business intelligence using mobile

Mobile BI Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise

December 2010

Andrew Borg, David White

Mobile BI - Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise

© 2010 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200

Executive Summary Research Benchmark

Aberdeen’s Research Benchmarks provide an in-depth and comprehensive look into process, procedure, methodologies, and technologies with best practice identification and actionable recommendations

BI usage among organizations with mobile BI has doubled compared to those companies that have not mobilized their BI. By extending the reach and usage of their existing BI infrastructure to mobile devices, organizations respond more rapidly to market changes and customer needs. This accelerates time-to-information for critical business decisions, while improving customer satisfaction and retention.

Best-in-Class Performance Aberdeen used the following two key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies:

• Employees able to access the information required for decision-making via mobile BI 87% of the time

• 92% of their customers report being extremely or very satisfied

Competitive Maturity Assessment Survey results show that the firms enjoying Best-in-Class performance shared several common characteristics, including:

• An executive-level commitment to provide timely information on critical decision-making data to front-line employees

• Security policy and enforcement for all corporate data used by mobile BI

• Use of a rich variety of mobile BI deployment methods, including native mobile applications, web browsers and automated alerts

Required Actions In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter Three of this report, to achieve Best-in-Class performance, companies must:

• Make data security a corporate mandate. Organizations often lack basic security mechanisms for mobile devices, such as password authentication and "lock and wipe." Providing these and other security mechanisms, such as data encryption, can help to engage business managers who may otherwise have concerns around the confidentially of data.

• Wake up to alerts. Automated alerts are an excellent way to ensure the prompt attention of decision makers when some type of corrective action is required.

• Go mobile. Consider making mobile devices the primary platform for BI deployments. Top performing organizations rely on secure access to up-to-date management information, anywhere, anytime.

www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897 This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc.


© 2010 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200 www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897

Table of Contents Executive Summary....................................................................................................... 2

Best-in-Class Performance..................................................................................... 2 Competitive Maturity Assessment....................................................................... 2 Required Actions...................................................................................................... 2

Chapter One: Benchmarking the Best-in-Class.................................................... 5 Business Context ..................................................................................................... 5 Increasing BI Adoption in the Organization....................................................... 6 The Maturity Class Framework............................................................................ 7 The Best-in-Class PACE Model ............................................................................ 9 Best-in-Class Strategies.........................................................................................10

Chapter Two: Benchmarking Requirements for Success.................................12 Competitive Assessment......................................................................................13 Capabilities and Enablers ......................................................................................14

Chapter Three: Required Actions .........................................................................24 Laggard Steps to Success......................................................................................24 Industry Average Steps to Success ....................................................................25 Best-in-Class Steps to Success ............................................................................25

Appendix A: Research Methodology.....................................................................27 Appendix B: Related Aberdeen Research............................................................29

Figures Figure 1: Beyond Email in Mobile Applications ...................................................... 5 Figure 2: Mobility Increases BI Usage ....................................................................... 6 Figure 3: Pressures Driving Mobile BI Adoption ................................................... 7 Figure 4: Impact of Mobile BI on Executive Performance ................................... 8 Figure 5: The Customer Wins from Improved Information Access................. 9 Figure 6: Top Best-in-Class Strategies....................................................................10 Figure 7: Speeding Information Access ..................................................................11 Figure 8: Key Mobile BI Processes ..........................................................................15 Figure 9: Best-in-Class Commit Management and Resources..........................17 Figure 10: Key Knowledge Management Capabilities.........................................18 Figure 11: Mobile BI Data Management Technologies .......................................20 Figure 12: Best-in-Class Technology Capabilities ................................................21 Figure 13: Ability to Measure Mobile BI and Device Performance .................22 Figure 14: Browser-based Versus Native App .....................................................23

Tables Table 1: Top-Performing Organizations Earn “Best-in-Class” Status .................... 8 Table 2: The Best-in-Class PACE Framework ....................................................... 9 Table 3: The Competitive Framework...................................................................13



Table 4: The PACE Framework Key ......................................................................28 Table 5: The Competitive Framework Key ..........................................................28 Table 6: The Relationship Between PACE and the Competitive Framework.........................................................................................................................................28



Chapter One: Benchmarking the Best-in-Class

Business Context Fast Facts

√ Top performing organizations (the Best-in-Class) achieved a "time-to-decision" of 3.8 hours, 1.7-times faster than the Industry Average, and over 5-times faster than Laggards

The global economic downturn may have slowed, but it is not over. Yet in some respects, it appears more of a global restructuring than simply a global slowdown. It has already substantially realigned markets and galvanized economic changes that were nascent before the recession. As a consequence, industry-leading organizations are seeking an advantageous position for the updraft that is expected as the recovery picks up momentum in 2011. Significantly, the Aberdeen Business Review found that 57% of companies had seen their customers become more demanding since the onset of the recession.

During this restructuring period, Aberdeen has been documenting the practices of these industry leaders as measured across multiple performance metrics (see sidebar). Among the significant changes documented, chief among them has been the rise of enterprise mobility as a strategic and operational imperative. The March 2009 Aberdeen benchmark report More Mobility – Less Budget: Enterprise Strategies in the Current Economic Downturn reported that 84% of responding organizations already had a mobility initiative in place, with less than 2% without any mobility plans within the next 12 months.

The November 2010 report Enterprise-Grade Mobile Applications: Secure Information When and Where It's Needed described the typical evolution of enterprise mobility initiatives from email to enterprise-grade mobile apps. It found that over a third of Best-in-Class survey respondents had already mobilized their Business Intelligence (BI) applications, 80% more than all other respondents, defined as the total of Industry Average and Laggard organizations (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Beyond Email in Mobile Applications

38%

21%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Business Intelligence(BI) / Dashboard

Percentage of Respondents, (n = 240)

Best-in-Class

All Others

38%

21%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Business Intelligence(BI) / Dashboard

Percentage of Respondents, (n = 240)

Best-in-Class

All Others

Source: Aberdeen Group, November 2010

By extending the reach and usage of their existing BI infrastructure to mobile devices through the use of mobile visualization tools such as dashboards, charts and graphs, organizations can more agilely respond to

www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897

http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/6475/AI-economic-recovery-recession.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5724-RA-mobility-economic-downturn.asp

http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5724-RA-mobility-economic-downturn.asp

http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/6527/RA-enterprise-mobile-applications.aspx




market changes and customer needs. This accelerates time-to-information and improves customer satisfaction and retention.

