Wp Mobile Bi 101 Wf2013

A White Paper

Mobile Business Intelligence 101: Proven Strategies and Use CasesChoose the Best Approach for Providing Analytics to Anyone, Anywhere

WebFOCUS iWay Software Omni

Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary

2 What is Mobile Business Intelligence

3 Mobile BI: The Key Advantages

3 Increased Employee Productivity

3 Improved Agility

3 Enhanced Collaboration

3 Increased Customer Satisfaction

4 The Evolution of Mobile BI

5 Types of Mobile BI Applications

5 Native Device-Specific Applications

5 Mobile Interfaces to Existing BI Platforms

5 Mobile BI Systems Created With Graphical Development Tools

6 Mobile Hybrid BI Systems

7 Closing Security Gaps

7 Device Security

7 Transmission Security

7 Authorization, Authentication, and Network Security

8 WebFOCUS Mobile: Powerful BI for the Mobile Workforce

8 Portable Analytics: WebFOCUS Active Technologies

9 Intuitive Management of Mobile BI Content: WebFOCUS Mobile Faves

9 Mobile Data Collection and Transaction Processing: WebFOCUS Maintain

9 Full-Featured Mobile BI: WebFOCUS Mobile Favorites

10 WebFOCUS Mobile BI in Action: Real-World Successes

11 Summary

Information Builders1

Executive Summary

Forrester Research estimates that approximately 29 percent of the global workforce is made up of mobile information workers, up from 23 percent just two years ago.1 As the mobile workforce continues to expand, more companies are recognizing the importance of providing all their stakeholders with immediate access to timely, complete information to make faster and better business decisions.

In response to this shift, as well as the emergence of more powerful and innovative devices such as smartphones and tablets, more companies are extending their business intelligence (BI) environments by making them accessible to mobile users. Other factors contributing to the growth of mobile computing, including mobile BI, are:

n Similar user experiences on both mobile devices and laptop computers

n Widespread adoption of multifunctional mobile devices, such as smartphones

n Demands from both management and line-of-business employees to improve productivity

n Making better use of workers time

Companies of all types and sizes are realizing the advantages of mobile business intelligence. A recent Forrester survey claims that 24 percent of organizations in North America and Europe are already using mobile BI tools or running mobile BI pilot programs, while 37 percent plan to deploy such solutions within the coming year.2 Those numbers are expected to rise sharply, with TechNavio anticipating that the purchase of mobile BI solutions will grow at a rate of more than 27 percent annually through 2016.3

Many other experts agree. By 2015, organizations of all sizes will be using mobile BI in a substantial way, according to Howard Dresner of Dresner Advisory Services.4 Gartner analyst Daniel Yuen predicts that by that same year, over 50 percent of mobile BI users will rely exclusively on mobile devices for insight delivery.5

Whats behind this rapid growth? One of the drivers is the consumerization of IT, according to Dresner. People are bringing their personal smartphones and tablets to the office and using them in a business context, he states. The other thing is the generational change. For younger generations of users, the tablet is their preferred device, not just for consumption but for interaction, even as they move into the corporate world. So mobile BI is inevitably where were headed.6

In this white paper, well discuss mobile business intelligence what it is, how it is evolving, what applications exist today, and how to address security concerns. Well also showcase Information Builders WebFOCUS BI platform, which provides advanced mobile capabilities, and highlight some real-world success stories.

1 Schadler, Ted. 2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends, Forrester Research, Inc., February 2013.2 Evelson, Boris. Top 10 BI Predictions For 2013 And Beyond, Forrester Research, Inc., December 2012.3 Global Mobile Business Intelligence Market 2012-2016, TechNavio, January 2013.4 Dresner, Howard. Dresner Study Reveals High Expectations for Growth of Mobile Business Intelligence, SandHill.com,

February 2013.5 Yuen, Daniel. Mobility and Real-Time Dashboards Will Make Business Intelligence More Pervasive in 2013, Forbes,

February 2013.6 Dresner, Howard. Dresner Study Reveals High Expectations for Growth of Mobile Business Intelligence, SandHill.com,

February 2013.

