TRENDS OF BUSINESS CONTROL IN MOBILE DEVICES

STUDY 2012

STUDY ON MOBILE BUSINESS ANALYTICS

2 Jun 12

Contents

I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 0

II. METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................... 1

III. PREVIOUS MOBILE BUSINESS SITUATION ....................................................... 2

IV. QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS ............................................................................... 3

1. PROFILE OF THE SAMPLE THAT PARTICIPATED IN THE STUDY .................... 3

2. USE OF MOBILE DEVICES.................................................................................. 5

PART 1: NECESSITY AND USAGE OF MOBILE DEVICES ..................................... 5

PART 2: TECHNOLOGY AND MOBILE DEVICES ................................................... 9

V. CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................... 14

I. INTRODUCTION

Mobile access turned into one of the biggest trends in Business Analytics, mostly in a moment when the majority of companies are becoming cloud computing.

The following pages show full results of the Study made by LITEBI about the use of mobile devices within companies in order to control their business.

LITEBI, within its customer-focused culture, launched this study in order to hear

from current businesses needs so they are taken into consideration for the brand-new Mobile Business Application, LiteMOBILE, currently being

developed by the company.

We surveyed more than 100 CEOs and middle professionals to find out their stance and the use they make of mobile devices in their companies. We hope this study helps your company understand how valuable is Cloud

Computing Business Analytics for the organization’s management, making a state-of-the-art company that optimizes its human resources.

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II. METHODOLOGY

In order to make this study, the main sources used were:

Documentary research and recent studies on mobile trends.

Interview with LITEBI customers and partners to get to know their Mobile

Intelligence needs.

Form: Trends about Business Control in Mobile Devices

LinkedIn Poll.

As a tool used for the data representation, analysis and interpretation, it has

been used LiteEXPLORER, the Cloud Computing Business Analytics platform

of LITEBI.

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III. PREVIOUS MOBILE BUSINESS SITUATION

If we have a close look at the business information systems, according to a study published by the Aberdeen Group, in 2010 the annual growth of

business information was 40% higher than the previous year for companies of any kind.

In what comes to the introduction of users to Business Intelligence tools within their organizations, it increases from 6% to more than half in 2010. With this figures we notice the consolidation of Business Intelligence tools within

organizations. In general, each year companies have to deal with a greater amount of digital information (intern and extern). It is forecasted that this growth will continue to

increase within the following years, mostly due to the fast-paced markets, the demanding customers and the competence that will consequently cause the need of Business Analytics Solutions.

Together with this, it is necessary to consider the new employees relationship model and the increase of information demand, in any place and any time, that brings on the need of Mobile Business Analytics Solutions.

In order to analyze the current situation of Mobile Business Analytics, we will start with the whitepaper made by Kevin Quinn about “The Truth about Mobile

Business Intelligence, Five Common Myths Debunked” from which we selected two of the myths that we considered to be very faithful to the present Mobile

Business Analytics situation. Myth #1 Mobile BI Requires All Users to Be on the Same Device

Most mobile BI platforms do make reporting capabilities available via a wide array of different devices. These platforms are truly device-independent,

providing support for any type of mobile appliance by delivering BI content – in the form of reports, dashboards, and applications – directly to the device’s

browser. Myth #2 Mobile BI Is Only Consumed on Mobile Phones or Smartphones

This statement was true just a few short years ago when the majority of mobile BI consumers used BlackBerry and Palm devices. But now, the recent emergence of tablet computers, and their growing popularity, is changing

the face of mobile business intelligence. Tablets, such as the iPad, eliminate

the shortcomings of smartphones making it easier for mobile users to conduct more in-depth analysis. These workers now have the means to generate ad hoc reports or manipulate data for great detail.

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IV. QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

1. PROFILE OF THE SAMPLE THAT PARTICIPATED IN THE

STUDY

Company Size: If we classify according to the size of the company, we find out

that the 59% of enterprises that participated in the study were small and medium sized businesses, with a workforce between 10 and 50 employees. However, big companies had also a significant participation.

Image 1- Representation of Type of Enterprise According to Employee’s Number. Tool: LiteEXPLORER LITEBI

Sector: If we divide by sector of economic activity, R&D, Sales and Education

were the sectors that had a more substantial participation. The rest of sectors had an equal involvement as it can be seen in the image.

