales.
By teaming with AT&T and Vaultus for mobile BI, retailers
can access a leading application platform certified on
AT&T mobile network, and AT&T retail industry solutions
consulting practice, to get the maximum value from
investments in business intelligence and mobile workforce.
Mobile Business Intelligence Strategy is Key
BI and Mobility Applications top the list of CIO priorities in today’s
competitive business environment. But without a strategy to put the
wealth of BI data in the hands of mobile workers, even organizations
with significant investments in data warehouses, reporting tools,
and mobile access to CRM and ERP can fall behind their peers in
the industry.
Business Intelligence is key for organizations increasingly driven by
metrics to optimize revenue, performance, and profit. Managers can
make better strategic and tactical decisions by using advanced
analytical tools to slice and dice historical, current and projected
data stored in massive data warehouses. However, in today’s
volatile, fast-paced competitive environment, it is more critical than
ever for managers and executives to have this data always at their
fingertips, enabling them to address challenges and opportunities
in real-time.
Maximizing mobile employees’ productivity and customer
responsiveness is a top priority, even in times of tight budgets.
Understanding the current marketplace and changing business
conditions as well as building and maintaining all of the necessary
relationships between employees, partners and customers requires
that more work be done away from the office than ever before. The
number of mobile workers continues to increase since growth and,
in some cases, survival depends on work and decisions made on
the front line, at the point of customer or partner contact, on the
shop floor, on the road and away from the office.
The mobile workforce is growing in every region
of the world. And, by 2011, nearly 3 of every 4
people in the U.S. workforce will be mobile.
Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2007-2011 Forecast
(IDC#209813)
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3
With rapid advancements in mobile applications as well as data
storage and warehousing, business intelligence and mobility have
emerged as important IT and business drivers at the same time.
However, the need for businesses to take full advantage of their
business intelligence investments while simultaneously supporting
an increasingly mobile workforce presents some significant
challenges. In fact, at times it can appear that business intelligence
and mobility exert conflicting forces on the people doing the work in
the field, as well as IT organizations supporting them.
If the analytical data and the decision-making tools are locked on
the desktop, the business intelligence function acts like a magnetic
force pulling the workers back to the office to use it. Conversely, we
have seen that the true context of today’s business – on the road, in
the field, with the partners and customers – is already acting as an
opposing magnetic force, pulling the workers away from the office.
However, the real power of a mobile workforce is achieved by
allowing people to work remotely without sacrificing access to the
tools that have become critical to their success.
Maximizing BI and Mobility investments means giving mobile
workers the data analysis tools otherwise available only in the office,
but with the advantage of having on-the-spot insight from real-time
observations and discussions in the field.
The End Result: Improved Decision Making
Decisions can be made faster since the decision maker has access
to all of the tools and data without having to return to the office. The
quality and outcome of the decisions themselves is also improved
since the decision maker can focus on the best data from the BI
system and use it to analyze the current business conditions while
interacting with their peers, partners and customers in context.
Approaches to Mobile Business Intelligence
Realizing that the value of the investments made in business
intelligence do not reach their full potential until a business closes
the gap between the BI system and their mobile workers is an
‘a ha!’ moment.
The next step is getting started. A review of companies who
recognize the need to mobilize their investment in business
intelligence shows that there are three common approaches to
mobile business intelligence: event-based alerts, static mobile
reports and mobile BI dashboards.
The Value of Interactive Mobile BI
The real value of mobile BI is achieved as remote workers are given
actionable insight into the data that is being viewed and analyzed.
Often, this value is realized in a progression from the user learning
what has happened, expanding into some understanding of why
the situation has happened, and providing the tools necessary to
know how to respond and address the situation effectively.