Mobile Business Intelligence 101: Proven Strategies and Use Cases2

Mobile business intelligence is software that extends traditional desktop BI applications to mobile devices. At the heart of mobile BI is the ability for users of smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices to access and interact with business data by generating reports and performing analyses.

There are many different types of mobile BI applications in place today. For example:

n Sales reps can access customer account details, inventory status, and product information on their way to a client site

n Field service technicians can check the availability of spare parts as they make their way to an on-site service call

n Police officers can perform real-time background checks right from their patrol cars

n Distributors and other supply-chain stakeholders can access current data about deliveries in progress, product availability, and more

n Insurance adjusters can retrieve policy information while conducting investigations at claim sites

n Banking customers can review financial statements at their convenience, from any device

n HR managers can complete performance reviews of field staff using mobile write-back capabilities

While the possibilities for mobile BI applications are virtually endless, the goal is the same to empower employees, partners, and customers with real-time, relevant information that moves business forward.

What Is Mobile Business Intelligence?


Organizations that leverage mobile BI are reaping tremendous benefits. In a recent article on the E-Commerce Times website, Andrew Borg, a senior research analyst for wireless and mobility at Aberdeen Group wrote, By extending the reach and usage of their existing BI infrastructures to mobile devices through the use of mobile visualization tools, such as dashboards, charts, and graphs, organizations can more agilely respond to market changes and customer needs.7

Other advantages include:

Increased Employee ProductivityWorkers who cannot retrieve vital information for decision-making purposes simply arent as efficient and successful as those who can. By empowering users with unhindered data access and analysis via their handheld appliances, they can maintain optimum levels of productivity at all times even when they are on the road. Companies like Fujisawa Pharmaceuticals and Jack Nadel, Inc. are using mobile BI to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their sales forces by allowing them to instantly access critical information about customers, orders, inventory, and more, directly from their mobile devices.

Improved AgilityUnfortunately, critical events dont always occur when someone is in the office to deal with them. Mobile BI allows decision-makers to be instantly alerted so they can immediately take advantage of new opportunities or solve problems no matter where they are. The City of Richardson, Texas has increased the agility of its law enforcement team, empowering police officers to be more responsive by tracking active 911 calls, including the status of involved patrol cars, fire trucks, and ambulances from their smartphones. NASA is leveraging mobile BI to support an emergency notification system for hurricanes and other disasters.

Enhanced CollaborationMobile business intelligence is one of the most effective ways for organizations to coordinate and share information internally, as well as with the third parties they do business with, such as supply-chain partners. Organizations like Holland America have dramatically improved company-wide information sharing and collaboration by making critical corporate data accessible via not only desktops and laptops, but also through mobile devices.

Increased Customer SatisfactionMore companies are making corporate information available to customers in the form of self-service BI applications. To be successful, these InfoApps must be as intuitive and convenient as possible. By extending reporting and analysis capabilities to mobile devices, companies can achieve substantial increases in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. AJ Logistics has provided its customers with a self-service reporting system that gives them access to timely information about each project via computers and mobile devices. Because most clients spend much of their time away from the office, this value-added service streamlines key workflows, reduces operating expenses, optimizes customer service, and ensures consistent on-time performance making the company a true business partner to its clients.

Mobile BI: The Key Advantages

7 Borg, Andrew; White, David. Mobile BI: Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise, E-Commerce Times, February 2011.

Mobile Business Intelligence 1014

Mobile BI is nothing new. For years, laptops have helped aid mobility and drive the prominence of client/server browser-based architectures. Other forms of mobile BI have been around since about 2005, when the ability to access the Internet from cellular phones was first introduced. This was mobile BI in its most primitive form, with users leveraging their mobile browsers to connect to web-based reporting and analysis applications. This presented many challenges, however, as the browsers were somewhat rudimentary and unable to support more advanced functionality. The graphs, charts, and tabular reports displayed by those environments were also difficult to view and interpret on the small screens.