Image 2 – Sectors of Economic Activity – Tool: LiteEXPLORER LITEBI

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Professional profile: The type of professionals that collaborated in the Study

was represented by decision-makers from junior professionals to middle professionals and senior executives. Professionals with responsibilities and professionals in charge of decision-processes within organizations.

Image 3 – Professional Profile. LITEBI LiteEXPLORER Module.

Business area: More than half of the study participants come from Sales and

Marketing Departments and from Administration and Operations.

Image 4 - Business Areas - LITEBI LiteEXPLORER Module.

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2. USE OF MOBILE DEVICES

PART 1: NECESSITY AND USAGE OF MOBILE DEVICES

1. - Does your company use mobile devices with a professional purpose?

Image 5. Use of Mobile Devices with a Professional Purpose. - LITEBI LiteEXPLORER Module

As we can see in the pie chart, more than 85% of companies are using mobile devices with a professional purpose on their daily-basis. However, they do not

make use of proper business applications further than email manager software or spreadsheet software.

2. - Which percentage of your workers use mobile devices for professional

purposes?

Image 6 - Percentage of employees using mobile devices for professional purposes.

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However, in this question we find a very different answer, because the majority

of employees use their mobile device in their daily routine at work.

3. - What percentage of your employees have internet access through

their mobile devices?

As we can see in Image 7, the level of mobile devices with internet access has

an excellent penetration within the business framework, which makes it normal to see rise the demand of Cloud Computing Applications. On top, these applications offer the possibility to be accessed anytime and anywhere, due to its internet access.

Image 7 - Percentage of employees with internet Access in their mobile devices

4. - Does your company need to provide your employees of more mobile information?

The majority of participants (83%) considered essential to provide personnel with mobile information, resulting in a necessity to have a Mobile Analytics Application for the present business management habits.

Image 8. Necessity of Updated Mobile Information – LiteEXPLORER OLAP Cube

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In addition to this, if we classify it by position of responsibility, we can observe

that certain positions need to be informed, updated and caught up with the business situation. This is the case of middle-professionals, who as we can see on image 9, they are rated 10 out of 12 in the importance of having mobile information in their workplace:

Image 9 - Necessity of Mobile Information per Position. OLAP Cube LiteEXPLORER

5. - How often do you need to check data on your mobile?

As said before, the majority of people use their mobile devices for professional

purposes, and according to the table shown below, they need to check data on their devices several times a day. From this we assume that having mobile information, updated at anytime and anywhere, furnishes their working daily needs. This will be the case of a commercial agent that needs to check the

latest product orders when visiting a customer.

Image 10 - Frequency of Data Check in Mobile Devices. LITEBI

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6. - In which department do you consider mobile information more useful?

According to the participants, the Marketing and Commercial departments are the ones where mobile information is considered to be more valuable. After, with minor percentages, there are the Administration and Managing departments, placed around the 20%.

Image 11 - Use of Business Intelligence per Department

7. - Do you think you can miss business opportunities because your

employees don't have information in their mobile devices?

Participants had no doubt, business opportunities can be missed if employees lack of a mobile device where they can check updated information. 100% of those polled considered having mobile devices as an advantage for business

opportunities.

Image 12 - Business Opportunity Miss When Lacking of Mobile Information

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PART 2: TECHNOLOGY AND MOBILE DEVICES

8. - Are your employees used to downloading applications on to their

smartphones?

Despite the importance of use of mobile devices among professional environments, in this question we find that nearly a 40% of users do not

download applications on their smartphones in a daily basis. This might be caused because mobile devices are limited by the company or because the applications are not user-friendly. In which case, we assume that there is still a lot to develop in this field.

Image 13 - Smartphone applications download.

9. - Choose from the list which mobile devices are used in your company

(You can select more than one)

Image 14 - Mobile Devices Used Within Companies – LITEBI

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The results, as indicated in Image 14, show that Blackberry is the most

frequently used mobile device among organizations. Additionally, we can imply that departments where mobile information is more established are the Commercial and Marketing Areas, departments where Blackberries had a greater penetration (34%) than others.

Image 15 – Most Frequency Used Mobile Devices among Marketing and Sales Departments

10. - Do you use business applications on your smartphone? (E.g.: gmail,

ERP, etc.).

