Why Mobile BI?

The consumerization of IT has disrupted several facets of our daily lives, including the use of mobile devices in the workplace. Organizations need to have a mobility strategy in place to stay competitive, which includes mobile business intelligence. According to Boris Evelson, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, “Mobility is no longer a ‘nice to have’ - it will (be) the new BI mantra”. Execs and employees alike cannot wait to make decisions until they are in the office, in front of their PCs. Evelson also states that 24% of enterprises already use or are piloting mobile BI applications and 37% are considering mobile BI for near-term implementations.

Is your organization ready to compete with these firms, who are implementing methods to review data in real-time to make critical decisions? 

It seems the majority of use cases for mobile BI are focused on the creation and deployment of dashboards and the mobilization of BI content. Healthcare and transportation industries also report consistent use cases, with the transportation utilizing advanced capabilities such as GPS, for items such as routing and alerts. Many BI platforms offer mobile deployment options without additional tools or development has eased adoption in small and midsize businesses.

Current mobile BI solutions are focused on information consumption. Typically, this means interactive dashboards that enable a level of user engagement not usually seen in traditional BI solutions. According to Joao Tapadinhas, Research Director at Gartner, the most common use cases for mobile BI include:

• BI content mobilization - Execution on mobile devices of content built for desktop consumption

• Management dashboards - Often used to delivery KPIs

• Field workers’ reports - Delivers a narrow scope of information for a limited set of business processes

• Mobile analytics - Delivers information through features such as prebuilt analytic models, broad information navigations, diverse sorting, drilling and filtering possibilities, table/chart/maps manipulation, which are combined to support basic analytic processes

• Mobile BI applications - Creation of software that runs autonomously from any BI platform

Tapadinhas recommends the implementation of a mobile BI initiative must be preceded by a business case and the creation of a strategy, which align with existing BI and mobility strategies, with consideration regarding where and how mobile BI will impact the organization. This is where Mikan Associates can help your team.

Mikan Associates specializes in working with teams to develop and implement a successful business intelligence strategy.  Mikan’s Information Delivery practice can tailor a solution, which takes both existing and new data, and processes it in a way to deliver to mobile devices using data analytics dashboards, data visualization, and reporting tools. While the technology is a vehicle with information delivery, Mikan Associates believes linking impactful data and analytics solution to business objectives.

References

Survey Analysis: BI and Analytics Spending Intentions, 2014. Gartner ID G00261704

Top BI Predictions for 2013 and Beyond. http://blogs.forrester.com/boris_evelson/12-12-12-top_10_bi_predictions_for_2013_and_beyond 

Innovation Insight: Mobile BI Innovation Expands Business Analytics Boundaries. Gartner ID G00232732

Deploying the Right Styles of Mobile BI to Fit the Organization’s Needs. Gartner ID G00234392

Evaluating Org Culture at Apple

For my MGT500 course (Managing for Effective & Ethical Organizational Behavior) this summer, I wrote a research paper on organizational culture at Apple. It can be found here.

PC Connection, Inc. Blog Articles

I recently wrote two article for PC Connection's company blog. They can be found here.

Replacing the HD in my 2008 iMac

I finally got around to replacing the hard drive in my 2008 iMac. OWC has some great installation videos and data transfer resources!

I used the following items for the swap:

NewerTech 2.25" Suction Cups
NewerTech 14 Piece Tool Set
1TB Western Digital Blue SATA HD
Kingwin SATA Enclosure

Fun!

Examiner.com Articles

I wrote a few articles for Examiner.com about business technology news in Chicago. They can viewed here.

Mobile+Web DevCon Chicago

Here are a few photos from my talk about iOS tools, frameworks, Swift, and HTML5 at Mobile+Web DevCon Chicago. I had a great time and received wonderful feedback from the attendees. I hope to participate in other GSMI conferences, as well as looking for other avenues to speak publicly.

Deep Linking Between Apps

Apple recently released an SDK for iOS 8 with over 4,000 APIs. During the WWDC keynote, Extensibility was briefly mentioned. Extensibility allows apps to share services with other apps, interact with Notification Center, and develop custom keyboards. I recently wrote an article about deep linking between apps, in response to an article published in InformationWeek. Extensibility reminded me of the timely nature of this InformationWeek article, I wanted to share it on my blog. This article does not focus on Extensibility in iOS 8, but some of my thoughts about the business implications and technical concerns of deep linking between mobile apps.

The current state of the web uses links to enable ad networks and affiliate programs to build large networks, which route paid traffic on the web. For instance, links have enabled Google to build PageRank and show pages in results that are reputable, important, and relevant to users. Currently, mobile and tablet apps do not link to one another like content is link on the web. The author of the article believes this will change over the next 5 years, enabling the same large networks that currently exist on the web.