Around the same time, many business intelligence tools offered the ability to push corporate data to mobile devices, primarily in the form of text messages. While this made corporate information more accessible to those on the go, the problem was that these messages were limited in the amount of data they could provide. This approach also gave end users little or no ability to interact with the information, making it effective for alerting purposes, but not as a means of analysis.

Next, there was data access via browsers, where users could leverage their smartphones to read small tables of data. Because of the limitations of first-generation mobile browsers, this approach was not only slow, it also failed to solve the problems caused by small screens. Only the simplest reports could be generated, leaving the more complex information needs of mobile workers largely unsatisfied.

The continued demand for remote access to advanced business intelligence capabilities led to the creation of mobile client applications for reporting and analysis. More advanced appliances, such as smartphones, eliminated the majority of the barriers to mobile BI by providing greater interaction and improved graphical capabilities. Many BI vendors seized this opportunity by allowing users to access data via their mobile devices, much in the same way they did from their PCs, or by building entirely new reporting environments designed specifically for mobile access.

Today, the advent of Apples iPhone and iPad, and the proliferation of Android phones and tablets, have transformed the way people consume data on their mobile devices, prompting the emergence of purpose-built mobile BI applications. These new smart devices have introduced special abilities like location services, cameras, barcode readers, access to contact lists, and more. Portable dashboards and analytics, and other forms of mobile business intelligence, now provide users with the same type of interactive, actionable information on their handheld appliances, leveraging these advanced device functions in exciting new ways. As a result, anyone can instantly make timely, informed business decisions no matter where they are.

The Evolution of Mobile BI


There are several approaches a company can take when implementing a mobile business intelligence application, each presenting its own pros and cons:

Native Device-Specific ApplicationsMany of the mobile BI applications available today are custom-coded to work specifically with the underlying operating system of a certain mobile device. In other words, each type of device requires that applications be written in different types of code. Custom code must be written to retrieve data and deliver it to the application. While this approach ensures optimum performance for a specific device, it can become quite expensive as it requires extensive resources for initial development and deployment, and the applications created can be difficult to maintain and enhance. A different set of tools and resulting applications must also be created for each device platform, further expanding the cost and effort of deployment.

Mobile Interfaces to Existing BI PlatformsMany companies expand their existing BI platforms with the ability to display fixed-form business data, such as charts or tables, through a BI client installed on a mobile device. While this approach eliminates the need for additional infrastructure to support the mobile business intelligence application, it is extremely limiting from an end-user perspective. For example, mobile users can only access pre-existing reports and data visualizations; they have little or no customization or analytic capabilities.

Mobile BI Systems Created With Graphical Web Development ToolsOne of the best methods for mobile BI implementation is to use the drag-and-drop development environment offered within a full-featured web BI platform to build a new mobile reporting application, enabling:

n Accelerated development that requires no custom coding

n Simplified maintenance and modification

n Advanced data visualization and analysis functionality to be made available to mobile users

n A single architecture to support both desktop and mobile web BI across the enterprise

Types of Mobile BI Applications


Mobile Hybrid BI SystemsThese systems exploit the flexibility and economy of web systems and the newest capabilities of HTML5, and combine them with the device-access capabilities of native apps. Using simple, thin-client apps on native devices, they provide access to key device functions and enable their use by the web content itself, served up in the thin-client native app. Businesses get best-of-class in both areas they can leverage their web development investments and abilities, while capitalizing on the unique functions available from mobile devices.

With every approach, it is imperative to tie your mobile strategy directly to your BI strategy to ensure a consistent, accurate view of information across every touch point.