Image 16 – Use of Mobile Business Applications in Smartphones

Despite the great penetration of Business Applications on mobile devices, still

54% of users do not use Mobile Business Applications. One of the reasons of this reduced usage of Mobile Business Applications we find it in the lack of mobile applications developed by the traditional business

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software developers or because many of those software are not in the cloud,

making data access to smartphone-users very difficult.

11. - Does your company have a Business Intelligence tool or software?

If we are more specific, and we ask about business applications to manage a company, such a Business Intelligence tools, we find that it is even more unusual that companies use them in mobile devices.

This can be related to the penetration of Business Intelligence Solutions within the business framework, with lower ratios than for example, ERP solutions, much more established in organizations, mostly in Administration and Purchasing Departments.

As shown in Image 18, 73% of the sample does not have Business Intelligence applications on their mobile devices.

Image 17 - Use of Mobile Business Intelligence Applications

12. - If not, has your company ever considered about improving its

reporting and information systems with a B.I. tool?

Regardless of the reduced use of Mobile Intelligence Applications, the majority of participants agreed on its usefulness and they are considering setting a Business Intelligence Solutions connected to their mobile devices as seen on

the following image:

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Image 18 - Need of Mobile Intelligence

12. - What kind of analytical and control tools does your company

consider more important to install in your device?

The results, as indicated in Image 19, show that the most important tools for information management and control in mobile devices are balanced scorecards and alerts. And the tools considered the most worthless within the

Mobile Business Intelligence Applications are the maps.

Image 19 - Functionalities that Mobile Business Intelligence Applications Must Include – Radar Chart by LITEBI

13. - Which would you say is the most important characteristic in a BI

mobile application?

The most demanded characteristic in Mobile Business Intelligence Applications are the application’s usability, the data security and reliability and its easy

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access to data. On the following radar chart we can see that while “Easy use”,

“Reliability” and “Speed” are very important when choosing a Mobile Business Intelligence Application, the visual quality is not a relevant characteristic.

Image20. What Characteristics Are Considered To Be More Relevant For Mobile BI Applications?

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V. CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions found after making this study outline the importance of having

a Mobile Business Analytics Application that allows you consulting your

business information. This application, unlike Business Analytics software, will

mainly need to have Dashboards, OLAP and Collaboration tools.

As it can be seen on the image, according to the poll taken in the social

professional network, LinkedIn, the majority of participants share the opinion

that Mobile Business Analytics will highly contribute to the business efficiency.

By the end of 2012, Mobile BI Applications will place reporting and analytics in

the hands of decision-makers, wherever they are via their favorite mobile.

We would like to mention a recent study made by SAP in which they draw some

important conclusions related to our Study. Some of these conclusions say:

That companies with mature mobile best practices likely double

operating margins, experience three times higher revenue growth, with a

10,8% respect to the rest of the market that is around 3.4%.

According to the report, companies have eight mobile devices and two

tablets or smartphones per every ten employees.

On average, 23% of users have access to mobile applications such as

messenger, collaborative applications or reports.

Just 7% of users make a proper use of Business Analytics Applications,

CRM, business management tools, HCM and other corporative systems.

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Companies using mobile Business Analytics Applications have an extra

7.4% productivity improvement than companies don’t using them.

In addition to these figures about Mobile Intelligence, Gartner, the information

technology research and advisory firm, sees Mobile Business Analytics as a future trend. By 2014, 33% of business intelligence will be through mobile devices. Initially, this will consist of porting existing reports and dashboards to

the mobile, but because of the reach of mobile devices, by next year vendors will have developed mobile BI applications for specific tasks or domains.

Mobile BI will enter the mainstream. As a result, organizations should be developing their mobile apps with the help of market and product management departments to create customer–facing mobile BI.

According to Boris Evelson, a Forrester Research Analyst, Business

Intelligence decisions are moving from the boardroom to the front lines. Business Analytics tools will be accessible and available to a wider and more diverse work force.”

About LITEBI:

LITEBI is an agile, powerful and affordable business intelligence solution.

LITEBI is leading the new Business Intelligence generation with its Cloud Computing platform. It offers advanced analytics, reports, data integration, alerts and comprehensive dashboards for companies from any industry and any size through its SaaS Model.