Increasing BI Adoption in the Organization Definition of Terms

Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI):

√ The capabilities and technologies that allow access to reports and charts while away from the desk, out of the office or in the field

√ Devices used to access Mobile BI include smartphones, tablets, laptops and netbooks

The July 2010 Aberdeen report, Operational Performance Visibility: Improving Decision Timeliness and Accuracy, found that that BI usage among organizations with mobile BI had doubled as compared to those that had not mobilized their BI (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Mobility Increases BI Usage

Percentage of employees using all forms of business intelligence, including dashboards

54%

27%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

% o

f Res

pond

ents

, (n

= 27

7) Mobile BI

No Mobile BI

Percentage of employees using all forms of business intelligence, including dashboards

54%

27%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

% o

f Res

pond

ents

, (n

= 27

7)

54%

27%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

% o

f Res

pond

ents

, (n

= 27

7) Mobile BI

No Mobile BI

Mobile BI

No Mobile BI

Source: Aberdeen Group, July 2010

Business intelligence has its historical roots in the provision of information to the most senior management in order to assist strategic decision making in the executive suite. In recent years however, the use of BI to inform operational, day-to-day decision making by line-level employees has grown rapidly. Aberdeen's August 2010 report, Operational Intelligence: Boosting Performance with "Right-Time" Insight, found that over 340 employees (on average) in each organization were using operational BI to help them with daily tactical decisions.

“We are able to easily develop and distribute mobile reports that ensure our executives and sales force are always connected to the pulse of our business.”

~ Manoj Prashad. Vice President of Enterprise

Architecture, Global Applications and Testing Life

Technologies, Inc.

For operational BI to be truly useful in guiding daily decisions, information needs to be updated frequently, and disseminated to decision makers in a timely fashion. Aberdeen's December 2009 benchmark report Data Management for BI found that 55% of Best-in-Class companies had operational data updated in real-time, or near real-time (within a few minutes of changes occurring).

Broadening BI Access The limited deployment of BI to executive decision makers, the so-called "C-suite," was initially necessitated by the relatively high cost of software customization that entailed deep integration with legacy enterprise application servers such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Sales Force Automation (SFA), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM); as well as by traditional corporate culture that equated knowledge with (executive) power.


http://aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/6659/RA-enterprise-performance-management.aspx

http://aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/6659/RA-enterprise-performance-management.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/6528/RA-operational-business-intelligence.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/6528/RA-operational-business-intelligence.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/5977/RA-data-management-business-intelligence.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/5977/RA-data-management-business-intelligence.aspx



Times have changed, and the broad dissemination of knowledge throughout the organization has emerged as a hallmark of top performing organizations. The May 2009 study Executive Dashboards: The Key to Unlocking Double Digit Profit Growth revealed that three-quarters of the Best-in-Class deployed dashboards to managers, and more than half put BI in the hands of customer-facing staff - almost twice the rate of all other companies.

Top Business Drivers When respondents to the survey for this report were asked to select the top pressures driving their organization to adopt mobile BI, over half identified a belief as their organization's primary driver: the belief that mobile BI can provide them a competitive advantage (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Pressures Driving Mobile BI Adoption

54%

41%

30%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Belief that Mobile BI cangive us a competitive

advantage

Need to increaseproductivity of mobile

employees

Delays in alerting keydecision makers tocritical information

Percentage of respondents, n=143

54%

41%

30%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Belief that Mobile BI cangive us a competitive

advantage

Need to increaseproductivity of mobile

employees

Delays in alerting keydecision makers tocritical information

Percentage of respondents, n=143 Source: Aberdeen Group, December 2010

This belief is logical in the macroeconomic context described above; the rise of enterprise mobility, and the drive to differentiate in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The globalization context also correlates with the organization's need to increase mobile employees' productivity. Just under a third of respondents described the delays in delivering critical information to key decision makers as a driver, highlighting the theme of "time-to-information" that emerges as a key competitive differentiator in this study.

The Maturity Class Framework Aberdeen used two fundamental performance criteria to distinguish the Best-in-Class from Industry Average and Laggard organizations (Table 1):

• Ability to find required information using mobile BI (frequency, measured as a percentage)

• Customer satisfaction (percentage of customers very or extremely satisfied)


http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/5874/RA-dashboard-business-intelligence.aspx




Table 1: Top-Performing Organizations Earn “Best-in-Class” Status

Definition of Maturity Class Mean Class Performance

Best-in-Class: Top 20%

of aggregate performance scorers

Able to find information required for critical business decisions 87% of the time 92% of customers report being extremely or very satisfied

Industry Average: Middle 50% of aggregate

performance scorers


Laggard: Bottom 30% of aggregate

performance scorers


"We started with the sales force, providing them with analytics on CRM related data. So when sales people were going to visit their customers they would be able to download critical account information and history, as well as some key performance indicators such as customer uptime, issues and resolution metrics, and customer reliability.”

~ Vice President, Product Strategy,

Enterprise Software Provider, USA

Source: Aberdeen Group, December 2010

Being able to find the information required to make critical business decisions (meeting the "time-to-information" requirement) is a hallmark of the Best-in-Class BI initiatives, mobile or not. A core finding of this study is that mobile BI is an accelerator of time-to-information, with 87% of Best-in-Class organizations able to find the necessary information in the time required, 40% greater than Industry Average and six-times that of Laggards. Overall, 72% of survey respondents have provided executive management with mobile BI. Figure 4, shows the impact on the performance of executives that use mobile BI.