Given the sensitive nature of certain types of corporate information, such as proprietary product details or customer financial information, companies are quite concerned about protecting data as it is accessed on more and more mobile devices. In fact, a recent report issued by the Data Warehousing Institute finds that 41 percent of participants consider security to be an obstacle to mobile BI.8

For the integrity of mobile business intelligence environments to be preserved, comprehensive security must be put into place at three levels:

Device SecurityAs soon as applications and data are deployed to a mobile device, a new type of security is required. Mobile devices are uniquely susceptible to being lost, stolen, or simply misplaced, and can inadvertently end up in the hands of inappropriate audiences for the information the device contains. First, the apps need to be passcode-protected to avoid unauthorized access to information in the app. If the device is stolen, being attacked, or jail broken, the data needs to be encrypted to make it useless if breached. Finally, in the current BYOD environment, businesses need to consider mobile device management (MDM) platforms to allow remote wipe or kill administration abilities across different devices.

Transmission SecurityCompanies must employ measures to prevent information from being captured by hackers and other unauthorized users as it is being transmitted to and from the BI environment. Effective techniques can include data encryption, SSL, and virtual private network (VPN) connections.

Authorization, Authentication, and Network SecurityIn addition to thoroughly authenticating each user in the mobile BI environment (particularly important as it relates to the network through which the application will be accessed), companies must specify the exact information access rights for each role. For example, while an HR executive should be able to view details about each employee, other staff members should not be privy to that information.

BI platforms must also extend their own authentications and controls to scenarios where mobile access is required in a way that does not create additional administration or maintenance burdens.

Closing Security Gaps

8 Laskowski, Nicole. Mobile BI Brings More Than Security Concerns to the Table, TDWI Says, TechTarget, January 2012.


While some mobile approaches require the creation and maintenance of native applications or multiple versions of BI assets for various web compatibilities, WebFOCUS Mobile Information Builders suite of powerful and extensible mobile BI solutions is device independent yet device exploitive, and fully leverages the existing WebFOCUS platform. As a hybrid solution, WebFOCUS Mobile offers the power and speed of web development and deployment, combined with the enhanced experience of native device navigation and access to native device functions.

Unlike other mobile BI tools that offer only simple data access, our mobile technologies make advanced capabilities readily available to any smartphone or tablet computer. With a pure thin-client architecture, organizations can deliver applications and content to mobile devices without changing their underlying architecture.

WebFOCUS content can be developed once and deployed and viewed anywhere.

Portable Analytics: WebFOCUS Active TechnologiesActive Technologies combines data, charting, and analytic capabilities into a single, interactive web document that can be e-mailed and saved offline. Users can sort, filter, calculate, chart, and perform many other advanced analytical functions. Like other WebFOCUS Mobile content, Active Technologies dynamically transforms documents into the appropriate format, taking advantage of each devices native look and feel, including gesturing, animation, and interactivity.

WebFOCUS Mobile: Powerful BI for the Mobile Workforce


Intuitive Management of Mobile BI Content: WebFOCUS Mobile FavesMobile Faves is a native mobile app that imbues web apps with an enhanced user experience, including an e-mail-like tap navigation and optional cover-flow interface. Users gain a natural and native interface to the same BI content available in a device browser, but with the device-specific navigation paradigms and gestures they are already comfortable and familiar with. Supported on iOs and Android devices, Mobile Faves enables web apps to access major device functions, such as location services, contact information, cameras, bar-code readers, and photo libraries.

Mobile Data Collection and Transaction Processing: WebFOCUS MaintainWebFOCUS Maintain provides transaction services that allow write- back applications to be created and intermixed with traditional BI applications. When combined with the device abilities made available through Mobile Faves, Maintain enables companies to build apps that capture pictures of incidents or inventories, and to write back to event or product catalogs, for example.

Full-Featured Mobile BI: WebFOCUS Mobile PortalThe Mobile Portal, accessible via any web browser, provides an easy way to manage and publish content specifically to mobile users. It allows simple InfoApps to be deployed without even needing the Mobile Faves app and for those few mobile device platforms that are not supported by Mobile Faves. The Mobile Portal also provides centralized security and administration controls over certain Mobile Faves app abilities, such as saving, e-mailing, or printing web app content. In this way, organizations can support all devices, while adhering to any important policies and rules that may be required.