Starting in 2007, the first requirement was to build content. Developers have now produced over 2 million apps to date, with smartphone users spending 80% of their time in apps. Innovative app developers and strategic marketers are taking advantage of the app ecosystem, by using deep links in marketing channels that send users directly to specific pages in within their app, which drives engagement and higher modes of monetization.

In theory, deep linking makes sense based on the structure of the web, as it exists today. Content is connected together in a logical sense, so users can find and use information in a constructive manner. Layout and user interface design are typically a focus when creating a successful web presence. If apps behave the same way, marketers could take advantage of mobile platforms in a similar fashion. Certain platforms, such as iOS, are providing a similar deep linking functionality with built-in features.

With the increase in mobile platforms, marketers are already using it for several functions including advertising, sales, and promotions. Deep linking would enable businesses to embed sales and marketing functions on mobile platforms. A possible example might include a catalog app, which would connect and suggest products within the catalog app itself.  Another scenario could include in-app advertising, where a user clicks the ad and is brought to a specific section within the app. Deep linking could also leverage location-based technologies, such as iBeacon, to improve shopping experiences in brick-and-mortar retail environments.

Deep linking also has market research implications. If app developers are able to track activity within an app, and this information can be reviewed by marketers, they will better understand how their customer use technology/apps in order to make purchasing decisions. Essentially, deep linking could offer analytics very similar to what the web does today, in order to improve apps for end users by gathering demographic and usability information.

Security could be an issue when designing solutions using deep linking. iOS 7 does not allow apps to share information between each other, which is called application sandboxing. This build-in security is attractive to many corporate IT personnel, since it helps enable the separation of corporate and personal data an iOS device. If deep linking is an API option, which Extensibility allows for in iOS 8, developers can manipulate and code data to be shared between apps.  As a result, the approach to security on an iOS device might have to be recreated or reengineered. Apple has responded to this with Extensibility.

While deep linking has several business implications, there needs to be careful consideration in manufacturers’ approach to mobile device security.  

Moving Swiftly to iOS 8 & OS X Yosemite

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) recently took place with several announcements regarding upcoming functionality in OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. During the conference keynote Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior VP of Software Engineering, announced and demonstrated several consumer and enterprise features. The keynote ended with a bang when Federighi asked the question, "What would it be like if we had the benefits of Objective-C, without the baggage of C?"

Swift, a new programming language for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, promises to be modern, more interactive, safe, and perform faster than Objective-C and Python. Developers can take advantage of this new language now for their iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite apps, since Apple has already released it in Xcode 6 (beta). With Xcode having 14 million downloads, there are implications developers will make Swift part of their toolset. Developers with Objective-C skills will be able to take advantage of Swift quickly, since it has the same runtime, LLVM complier, and optimizer as Objective-C. Essentially, Swift works alongside Objective-C, C, and Cocoa.

Apple has released a handy guide for developers to get started with Swift. In this guide, Apple explains why Swift is a type safe language, in that it uses optionals and type inference. Optionals handle the absence of a value and allows developers to be clear about the types of code they are working with. If there is an absence of a value, Swift uses type inference to determine the appropriate type. Type inference requires fewer type declarations than C or Objective-C, making it more efficient. As a result, faster performance seems to be a result of Swift's scripting-like abilities with the excessive code of other languages. Tuples adds another level of efficiency, allowing for multiple value groupings into a single compound value. Playground, a new Apple tool to write code, would be appealing to developers if they are interested in taking advantage of the interactive abilities of Swift, leveraging possibilities with new APIs. Chris Lattner demonstrated Playground at WWDC.

Swift and the new Apple tools certainly have implications for app development in iOS 8, especially in the enterprise. Apple announced new functionality for mobile device management (MDM) solutions for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite management. TouchID API, document provider APIs, advanced content filtering APIs, and extensibility are a few items with implication for the enterprise announced at WWDC. The device passcode can now extend data encryption to Calendar, Contacts, Messages, Notes, and Reminders apps for increased security. As a result, developers can work with IT to create enterprise apps in harmony. With an adoption rate of over 95% in the Fortune 500, iOS devices and app development should be considered in not only enterprise, but healthcare, government, and small business organizations.

Enterprise mobility management (EMM) players, especially those in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites report, will be exploring, developing, and implementing new APIs in their solutions. New queries, new remote management UI, and ability to name devices remotely are a few of the new MDM functions available with iOS 8. Managed books and PDFs is another new MDM feature for iOS 8, which allows for remote content delivery. Many MDM vendors already have content management functionality in their solutions, it will be interested to see if the managed books and PDFs functionality inherent to iOS 8 will be adopted widely. These are just a few of the enterprise level management features available with iOS 8.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn. Teri Grossheim will be speaking about Swift, HTML5, and developer resources for iOS with a tie into iOS app development for enterprise at Mobile+Web Devcon Chicago on July 16th.