Figure 4: Impact of Mobile BI on Executive Performance

84%

81%

21%

72%

74%

12%

69%

73%

6%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

% of personal KPIsachieved

% of plannedrevenue goal

achieved

Change in revenuefrom prior fiscal

year

Percentage of Respondents, n=143

Best-in-ClassIndustry AverageLaggard

84%

81%

21%

72%

74%

12%

69%

73%

6%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

% of personal KPIsachieved

% of plannedrevenue goal

achieved

Change in revenuefrom prior fiscal

year



Source: Aberdeen Group, December, 2010

As shown in Figure 5, Best-in-Class organizations' end-user customers directly benefit from the increased responsiveness enabled by their BI practices, with the top performers consistent in their ability to improve and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.




Figure 5: The Customer Wins from Improved Information Access

92%

18%

8%

62%

7%

4%

13%

-5%

2%

-10% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Very or extremelysatisfied customers

Change in customersat over prior 12

months

Change in customersat over the year

prior to that



92%

18%

8%

62%

7%

4%

13%

-5%

2%

-10% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Very or extremelysatisfied customers

Change in customersat over prior 12

months

Change in customersat over the year

prior to that




The Best-in-Class PACE Model As describe in Table 2, using mobile BI to achieve corporate goals requires a combination of strategic actions, organizational capabilities, and enabling technologies that can be summarized as follows:

• An executive-level commitment to provide timely information on critical decision-making data to front-line employees

• Security policy and enforcement for all corporate data used by mobile BI

• Use of a rich variety of mobile BI deployment methods, including native mobile applications, web browsers and automated alerts

Table 2: The Best-in-Class PACE Framework

Pressures Actions Capabilities Enablers Belief that mobile BI can give us a competitive advantage

Provide timely information on critical decision-making data to front-line employees

Managers using mobile BI are fully involved in implementation Management and security policies exist for all mobile devices Executive-level support for mobile BI Mobile BI is part of integrated BI strategy Customer 360 degree view exists Drill-down in mobile devices Role-specific BI reports and/or dashboards Ability to measure information access times on mobile devices

Mobile BI delivered via native application Mobile BI delivered via browser Data integration capability Custom mobile BI solution developed in-house Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) BI Data cleansing Mobile Device Management (MDM) software Systems integrator or service provider used to build mobile BI applications Data warehouse





Best-in-Class Strategies In response to the business drivers described above, 44% of the Best-in-Class agree that the overriding strategy to increase the effectiveness of their mobile BI deployment is to propagate its use beyond the executive suite, by providing timely information to front-line employees (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Top Best-in-Class Strategies

41%

37%

44%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Provide timelyinformation to front-

line employees

Provide seniormanagement withmobile dashboard

showing KPIs

Create a singlecentralized view ofall critical decision-

making data


41%

37%

44%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Provide timelyinformation to front-

line employees

Provide seniormanagement withmobile dashboard

showing KPIs

Create a singlecentralized view ofall critical decision-

making data


"We’re starting to see that mobile is becoming more business-as-usual. So, when we build a BI dashboard we need to consider the mobile device as a platform for viewing right from the start."

~ Vice President, Product Strategy,

Enterprise Software Provider, USA


The broader dissemination of BI insights through the provision of mobile access is a key strategy of the Best-in-Class. They are:

• Increasingly deploying mobile BI to front-line employees, such as field sales representatives, line of business managers, and field service employees

• Achieving faster "time-to-information" and shorter "time-to-decision" for executives and managers that have mobile BI access

Forty-one percent (41%) of Best-in-Class organizations already provide senior staff with a mobile dashboard showing the status of the organization's Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), representations of the general health of the business. Thirty-seven percent (37%) have determined that in order to maximize the impact of their mobile BI investment, they need to consolidate their BI assets under one centralized view of decision-critical information, often called "one view of the truth." As Figure 4 and Figure 5 show, mobile BI can have a powerful impact on both management and customer performance. Best-in-Class companies are looking to build on these early gains by propagating mobile BI throughout the organization.




Aberdeen Insights — Accelerating Time-to-Decision

The agile enterprise is able to respond rapidly to, and best capitalize on, changes in market conditions and the general business landscape. Best-in-Class organizations approach this ideal by diminishing their time-to-decision, defined as the elapsed time between the appearance of a business challenge or problem requiring a decision, and its resolution.

Best-in-Class organizations in this study have achieved a time-to-decision of 3.8 hours, 70% faster than the Industry Average, and over 5-times faster than Laggards (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Speeding Information Access


0%10%20%30%40%50%

60%70%80%90%100%

87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%

Frequency of findingneeded information

Portion of day youcarry mobile BI device

Percentage, n=434

Best-in-Class Industry Average Laggard

-

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

3.8

6.4

23.9

Time to Decision

Hou

rs

0%10%20%30%40%50%

60%70%80%90%100%

87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



Percentage, n=434

Best-in-Class Industry Average LaggardBest-in-Class Industry Average Laggard

-

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0 23.9

Time to Decision

Hou

rs

-

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0 23.9

Time to Decision

23.9

Time to Decision

Hou

rs

0%10%20%30%40%50%

60%70%80%90%100%

87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



Percentage, n=434

0%10%20%30%40%50%

60%70%80%90%100%


-

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

3.8

6.4

23.9

Time to Decision

Hou

rs

87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



87%80%

55%

72%

14%

60%



Percentage, n=434


-

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0 23.9

Time to Decision

Hou

rs

-

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0 23.9

Time to Decision

23.9

Time to Decision

Hou

rs


The fact that they are much more likely to find the information needed to make those key decisions (87% of the time versus 55% and 14%) and are more likely to carry their mobile BI device with them during the working day are both key contributing factors.

In the next chapter, we will see what the top performers are doing to achieve these gains.



Chapter Two: Benchmarking Requirements for Success

Fast Facts

√ 75% of the Best-in-Class can drill-down to detailed information from summary reports in Mobile BI

√ This is more than 2-times the Industry Average and more than 3-times the Laggards.

The selection of mobile business intelligence and its integration with business process and enterprise applications plays a crucial role in the ability to turn these strategies into profit.