Approach
Description
Advantage
Disadvantage
Event-Based Alerts
Alert/Notification (text message, email or
voice mail) sent to workers from an agent
that identifies a pre-specified condition
has been met. (e.g., Sales in store XYZ
have declined more than 5% versus
year ago
• Requires little, if any, additional
infrastructure to detect an event
• Proactively makes users aware of an
event or change that may require
attention
• Reactionary: Alerts received only after
an event has happened
• Lack of context and details that led to
the alert means the user has little
information to determine the best
course of action
Static Mobile Reports
Static snapshots generated by the
backend BI system, possibly with
some formatting to fit the mobile
device screen size, and delivered as
an email attachment
• Reports are likely already created
and available for desktop users
• Users can access more details
behind events (getting some context
of why something happened)
• Reports are static snapshots that
provide some context and detail but
lack the interaction necessary to
maximize decision making
• Users cannot manipulate, sort, or
drill into the data
• Even if formatted for a mobile
screen, the data is not optimized for
mobile usage (requires a great deal
of scrolling and searching)
Mobile BI Dashboards
• A mobile application connected to the
backend BI system accesses and
presents metrics in near real-time
• User can manipulate and interact with
data, and display comparisons graphically
• Specially formatted and designed for
a mobile device. Multiple levels of
data drill down. Ex: Region – Store –
Department – Category
• Does not require a packaged BI system
and can easily link directly to a data
warehouse or database
• Application is constantly updated with
granular data directly from the backend
source giving users access to the most
current data available
• Easier to use since data is optimized
for a mobile device and dashboards are
designed to make usage of data as
simple and intuitive as possible
• Ability to manipulate data allows users
to spot trends and opportunities more
quickly and take proactive action
• Requires additional tools and
infrastructure to roll out and support
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4
Each step in the progression builds on the previous steps to provide
more and more power to the user.
What has Happened?
Sending alerts informs remote workers of unexpected or noteworthy
events and data. However, this approach only indicates that a
situation possibly needs to be assessed. The enterprise has still not
solved the central business issue because the user has only been
informed of a change; he/she is not equipped with the necessary
information and tools to make an informed decision that solves the
problem or acts on the opportunity.
Why has the Situation Occurred?
Static Mobile Reports take a step toward solving the central
business issue by providing the user some insight into an event via
access to their BI/Reporting data. However, the inability of a user to
manipulate and drill into the data severely limits the value a user can
extract from the information. Even if the report is formatted for a
mobile screen, it is often difficult and time consuming for the user to
actually mine the information from the mobile device.
How Should the Situation be Addressed?
Mobile BI Dashboards help companies move beyond just
‘informing’ mobile workers by providing true interaction with the
underlying BI data that actively supports the decision maker and the
decision making process. Extracting the highest possible value from
the BI infrastructure – as well as your backend data – requires a
mobile solution that can do more than display alerts and two-
dimensional data tables. It must provide the user with the ability to
drill into the data and refine the data to identify the root cause of a
problem or opportunity. Only with this deep level of interaction with
the data and in the context of the problem or opportunity – in the
store, on the road, or at the job site – can the decision maker make
the best decisions and choose the best course of action.
As companies move from simple alerting to actually informing and
arming the mobile worker with actionable intelligence on the
business, the market and their competition, the gap between factual
data and actionable data closes and presents a significant
competitive advantage to the user and their company.
Mobile Middleware: Point Solution vs. Platform
Point Solutions
As a business chooses an approach to mobile BI, it is common to
begin by looking at the mobile solutions that their BI or ERP provider
can deliver. These point solutions have a narrow focus – to get
information from the BI system to remote workers and present it on
mobile devices.
However, the ease with which these point solutions can be deployed
brings along some limitations. Since these solutions are designed
and built to provide specific kinds of access to the specific kinds of
data that are known to be in the BI system, they are constrained
from providing access to data that is beyond the boundaries of the
BI system.
Companies that begin their mobilization efforts by adopting a point
BI solution often use the experience from their initial mobile BI
deployment to identify other areas in the business where a
mobilization effort could yield tangible business value. They soon
realize that mobilizing these other areas cannot be accomplished
with the point solution. If they adopt yet another vendor’s mobility
application, they quickly build up a portfolio of disparate point
solutions that can’t be integrated with each other and that are
subject to different implementation and deployment constraints.
Choosing this path can quickly lead to dissatisfied users who need
to use separate (and often dissimilar) user interfaces for all their
mobility needs and a dissatisfied data center staff who must
maintain and support the large number of point solutions that the
business chooses.
Mobile Middleware Platforms
Recognizing the value of mobilizing multiple backend applications
(such as CRM, SFA, Supply Chain, Help Desk, Store Service
Operations, etc.), many organizations look at mobile BI as just one
aspect of a larger mobile strategy. Each new point solution (i.e.
