Mobile business intelligence

For a general overview, see Business intelligence.

Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI or Mobile Intelligence) refers to the distribution of business data to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Business intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments or associated costs and incomes.

Although the concept of mobile computing has been prevalent for over a decade, Mobile BI has shown a momentum/growth only very recently. This change has been partly encouraged by a change from the ‘wired world’ to a wireless world with the advantage of smartphones which has led to a new era of mobile computing, especially in the field of BI.

According to the Aberdeen Group, a large number of companies are rapidly undertaking mobile BI owing to a large number of market pressures such as the need for higher efficiency in business processes, improvement in employee productivity (e.g., time spent looking for information), better and faster decision making, better customer service, and delivery of real-time bi-directional data access to make decisions anytime and anywhere.

History

Information delivery to mobile devices

The predominant method for accessing BI information is using proprietary software or a Web browser on a personal computer to connect to BI applications. These BI applications request data from databases. Starting in the late 1990s, BI systems offered alternatives for receiving data, including email and mobile devices.

Static data push

Initially, mobile devices such as pagers and mobile phones received pushed data using a short message service (SMS) or text messages. These applications were designed for specific mobile devices, contained minimal amounts of information, and provided no data interactivity. As a result, the early mobile BI applications were expensive to design and maintain while providing limited informational value, and garnered little interest.

Data access via a mobile browser

The mobile browser on a smartphone, a handheld computer integrated with a mobile phone, provided a means to read simple tables of data. The small screen space, immature mobile browsers, and slow data transmission could not provide a satisfactory BI experience.

Mobile client application

In 2002, Research in Motion released the first BlackBerry smartphone optimized for wireless email use. Wireless e-mail proved to be the “killer app” that accelerated the popularity of the smartphone market. By the mid-2000s, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry had solidified its hold on the smartphone market with both corporate and governmental organizations. The BlackBerry smartphones eliminated the obstacles to mobile business intelligence. The BlackBerry offered a consistent treatment of data across its many models, provided a much larger screen for viewing data, and allowed user interactivity via the thumbwheel and keyboard. BI vendors re-entered the market with offerings spanning different mobile operating systems (BlackBerry, Windows, Symbian) and data access methods. The two most popular data access options were:

• to use the mobile browser to access data, similar to desktop computer, and
• to create a native application designed specifically for the mobile device.

Purpose-built Mobile BI apps

Apple quickly set the standard for mobile devices with the introduction of the iPhone. In the first three years, Apple sold over 33.75 million units. Similarly in 2010, Apple sold over 1 million iPads in just under three months. Both devices feature an interactive touchscreen display that is the de facto standard on many mobile phones and tablet computers.

In 2008, Apple published the SDK for which developers can build applications that run natively on the iPhone and iPad instead of Safari based-applications. These native applications can give the user a robust, easier-to-read and easier-to-navigate experience. The Apple App Store now has over 250,000 apps, giving the Apple mobile devices a decided advantage.

Others were quick to replicate Apple’s success. The Android Market now has over 80,000 apps available for the mobile devices running the Android operating system.

More importantly, the advent of the Apple iPhone has radically changed the way people use data on their mobile devices. This includes mobile BI. Business intelligence applications can be used to transform reports and data into mobile dashboards, and have them instantly delivered to any iPhone or iPad.

Mobile BI applications have evolved from being a client application for viewing data to a purpose built application designed to provide information and workflows necessary to quickly make business decisions and take action.

Demand

Gartner analyst Ted Friedman believes that mobile delivery of BI is all about practical, tactical information needed to make immediate decisions – "The biggest value is in operational BI — information in the context of applications — not in pushing lots of data to somebody's phone."

Accessing the Internet through a mobile device such as a smartphone is also known as the mobile Internet or mobile Web. IDC expects the US mobile workforce to increase by 73% in 2011. Morgan Stanley reports the mobile Internet is ramping up faster than its predecessor, the desktop Internet, enabling companies to deliver knowledge to their mobile workforce to help them make more profitable decisions.

Applications

Similar to consumer applications, which have shown an ever increasing growth over the past few years, a constant demand for anytime, anywhere access to BI is leading to a number of custom mobile application development. Businesses have also started adopting mobile solutions for their workforce and are soon becoming key components of core business processes. In an Aberdeen survey conducted in May 2010, 23% of companies participating indicated that they now have a mobile BI app or dashboard in place, while another 31% indicated that they plan to implement some form of mobile BI in the next year.

Definitions

Mobile BI applications can be defined/segregated as follows:

• Mobile Browser Rendered App: Almost any mobile device enables Web-based, thin client, HTML-only BI applications. However, these apps are static and provide little data interactivity. Data is viewed just as it would be over a browser from a personal computer. Little additional effort is required to display data but mobile browsers can typically only support a small subset of the interactivity of a web browser.