Case Study — Aplicor

Aplicor is a global publisher of subscription-based and hosted CRM and ERP web-based software solutions for high growth, mid-market and enterprise organizations. With just over 100 employees, the company is based in the United States with international offices in the United Kingdom and Costa Rica. Aplicor has been using mobile business intelligence for approximately two years.

While the use of mobile BI in the organization is now widespread, deployment has been incremental, starting initially with the sales team. Although some sales staff are based in corporate offices, many either work from home offices or onsite with customers and prospects. By working with sales management, IT was able to ensure that the top priority for sales reps – access to their accounts’ history and current activities – was addressed satisfactorily first. From this initial success, the use of mobile BI subsequently expanded to include consultants in the field, as well as marketing and executive management. The commitment of senior executives to supporting the mobile BI initiative throughout the company made it possible.

Aplicor created their mobile BI solution from readily available commercial products. But, as with all emerging technologies, there have been some challenges along the way. First of all, the lack of cross-platform standards in this nascent market has made development and deployment more difficult than it might have otherwise been. As Chuck Schaeffer, Chairman of Aplicor states, “Frankly, different mobile platforms are moving in different directions, and there are forks in the road. That’s unfortunate, but it is something that we have to deal with.”


So, while the company has ultimately developed a dynamic, interactive, and highly graphical solution, it cannot yet be deployed on all smartphones. Secondly, the screen size on smartphones has made it necessary to rethink how some reports and charts are configured. “The issue with mobile is that you have such a limited form factor,” said Schaeffer. “We’ve found that staffs don’t want a 360-degree customer view. What they actually want is more like a 36-degree customer view, with the ability to get other slices of information on demand.”

continued

"We’ve found that staff doesn't want a 360-degree customer view. What they actually want is more like a 36-degree customer view, with the ability to get other slices of information on demand.”

~ Chuck Schaeffer, Chairman,

Aplicor



Case Study — Aplicor

Security is also an important consideration as data on mobile devices is inherently more vulnerable. Schaeffer continues, “Mobile devices will get lost - left at airports, left in restaurants, and so on – it’s inevitable. We’ve integrated a third party product so that if a device is unaccounted for we can remotely wipe the data from it.”

Overall, the mobile BI solution has proved invaluable for staff in the field. It’s been extremely useful to be able to access up-to-date information on a customer or prospect immediately before meeting with them. This is especially true when meeting several different clients in a day. As Schaeffer concludes, “Because we are a very virtual and de-centralized organization, mobile business intelligence just makes a lot of business sense for us.”

Competitive Assessment Aberdeen Group analyzed the aggregated metrics of surveyed companies to determine whether their performance ranked as Best-in-Class, Industry Average, or Laggard. In addition to having common performance levels, each class also shared characteristics in five key categories: (1) process (the approaches they take to execute daily operations); (2) organization (corporate focus and collaboration among stakeholders); (3) knowledge management (contextualizing data and exposing it to key stakeholders); (4) technology (the selection of the appropriate tools and the effective deployment of those tools); and (5) performance management (the ability of the organization to measure its results to improve its business). These characteristics (identified in Table 3) serve as a guideline for best practices, and correlate directly with Best-in-Class performance across the key metrics.

Table 3: The Competitive Framework

Best-in-Class Average Laggards Managers using mobile BI are fully involved in

implementation

56% 43% 34%

Device management and security policies exist for all mobile devices

64% 35% 32%

Standard project plan in place for mobile BI

Process

50% 25% 22%

Executive level champion for mobile initiatives

68% 58% 44%

Grass roots IT champion for mobile BI Organization

63% 40% 30%



Best-in-Class Average Laggards Role specific BI dashboards and reports exist

67% 41% 31%

Mobile BI is part of an integrated BI strategy

65% 46% 26%

360 degree view of the customer is available

Knowledge

42% 21% 18%

Information access times on mobile devices are measured

46% 22% 20%

Mobile BI usage is monitored Performance

40% 33% 23%

Users can drill-down to detailed information from summary reports

75% 37% 24%

Reports and charts can be written once and deployed on any mobile platform

62% 32% 16%

BI on mobile devices can be used when disconnected from the network

Technology

64% 29% 11%


Capabilities and Enablers Based on the findings of the Competitive Framework and interviews with end users, Aberdeen’s analysis of the Best-in-Class reveals that they enjoy the strong commitment of management throughout the organization, and have often already established strong BI capabilities that they leverage in providing BI access via mobile devices.

Process The strong commitment to mobile BI exhibited by Best-in-Class organizations is apparent in several of the processes that they have in place to deploy and support mobile BI effectively (Figure 8).



Figure 8: Key Mobile BI Processes

64%

56%

50%

35%

43%

25%

32%

34%

22%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Management andsecurity policies

for all mobiledevices

Managers usingMobile BI are

involved inimplementation

Standard projectplan for Mobile BI

deployments


Best-in-ClassIndustry AverageLaggards

64%

56%

50%

35%

43%

25%

32%

34%

22%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Management andsecurity policies

for all mobiledevices

Managers usingMobile BI are

involved inimplementation

Standard projectplan for Mobile BI

deployments



"It's very important for our sales people to have intelligence out in the field and to be as up-to-date as possible. Sales reps need to see close to real-time inventory levels so that when the customer places the order they can see what can ship immediately and what needs to be built.”

~ Dan Sise, Director of Business

Development, Laser Technologies


By definition, mobile BI disseminates highly sensitive and confidential information regarding the organization's business performance to mobile devices, which are often vulnerable to loss or theft. As a consequence, a mobile BI deployment shouldn't be considered enterprise-ready unless security of the data on the device, data in transmission, and data on stored media is assured. Best-in-Class organizations are almost twice as likely as all other companies to have policies in place for management and security of the device, a necessary first step in securing the mobile infrastructure.