Mobile CRM, Mobile Supply Chain, etc.) can create additional
support, management, and cost burdens on the business.
Mobilizing BI with a true mobile middleware platform, on the other
hand, can provide the company with a leverage-able mobile
foundation that can readily mobilize new applications and new
groups of users.
Forward looking businesses put mobilizing BI systems within the
context of an enterprise-wide mobilization strategy – and have
looked to leading mobile middleware platforms, such as Vaultus
mobiScaler™.
By leveraging the core facilities, expertise and support capabilities
of a true mobile middleware platform, companies can create a
single foundation that is capable of addressing an extremely broad
range of mobile workforce needs. As the mobile middleware
platform is used across more and more applications and processes,
the platform provides leverage and integration that makes a
business’ mobilization effort more than a set of mobilized
applications. Instead, it orchestrates a suite of interconnected
mobilized applications that can take advantage of economies of
scale and allow interdisciplinary data analysis and decision making.
In effect, this gives mobile users the ability to analyze the data and
Level of Interactivity
Mobile Alerts
Acknowledge:
What has happened
Acknowledge:
What has happened
Inform:
Why has the
situation occured
Inform:
Why has the
situation occured
Act:
How to address
the situation
Acknowledge:
What has happened
Mobile Reports
Mobile
Dashboards
B
u
s
i
n
e
s
s
V
a
l
u
e
Mobile: Stepping up the Value of
Your Business Intelligence
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5
make better decisions in the store, in the field, or on the road while
working with the staff, the partners, or the customers – without
needing to return to the office.
Key Considerations in Selecting a Mobile Technology
Obtaining the full value from your investment in business intelligence
requires that the BI system be accessible and useful for the mobile
workforce. Regardless of whether a BI point solution or mobile
middleware approach is selected, it is important to consider other
major factors in the solution. Your choices of software vendor,
hardware partner and carrier network are key considerations and
below are some critical things to keep in mind:
User Interface and User Experience
Getting the best decisions from the mobile workforce requires that
the mobile BI application meets the workers’ needs. The right data
needs to be presented at the right time whenever possible and it
needs to be in a usable format that can be easily manipulated,
regardless of location or environment. The UI and user experience
challenge is even greater for mobile applications than it is for
desktop applications. Limited screen space, network speed and
device processing capabilities amplify usability issues, especially
with data intensive applications like BI. Additionally, gaining full
advantage from a mobile BI solution requires complex interactions
with the data that let the user drill into, sort and refine the data. This
often requires a mobile application rather than a browser-based
approach since many mobile browsers do not yet effectively
provide the rendering and processing capabilities needed to
support interactions. How usable is your solution when real people
use it to solve real problems? Can the users perform all the tasks
they need to perform effectively on the mobile device(s)?
After understanding how your mobile BI approach maps to
the capabilities of the mobile device, it is equally important to
understand how the solution will work in the field. Even the best
networks can have coverage gaps and sub-optimal speeds,
meaning the mobile BI solution must be designed with the
recognition that users may occasionally need to use the solution in
less-than-perfect conditions. Failure to adequately address these
needs in the selection of a mobilization approach will limit the
effectiveness and lower the return derived from the solution. How
well does your solution provide optimal and effective use of the
network bandwidth that is available?
Access to Multiple Back-End Databases
Mobilizing your BI resources requires that the mobile solution you
choose be able to access the data in the BI system. The BI vendor
point solutions provide excellent access to the data that is already in
the BI system. However, they may not offer access to data that
reside in other corporate databases or ERP systems which you may
want to combine into your mobile solution. Mobile middleware
platforms often provide access to BI data as well as other corporate
data that exists in a number of other backend databases. When
choosing a BI mobilization solution, you should consider your
long-term data access needs in addition to the short-term ones.
Can your selected solution accommodate multiple data sources
or is it limited to a single data store stovepipe?
Ability to Drive the Business Process
A successful mobile BI deployment results in processes and
application(s) that enable business managers to make more
informed decisions, perhaps in different places and times than
today. Line of business managers know the data they need and
how they want to view it to understand, and act on, a particular
situation. When choosing a mobile BI solution, ensure that your
solution presents the right information in a format that is useful for
decision making. Simply mobilizing data that is easy to mobilize
may provide little value to users, since they may not have valid
comparisons or contextually relevant data grouped together.