WebFOCUS Active Technologies reports and dashboards can be saved on any mobile device; the built-in analytic engine allows users to interact with them while disconnected.


As the longtime leader in mobile BI solutions, Information Builders has hundreds of customers with mature installations of its mobile BI solutions and Active Technologies. For example:

AJ Logistics deployed a mobile self-service application, built on WebFOCUS, enabling customers to run an activity report, generate an invoice, and perform other common functions from any web browser or mobile device. They can view their inventory by part number, description, vendor, PO number, quantity, weight, and shipping information, and schedule items for delivery at the date and time of their choosing. In many cases, their queries trigger multi-step workflow processes that update inventory tables, schedule deliveries, notify project managers, and direct activities at third-party warehouses. The system presents documents on demand, including bills of lading, packing lists, inspection forms, delivery ticket information, and receiving reports that list the weight, quantity, and condition of all items in inventory. CIO Greg Johnston says, Our users are not the type of people who sit at a desk. They are often working at a hotel or job site constantly interfacing with plumbers, carpenters, carpet layers, and lots of other personnel. They need to know things like how many rolls of carpet are in the warehouse. Having this kind of information available on the iPad and iPhone has been a big time-saver for them.

The City of Richardson, Texas used WebFOCUS to create a mobile reporting environment that delivers crime data to police chiefs. Using smartphones, these officers can track active 911 calls, including the status of involved patrol cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Another mobile BI application lets them obtain information about the criminals being held in the citys jail. Access to data while in the field is very important to our citys public safety officials, explains Eric Matthews, deputy CIO for the city. Using the WebFOCUS app on BlackBerry devices, officers can drill down to the details of each persons incarceration, and understand the crimes for which they are being held. Having this type of data not only on the police vehicles computer, but also at the officers side on his or her BlackBerry, is critical.

Mobile business intelligence is helping International Financial Data Services (IFDS) to gain a competitive edge and improve customer service. IFDS Insight, a self-service reporting environment built on WebFOCUS, allows executives, sales officers, and clients to leverage comprehensive analysis tools to visualize disparate data about funds, categories, share classes, dealers, and advisors in a meaningful way even from smartphones and tablets. One of our largest customers told us that IFDS Insight will transform his business, says David Bullock, executive vice president at IFDS. Were giving business users greater transparency into whats happening each day so they can determine how a huge range of data-driven variables impact their strategies and goals.

OFS Brands, a leading supplier of contract furniture, has improved customer service and enabled sales managers to track margins and discounts more consistently by deploying WebFOCUS Mobile. The companys sales force now has access to detailed mobile reports and dashboards, complete with interactive ad hoc query, data visualization, and drill-down capabilities that allow them to easily analyze sales data from their iPhones and iPads. We wanted to empower our sales team so they could ask questions and explore new areas of inquiry on their own, recalls Tim Hopper, application delivery manager at OFS Brands. We saw WebFOCUS as the best way to give them quick access to sales and financial information. By creating mobile reports and dashboards, the sales force could easily monitor sales activity by brand, time period, and region.

WebFOCUS Mobile BI in Action: Real-World Successes


Mobile BI will eventually become the norm, says Forresters Boris Evelson, because information workers can no longer wait to make decisions until they get back to the office that may be too late.9 By providing mobile users with advanced BI capabilities, directly from their smartphones and tablets, companies can significantly increase efficiency and agility, while improving communication and collaboration.

With a growing percentage of clients using mobile devices, companies can tap into mobile BI as a means of enhancing customer service, satisfaction, and retention.

WebFOCUS Mobile is a suite of device-independent, device-exploitive solutions that empower mobile users to access, analyze, and display enterprise data via BI applications that are developed and deployed once, for consumption anywhere, at any time, from any device.

Summary

9 Evelson, Boris. Top 10 BI Predictions For 2013 And Beyond, Forrester Research, Inc., December 2012.

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