Best-in-Class organizations are also more likely than other organizations to ensure that the managers who are the ultimate users of the mobile BI initiative are closely involved in all aspects of the project. This is essential for any BI application - not just mobile - to be effective and widely adopted. It is an essential step in ensuring that end-users' BI needs are effectively addressed and their business requirements fully met. Business managers should be involved in formulating requirements and ultimately sign-off on completion of the project during the Quality Assurance (QA) process. In addition, prior Aberdeen research (Operational Dashboards Drive Profits and Customer Retention) has highlighted the value of an iterative approach where developers work closely with business users throughout the development process.

Too often, business intelligence projects fail when decision makers (who are the ultimate users of the BI solution) are not intimately involved from start to finish. Without this close involvement, the project can miss the target in many ways. For example: the project may deliver information that is simply not useful for managers; only deliver partial information; not update information in the timeframe needed by the business; or provide information in a format that is less than optimal - such as a tabular report


http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/6940/AI-business-intelligence-dashboards.aspx




instead of a visual dashboard. BI projects that suffer from these shortcomings frequently end up being little-used by business managers and as a consequence ultimately waste development resources without providing measurable benefits to the business.

Best-in-Class companies are also more than twice as likely to have a standard project plan in place for the delivery of mobile BI deployments compared to All Other organizations. Developing a standard approach is an efficient way to ensure consistent deployment and ensure that all necessary steps for a successful implementation are undertaken. It is a necessary step to move mobile BI out of the experimental stage and into large scale deployments. The fact that half of Best-in-Class companies have already adopted this type of approach is another indication that these top performers have moved beyond the pilot phase and are moving into more widespread business adoption.

Finally, almost half of the Best-in-Class (46%) have a process in place to automatically push BI reports to mobile devices on a pre-determined schedule. After initial configuration, this capability can serve basic management information to business management without additional workload being placed on IT staff. This is ideal for organizations that need to generate routine reports on a recurring basis and distribute them to users on the move. Examples would include daily customer project updates, manufacturing performance or inventory levels. The alternative to the automated distribution of routine information is to manually refresh each report and distribute it - a process which inevitably requires some intervention by the IT organization. Only 23% of all other enterprises have this capability.

Organization If there was one word to describe the organizational capabilities that Best-in-Class enterprises demonstrate, that word would be commitment. Management at all levels and in all key functions in Best-in-Class companies are more likely to have made mobile business intelligence a priority within their company (Figure 9).

As described in Chapter One, the most common pressure across all survey respondents for adopting mobile BI is the simple belief that it can bring a competitive advantage. However, Best-in-Class firms back that belief with management commitment. Companies can dabble with new technologies –such as mobile business intelligence – with the consent of just one or two managers and minimal or no support from the IT organization. However, to deploy mobile BI in a way that can make a significant impact across the organization requires a greater alignment of management and a more dedicated allocation of resources.



Figure 9: Best-in-Class Commit Management and Resources

68%

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"I’d like to mobilize from the shop floor supervisor all the way up to the CEO. We currently have a manufacturing execution system that let’s us know if some plant is down, what the current manufacturing output is and so on. If a plant goes down or something goes wrong, the maintenance guy, the production guy, the plant manager all need to know that as soon as possible."

~ Bob Carnes, IT Architect,|

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation


To some extent, mobile BI is possible without the explicit involvement of the IT organization. For example, BI provided via a browser to a laptop or netbook in the field is no different from browser-based BI accessed from a desktop PC. In fact, in this scenario the IT organization may not even know that mobile BI is occurring. However, mobile BI on a next-generation mobile platform, such as a smartphone or a tablet, really requires the commitment of IT resources. This is necessary to understand how the new technology works, what BI presentation and formats can be supported, which existing reports and charts can be used without change, and what pitfalls need to be avoided. Fifty-two percent (52%) of Best-in-Class enterprises dedicate IT staff to mobile BI initiatives, compared to just 28% of Laggards.

As projects move beyond the testing-the-water stage, executive support is often needed to sanction additional product and services investments that are required. In terms of tangible expense, almost one third of Best-in-Class organizations (32%) invest in additional servers or licenses for their mobile implementations. Soft or hidden costs are also incurred as the time of key staff may be diverted from other potential projects to implement mobile BI. Best-in-Class organizations are more willing to dedicate IT staff to mobile BI projects than all other companies. As noted in the Process section above, business managers that are ultimately going to be the users of mobile BI projects also need to commit time to the initiative in order to ensure that the project delivered is fit for purpose and will provide value to the business.




Knowledge Management Many of the knowledge management capabilities exhibited by Best-in-Class organizations provide a testament to the powerful back-end business intelligence capabilities that have already been put in place. For example, the Best-in-Class are over twice as likely as other survey respondents to have a 360˚ view of the customer available to BI users (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Key Knowledge Management Capabilities

67%

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Recall that the strongest driver across all survey respondents for the adoption of mobile BI is the inherent belief that it will provide a significant advantage, relative to their competitors. Best-in-Class organizations are focused more strongly on achieving that competitive advantage by empowering their front-line employees. In fact, Best-in-Class organizations are 30% more likely than all other organizations to have this focus. For front-line workers - sales representatives, consultants, field service and customer support staff - intimate knowledge of the customer is critical to business success. Empowering front-line workers with a comprehensive knowledge of their customers drives customer satisfaction and ultimately customer retention. Best-in-Class enterprises enjoy a customer retention rate of 89%, 11 percentage points higher than all other organizations.

CRM and ERP applications help to feed and nurture this consolidated view of the customer. Best-in-Class companies are almost twice as likely as Laggards to have a CRM implementation to draw on (48% vs. 26%), and almost four times more likely to have an ERP solution deployed (54% vs. 14%).




Top-performing users of mobile BI also leverage role-specific reports and charts extensively. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Best-in-Class firms can provide such tightly focused views of management information, compared to 41% of the Industry Average and 31% of Laggards. Role-centric business intelligence helps to ensure that the key roles within the organization receive precisely the information they need to execute their jobs efficiently, no more and no less. For this to be achieved, the tasks involved in each role need to be clearly defined and well understood by the team responsible for implementing the BI initiative. With this deep understanding, the right management information can be provided in the right way with the appropriate update frequency. As already noted in the Process section of this chapter, Best-in-Class organizations are more likely than other companies to ensure that business managers are involved in BI projects from inception through to delivery. This level of involvement helps to make role-based BI a practical reality.

