Gone are the days when the use of a mobile phone was restricted to connecting to your family and friends. The scenarios have changed now, and it is no surprise that mobile technologies have advanced beyond recognition. The users of the new mobile applications have access to more than thousand applications online and mobile manufacturers are trying to tap this opportunity by developing solutions for smart information.
Over years BI (Business Intelligence) service providers have spent time and money to deliver best solutions to the users. Though the growth has been stagnant for a long time but now it has shown a momentum because of a rapid growth in technology and revolution in mobile based applications. The face of BI in mobile apps will change more when it will move from a dashboard providing application to a more sophisticated task specific feature. With improvement in the ability of smart phones the users not only enjoy interacting with mobile devices but also access useful information and sophisticated analysis.
BI in simple terms means technology, application or software that is used to extract, store, analyze data so as to help the management make better decisions, and BI through phones is sending business information through mobile.
It is helpful to business in several ways like:
1) Improving employee productivity - Today information system is used in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) marketing that will automate sales force management system, which involves huge cost and too much time on data entry. With implementation of these services in mobile BI, the users will get a structured management information system at less cost. This will provide accurate data for sales team as to where they are and what they want to achieve. BI applications also help sales team to represent how the services of the company can be useful to achieve targets. Moreover, it will be useful in supply chain management to form a distribution strategy for retailers and manufacturers. Several models can be proposed through mobile BI for product lifecycle management and information technology chain operations.
2) Faster decision-making - In current business scenario all the firms need information in a speedy manner so as to take accurate decisions and grab the right opportunity. The slow and inflexible business information may lead to major problems. For example, if a decline in sales has occurred in a particular region, the management cannot address the problem quickly without channelized information system. The accurate and fast information through mobile will be helpful in determining the actual cause of the problem along with quick decisions from the management front. The aim of mobile BI is not restricted to provide quality information but to enable faster decision making. Decision makers will be benefitted as it will reduce cost and increase profits by providing the historical trends and predict future estimates.
3) User friendly interface - The introduction of user friendly functions will definitely improve ROI (Return on Investment) in business. The decision makers can keep themselves updated with new trends and developments by subscribing for reports and alerts. These reports can be saved in certain formats and the mobile apps feature makes it easy to update the information from time to time. The information can be filtered by sort functions which save time. Moreover, the user can easily analyze different trends by changing the metrics or can breakdown the single report into different graphs and conduct a drill down research on the data.
In short, the applications are extended to be used in mobile device so that reports and graphs can be seen in small screen and more accurate decisions can be taken in real time.
BI through mobile applications was a growing concept few years back, but with the rising competition and need for accurate information, its demand is increasing at a faster pace. Once the end users can work on the technology with same accuracy and velocity as conventional systems, the thrust will increase further.