Decisions on which data to mobilize should be driven by the needs
of the business user, rather than which data is easiest to mobilize.
Ability to Enable Real-Time Collaboration
The goal of the mobile BI effort is to close the gaps between your
mobile workforce and their connections to people, applications and
data. BI in the mobile workforce will undoubtedly exist in an
environment where the remote data analysis and decision making is
taking place in the context of a phone call or conference call with
other people. Therefore, your mobile solution should plan for BI and
other application usage that can occur simultaneously with a voice
conversation, or even a video sharing session on a mobile handset.
Speakerphones and headsets can make this sort of activity feel as
normal as speaking on the phone while on a desktop computer.
Can you effectively navigate and use your mobile BI solution while
you’re talking on your phone?
Support for Multiple Mobile Device Types
As mobile devices have penetrated business and consumer
markets, businesses are less able to impose standardization of
devices to a single device or class. Therefore, the carrier network
and BI solution you choose should be capable of supporting a
variety of devices and mobile computing platforms such as
BlackBerry
®
, Windows Mobile
®
, and iPhone. Selection of handsets
and platforms are something to keep in mind when selecting your
telecom partner. Even if your business can standardize on a
particular device type (e.g., BlackBerry
®
), there are a still a number
of variations in that device class with a variety of screen sizes and
interface types (keyboard vs. touchscreen). Is your organization
committed to a single device type? Does your solution (software,
hardware and network) accommodate the devices that your users
can use and want to use?
Next Steps
Your business has already made a significant investment in
Business Intelligence and Mobility. If your business intelligence
system requires that your mobile workers return to an office to
perform analysis, your business is losing productivity, reducing the
return on your BI investment, and – perhaps more importantly – being
less agile than your competitors. Your mobile workforce is growing
and your mobile workforce needs to make decisions quickly in the
context of where your business actually happens – at the storefront,
in the field, with the partner, or with the customer. In this operating
environment, businesses need to make smarter decisions and make
them faster than ever to keep costs down and margins optimized.
Here’s how you can get started now.
Mobile Business Intelligence: Retail __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6
Adopt an Approach
Getting alerts or static reports to your mobile workers can get you
started quickly and keep your mobile workers informed. However,
your initial successes may not be able to scale and more decision
making into the field. A mobile BI dashboard approach will provide
the BI data and many of the business analysis tools to your mobile
workers on their smartphone. Do you want your mobile workers to
be informed? Or do you want your mobile workers equipped to
take action?
Point Solution or Mobile Middleware Platform?
A point solution will give you mobile access to the data that’s already
in your BI system. Using a mobile middleware platform will support
your BI system and let your mobile strategy grow to support multiple
business functions. Using a common mobile middleware platform
provides robust application acceleration, data security,
synchronization, and network optimization techniques across all
of your mobilization efforts.
Choose Your Network and Mobile BI Solution
Mobilizing Business Intelligence applications requires a high
degree of coordination between your project team, mobile network
operator and mobile BI application provider. Whether your are
developing requirements and business case for the project, running
a pilot or planning full deployment, working with solutions that are
pre-tested and certified on a leading mobile network can reduce
deployment risk and maximize ROI. Vaultus can provide an
AT&T-certified suite of mobile applications, in collaboration with
AT&T mobility and industry application consulting and deployment
services, to put you on the road to mobile BI success.
Looking at your own business needs and investigating your options
can get you started with mobile BI today. Waiting is not an option in
getting the maximum value from your investment in either business
intelligence or your mobile workforce.
Vaultus Mobile Technologies, 263 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210 T: 617-338-9849 E: [email protected]
Copyright © 2009 Vaultus Mobile Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Vaultus, Vaultus Mobile Technologies, the Vaultus logo, mobiScaler, and mobiStudio are trademarks of Vaultus Mobile Technologies, Inc.
All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
04/24/09 AB-1573
© 2009 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property. The information in this document is provided by AT&T for informational purposes only.
AT&T does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information or commit to issue updates or corrections to the information. AT&T is not responsible for any damages resulting from use of or reliance
on the information.
For more information contact an AT&T Representative or visit www.att.com/business.
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