Many of the practices described in this report for the effective delivery of mobile BI apply equally well to any type of BI (or even IT) project. As mobile BI moves into wider adoption, it's reasonable to expect that the distinction between mobile BI and BI delivered to the desktop will dissolve. Best-in-Class organizations have already started to make this transition, with 65% of this maturity class incorporating mobile BI projects into an integrated corporation BI strategy. By contrast, only 46% of the Industry Average and 26% of Laggards have made the transition to bring mobile BI into the mainstream.

Technology In addition to the presentation and delivery technologies used (described in the "Aberdeen Insights - Technology" box), several other technologies were used more extensively by Best-in-Class organizations (Figure 11).

Companies making the best use of mobile BI are more likely than others to make extensive use of robust data management technologies. This includes data warehousing, data integration and data cleansing tools. The use of a data warehouse is one way that a 360˚ of the customer can be obtained, for example. Providing a central, subject-focused repository for reporting and analytics, a data warehouse often draws data from multiple source systems to create that unified view. Data integration software and data cleansing tools are technologies that are frequently used to construct the data warehouse. Data integration allows data streams from different source data systems to be manipulated and combined into a single coherent set of data to populate a data warehouse. Data cleansing tools can provide very necessary help in that integration process.



Figure 11: Mobile BI Data Management Technologies

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Often, data drawn from different systems is difficult to integrate because it has not been recorded consistently in transactional systems. For example, Joseph Doe might be recorded as the CIO at Acme Corp. in a sales order processing system. Simultaneously, the customer support call logs might record that someone called Joe Doe from Acme Co. has raised a trouble ticket. Is this the same person? Probably - but data cleansing is required if those two disparate records are to be brought together in a data warehouse in a meaningful way. Forty-eight percent (48%) of Best-in-Class organizations have data cleansing tools at their disposal.

This more comprehensive use of the key supporting technologies reinforces the viewpoint that Best-in-Class organizations are more mature in their use of BI in general, not only in their approach to mobile BI. But, in addition to these enabling technologies, Best-in-Class companies also exhibit a distinct set of technology capabilities that distinguish their mobile BI initiatives (Figure 12).

Two distinct capabilities, real-time or near real-time data feeds and the offline usage of mobile BI, contribute to the ability of end-users to access useful data. The use of close to real-time data feeds to mobile devices means that managers can always be assured that they are making decisions based on the most current data. If managers lack trust in the data, or doubt its relevance because it may be stale, the success of mobile BI deployments will be hampered. Similarly, the ability to access business intelligence on a mobile device when it is not connected to a network helps to ensure managers can always find the required information at all times.




Figure 12: Best-in-Class Technology Capabilities

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Eighty-four percent (84%) of Best-in-Class organizations realize that securing data on mobile devices is necessary, but not sufficient. Data must also be secured while in transmission (over the air) to be comprehensively secure. This capability among the top performers is 1.8-times the Industry Average and over 5-times Laggards.

Finally, Best-in-Class firms are over twice as likely as all other organizations to use a BI development tool that allows reports and charts to be developed once and deployed to multiple platforms unchanged. This is important to help enterprises support and migrate to new BI platforms and form factors - such as smartphones and tablets. A tool that allows a report to be created once and used throughout the organization on any device or platform can clearly increase the leverage of scarce IT developers and business analyst staff. The alternative is to waste time supporting multiple versions of reports, or just not develop so many reports at all.

Performance Management Given the superior end-customer satisfaction achieved by Best-in-Class organizations as described in Chapter One, it is no surprise that they also excel when it comes time to measuring that level of satisfaction (Figure 13).




Figure 13: Ability to Measure Mobile BI and Device Performance

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Following the maxim that measured performance becomes improved performance over time, they are more than twice as likely to measure BI access times on their mobile devices deployed in the field. They are also more likely to monitor overall mobile BI usage, an essential step in a comprehensive program to increase mobile access and optimize the end-user experience.

Aberdeen Insights — Technology

There are two primary ways to deliver BI to a mobile device. The first is via a conventional web browser. The second is via a specialized application downloaded to, and executed on, the device. Often referred to as a native application (app), this approach is offered by many BI software vendors for smartphone and tablet devices. Other mechanisms, such as automated alerts also exist. While both primary methods are in use by Aberdeen's survey respondents, browser-based BI access is used more commonly by both Best-in-Class organizations and the survey population as a whole (Figure 14).

Native applications typically offer data presentation tailored for the smaller mobile device screen sizes, the manipulation of a rich graphical display via touchscreen interface, and the use of built-in GPS mechanisms to automatically filter data appropriately based on the user's location. Altogether, they offer the promise of a more interactive mobile BI experience. Why then, is the use of browser-based BI so prevalent on mobile devices? There are two fundamental reasons.

continued




Aberdeen Insights — Technology

Figure 14: Browser-based Versus Native App

40% 38%

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Mobile BI delivered via a native app Mobile BI delivered via Web browser

Plan to Use within 12 Months

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cent

age

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espo

nden

ts, n

=143

Currently Use

Mobile BI delivered via a native app Mobile BI delivered via Web browser

Plan to Use within 12 Months

12%

Per

cent

age

of R

espo

nden

ts, n

=143

Currently Use Source: Aberdeen Group, December 2010

First of all, laptops are among the devices most commonly used for mobile BI in Aberdeen's research survey. Many conventional BI tools have used web-browsers as the presentation layer of choice for many years in PC environments. Naturally then, many laptops will already be using a browser for BI presentation, whether inside or outside the office environment. Meanwhile, mobile BI itself is still in its formative period. While the appeal of management information on the go is clear, many organizations are still assessing the true potential and the best BI applications for mobile devices. Using a browser for initial mobile BI projects is a very easy and low-cost way to make this evaluation.