• Customized App: A step up from this approach is to render each (or all) reports and dashboards in device-specific format. In other words provide information specific to the screen size, optimize usage of screen real estate, and enable device-specific navigation controls. Examples of these include thumb wheel or thumb button for BlackBerry, up/down/left/right arrows for Palm, gestural manipulation for iPhone. This approach requires more effort than the previous but no additional software.

• Mobile Client App: The most advanced, the client app provides full interactivity with the BI content viewed on the device. In addition, this approach provides periodic caching of data which can be viewed and analyzed even offline.

Companies across all verticals, from retail to even non-profit organizations are realizing the value of purpose-specific mobile applications suited for their mobile workforce.

Development

Developing a native mobile BI app poses challenges, especially concerning data display rendering and user interactivity. Mobile BI App development has traditionally been a time-consuming and expensive effort requiring businesses to justify worth the investment for the mobile workforce. They do not only require texting and alerts, they need information customized for their line of work which they can interact with and analyze to gain deeper information.

Custom-coded Mobile BI Apps

Mobile BI applications are often custom coded apps specific to the underlying mobile operating system. For example, the iPhone apps require coding in Objective-C while Android apps require coding in Java. In addition to the user functionality of the app, the app must be coded to work with the supporting server infrastructure required to serve data to the mobile BI app. While custom coded apps offer near limitless options, the specialized software coding expertise and infrastructure can be expensive to development, modify, and maintain.

Fixed-formed Mobile BI Apps

Business data can be displayed in a mobile BI client that serves as a user interface to existing BI platforms, eliminating the need for specialized server infrastructure since it is provided by the BI platform. This option offer fixed-formed data visualizations such as charts and tables. However, the data visualizations are limited and cannot be extended to beyond what is available. The mobile BI app cannot be customized for specific business workflows or branded to the customer’s needs.

Graphical Tool-developed Mobile BI Apps

Mobile BI apps can also be developed using the graphical, drag-and-drop development environments of BI platforms. The advantages including the following:

1. Apps can be developed without coding,
2. Apps can be easily modified and maintained using the BI platform change management tools,
3. Apps can use any range of data visualizations and not be limited to just a few,
4. Apps can incorporate specific business workflows, and
5. The BI platform provides the server infrastructure.

Using graphical BI development tools allows faster mobile BI app development while providing the flexibility needed to address specific business requirements.

Security Considerations for Mobile BI Apps

High adoption rates and reliance on mobile devices makes safe mobile computing a critical concern. The Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study discovered that security is the number one issue (63%) for organizations.

A comprehensive mobile security solution must provide security at these levels:

• Device
• Transmission
• Authorization, Authentication, and Network Security

Device Security

Senior analyst at the Burton Group research firm recommends that the best way to ensure data will not be tampered with is to not store it on the client device (mobile device). As such, there is no local copy to lose if the mobile device is stolen and the data can reside on servers within the data center with access permitted only over the network. Most smartphone manufacturers provide a complete set of security features including full-disk encryption, email encryption, as well as remote management which includes the ability to wipe contents if device is lost or stolen. Manufacturers provide a set of security features, which can include full-disk encryption, email encryption, and remote management which includes the ability to wipe contents if device is lost or stolen. Also, some devices also have embedded third-party antivirus and firewall software such as RIM's BlackBerry.

Transmission Security

Transmission security refers to measures that are designed to protect data from unauthorized interception, traffic analysis, and imitative deception. These measures include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), iSeries™ Access for Windows®, and virtual private network (VPN) connections. A secure data transmission should enable the identity of the sender and receiver to be verified by using a cryptographic shared key system as well as protect the data to be modified by a third party when it crosses the network. This can be done using AES or Triple DES with an encrypted SSL tunnel.

Authorization, Authentication, and Network Security

Authorization refers to the act of specifying access rights to control access of information to users. Authentication refers to the act of establishing or confirming the user as true or authentic. Network security refers to all the provisions and policies adopted by the network administrator to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of the computer network and network-accessible resources. The mobility adds to unique security challenges. As data is trafficked beyond the enterprise firewall towards un-known territories, ensuring that it is handled safe is of paramount importance. Towards this, proper authentication of user connections, centralized access control (like LDAP Directory), Encrypted data transfer mechanisms can be implemented.

Role of BI for Securing Mobile Apps

To ensure high security standards, BI software platforms must extend the authentication options and policy controls to the mobile platform. Business intelligence software platforms need to ensure a secure encrypted keychain for storage of credentials. Administrative control of password policies should allow creation of security profiles for each user and seamless integration with centralized security directories to reduce administration and maintenance of users.

Products

A number of BI vendors and niche software vendors offer mobile BI solutions. Some examples include: PushBI, Transpara, MicroStrategy, InetSoft ,TARGIT Business Intelligence, Roambi, DataGlass, iVEDIX, SurfBI, Yellowfin Business Intelligence, Business Objects, Cognos, Reboard, QlikView and Experion Technologies.

See also

• Business Intelligence
• Data Mining
• Online analytical processing or OLAP
• Predictive analytics
• Dashboards (management information systems)