Looking into the future however, survey respondents indicate that the use of native applications will increase sharply in the next 12 months. Indeed, Best-in-Class enterprises will double their use of native applications in this timeframe. This is indicative of the relative maturity of Best-in-Class organizations in their use of mobile BI. This top performing 20% of survey respondents more fully understand the value of mobile BI and have more fully committed their resources to its success. Having used browser-based mobile BI in the early stages, Best-in-Class organizations are now ready to adopt native applications to take their projects forward to the next stage.



Chapter Three: Required Actions

Fast Facts

√ 64% of Best-in-Class organizations can access mobile BI even when disconnected from the network

This is more than 2-times the Industry Average at 29%, and almost 6-times the Laggards at 11%

Whether a company is trying to move its performance in the use of mobile business intelligence from Laggard to Industry Average, or Industry Average to Best-in-Class, the following actions will help spur the necessary performance improvements:

Laggard Steps to Success • Improve management commitment. The commitment of both

business unit managers and dedicated IT staff is lacking in comparison to both Industry Average and the Best-in-Class. Only 23% of Laggard enterprises have business unit managers advocating for mobile BI, compared to 42% at Industry Average firms. Likewise, only 28% of Laggards have IT staff dedicated to mobile BI projects, compared to 46% of Industry Average organizations. Executives and IT management at these companies should ensure that mid-level managers are educated on the potential benefits of mobile BI and re-assured on potential concerns, such as security. Dedicating IT staff to mobile BI - if only part-time - is likely to ensure smoother adoption and rollout of projects, paving the road to success.

• Make security a mandate. Laggard organizations often lack basic security mechanisms, such as password authentication and lock and wipe. Currently, only 33% of Laggards can secure BI data with passwords and user authentication. In addition, only 11% of Laggard organizations can lock and erase a device remotely in the event that it is lost or stolen, for example. Providing these and other security mechanisms, such as data encryption, can help to engage business managers who may have concerns around the confidentiality of data.

• Improve the ability to drill-down on mobile devices. The ability for end-users to be able to access detailed information by drilling down on summarized information can be very powerful. It can, for instance, assist mobile workers to determine cause-and-effect relationships when presented with information. Overall, when well implemented drill-down can increase the amount of useful information available. For example, a sales representative may have access to a dashboard that indicates a customer has only received a partial shipment of goods. Being able to immediately drill-down and understand which goods haven't shipped, when they might ship, and what alternatives might be available can help to resolve the situation quickly with a minimum of fuss. This is both efficient for the employee concerned and also good for customer satisfaction. Currently, only 24% of Laggard enterprises provide drill-down on mobile devices, compared to 37% of Industry Average organizations and 75% of the Best-in-Class.




Industry Average Steps to Success • Lock it down. Industry Average organizations significantly lag the

Best-in-Class regarding the level of security implemented specifically for mobile BI. The Best-in-Class are more than twice as likely (54% vs. 26%) to put in place a process to vet and ensure security of the data delivered to mobile devices. The Industry Average also lag significantly in encryption of data "at rest" – that is, data that is stored on the mobile device itself (54% vs. 22%).

• Wake up to alerts. Only 25% of Industry Average organizations make use of automated alerts triggered by key performance indicators. In comparison, 52% of Best-in-Class companies have this capability. This is an excellent way to ensure the prompt attention of decision makers when some type of corrective action is required. For example, when inventory levels fall below a threshold in supply chain operations, or stock-outs occur in a retail environment, rapid corrective action can avoid lost sales.

• Accommodate offline access. Consider the use of a solution that allows mobile BI to be used when the device is disconnected from a network. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Best-in-Class enterprises have this capability, compared to 29% of Industry Average organizations. Although this may not be required for all mobile BI applications, for field-based workers such as sales reps or field service staff having access to customer-related data at all times may be an essential factor in enabling those employees to perform their jobs.

Best-in-Class Steps to Success • Know your ROI. Develop the ability to measure the ROI from

mobile BI projects. Although 78% of Best-in-Class organizations don't yet have this capability, 52% plan to undertake this within the next 12 months. Coupled with this, 52% of Best-in-Class enterprises also plan to improve their ability to measure the productivity of field based employees. As mobile business intelligence applications become more widespread, companies will need to become more discriminating in the projects they invest in. Measuring the ROI on existing projects and forecasting the expected ROI on future projects will help them achieve this successfully.

• Champion mobile. Consider making mobile devices the primary platform for BI deployments. Best-in-Class survey respondents indicate that 12 months from now 56% will be developing BI reports and charts foremost for mobile devices. Further, 72% of Best-in-Class organizations will have a process in place to re-write existing reports for mobile devices by the end of the year. This highlights the increasing importance that top performing enterprises place on access to management information, anywhere, anytime.



• Measure your progress. Over one half of the Best-in-Class don't yet measure information access times for mobile BI. Without this assessment, there can't be sustainable improvement. We suggest taking the perspective that the end-user is actually the (internal) customer. If the mobile BI solution isn't responsive enough, or isn't delivering relevant information in the time required, then end-user usage will lag and the organization's investment in becoming more agile and responsive through mobile BI will be for naught. Measuring the fluctuations in information access times will provide a critical tool in assessing the pulse of the business, the speed of change, and help develop a roadmap for future improvement.

Aberdeen Insights — Mobile BI: Staying One Step Ahead

Global competitive pressures reward the Real-Time Enterprise (RTE), defined as the organization focused on market and customer responsiveness, swift and agile decision-making, and transparency and immediacy of information shared among internal groups. Mobile BI has evolved as an essential enabler of the RTE, delivering business-critical information when and where it’s needed.

As a result, mobile BI is becoming an essential weapon in the modern organization's arsenal to remain competitive, agile, and responsive in this increasingly competitive and rapidly changing global marketplace. By delivering the most relevant business performance data in the hands of both strategic and tactical decision makers whenever and wherever they may be, organizations are achieving faster "time-to-information" and therefore shorter "time-to-decision," becoming ever more responsive and agile. The organization that is in touch and one step ahead is best prepared to thrive in the brave new world of instant and ubiquitous data access.



Appendix A: Research Methodology

In December 2010, Aberdeen examined the use, the experiences, and the intentions of more than 140 enterprises using mobile business intelligence in a diverse set of enterprises.

Study Focus

Responding executives and managers completed an online survey that included questions designed to determine the following:

√ The degree to which mobile business intelligence is deployed in their organizations

√ The business functions and roles equipped with mobile BI

√ Current and planned use of mobile BI, mobile devices and associated technologies

√ The benefits, if any, that have been derived from mobile business intelligence initiatives

The study aimed to identify emerging best practices for mobile BI usage, and to provide a framework by which readers could assess their own management capabilities.

Aberdeen supplemented this online survey effort with interviews with select survey respondents, gathering additional information on mobile BI strategies, experiences, and results.

Responding enterprises included the following:

• Job title: The research sample included respondents with the following job titles: Senior Executives (40%); Director (17%); Manager (23%); Consultant (18%); and other (2%).

• Department / function: The research sample included respondents from the following departments or functions: information technology (25%); business development / sales (21%); corporate management (15%); marketing (7%); product development / engineering (6%); logistics (5%) and operations (5%).

• Industry: The research sample included respondents from the following industries: IT consulting / services (28%): software (18%); financial services (5%); retail (5%); education (4%) and telecommunication services (4%).

• Geography: The majority of respondents (53%) were from North America. Remaining respondents were from Europe (20%), the Asia-Pacific region (17%), the middle-east and Africa (6%) and Latin America (4%).

• Company size: Twenty-one percent (21%) of respondents were from large enterprises (annual revenues above US $1 billion); 29% were from midsize enterprises (annual revenues between $50 million and $1 billion); and 50% of respondents were from small businesses (annual revenues of $50 million or less).

• Headcount: Thirty-seven percent (37%) of respondents were from large enterprises (headcount greater than 1,000 employees); 24% were from midsize enterprises (headcount between 101 and 1,000 employees); and 39% of respondents were from small businesses (headcount between 1 and 100 employees).




Table 4: The PACE Framework Key

Overview Aberdeen applies a methodology to benchmark research that evaluates the business pressures, actions, capabilities, and enablers (PACE) that indicate corporate behavior in specific business processes. These terms are defined as follows: Pressures — external forces that impact an organization’s market position, competitiveness, or business operations (e.g., economic, political and regulatory, technology, changing customer preferences, competitive) Actions — the strategic approaches that an organization takes in response to industry pressures (e.g., align the corporate business model to leverage industry opportunities, such as product / service strategy, target markets, financial strategy, go-to-market, and sales strategy) Capabilities — the business process competencies required to execute corporate strategy (e.g., skilled people, brand, market positioning, viable products / services, ecosystem partners, financing) Enablers — the key functionality of technology solutions required to support the organization’s enabling business practices (e.g., development platform, applications, network connectivity, user interface, training and support, partner interfaces, data cleansing, and management)


Table 5: The Competitive Framework Key

Overview The Aberdeen Competitive Framework defines enterprises as falling into one of the following three levels of practices and performance: Best-in-Class (20%) — Practices that are the best currently being employed and are significantly superior to the Industry Average, and result in the top industry performance. Industry Average (50%) — Practices that represent the average or norm, and result in average industry performance. Laggards (30%) — Practices that are significantly behind the average of the industry, and result in below average performance.

In the following categories: Process — What is the scope of process standardization? What is the efficiency and effectiveness of this process? Organization — How is your company currently organized to manage and optimize this particular process? Knowledge — What visibility do you have into key data and intelligence required to manage this process? Technology — What level of automation have you used to support this process? How is this automation integrated and aligned? Performance — What do you measure? How frequently? What’s your actual performance?


Table 6: The Relationship Between PACE and the Competitive Framework

PACE and the Competitive Framework – How They Interact Aberdeen research indicates that companies that identify the most influential pressures and take the most transformational and effective actions are most likely to achieve superior performance. The level of competitive performance that a company achieves is strongly determined by the PACE choices that they make and how well they execute those decisions.





Appendix B: Related Aberdeen Research

Related Aberdeen research that forms a companion or reference to this report includes:

• Enterprise-Grade Mobile Applications: Secure Information When and Where It's Needed; November 2010

• Operational Dashboards Drive Profits and Customer Retention; October 2010

• BI for the SMB 2010: Unlocking Hidden Business Insight to Drive Profit; October 2010

• Fast, Affordable, Agile - The Case for SaaS BI; August 2010

• Enterprise Mobility Management: Optimizing the Full Mobile Lifecycle; May 2010

• Enterprise Mobile Strategies 2010: More Productivity, Same Budget; December 2009

• Data Management for BI: Strategies for Leveraging the Complexity and Growth of Business Data; December 2009

• Executive Dashboards: The Key to Unlocking Double Digit Profit Growth; May 2009

• Mobile Business Intelligence: A Path to Pervasive BI?; November 2008

Information on these and any other Aberdeen publications can be found at www.aberdeen.com.

Authors: Andrew Borg, Senior Research Analyst, Wireless & Mobility, [email protected] White, Senior Research Analyst, Business Intelligence, [email protected]

Since 1988, Aberdeen's research has been helping corporations worldwide become Best-in-Class. Having benchmarked the performance of more than 644,000 companies, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to provide organizations with the facts that matter — the facts that enable companies to get ahead and drive results. That's why our research is relied on by more than 2.2 million readers in over 40 countries, 90% of the Fortune 1,000, and 93% of the Technology 500.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information – Opportunity – Insight – Engagement – Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc. (110810a)




http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/6671/RA-business-intelligence-analytics.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/6512/RA-pervasive-business-intelligence.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/6574/RA-enterprise-mobility-management.aspx



http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5977-RA-data-management-business-intelligence.asp

http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5977-RA-data-management-business-intelligence.asp


http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/5374/RA-mobile-business-intelligence.aspx

http://www.aberdeen.com/

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