The Most Common Users of Mobile BI
This is the continuation of the transcript of a Webinar hosted by InetSoft on the topic of "How to Implement Business Analytics." The speaker is Abhishek Gupta, Product Manager at InetSoft.
The next question is who are the most common users of mobile BI.
I find it’s very interesting that number one, the early adopter users are executives, and I will tell you that if you can get a dashboard, ideally one with an exploration view to do self-service discovery and exploration into the hands of your executives, you will get the budget and funding to be able to deploy that across your entire organization.
They absolutely rely on it like they do on their smartphones, their email, or their texts. It is something they look at often. And so yes, executives are the early adopters. I also see sales organizations being the early adopters, managing deals, managing accounts, and managing customers. Marketing organizations have been highly interested in managing promotions and adjusting promotions in real-time.
So I see a lot of them. Of course, operations is where we’re seeing the newest use cases, and this is in the plant and in the inventory centers, in the back office areas where the inventory is in the warehouses. Logistics is another area, where they’re providing it to the drivers so the people in logistics are better able to route and deliver goods. We’re seeing it really with store managers. We’re seeing it across the board where the executives and field staff are the early adopters, and we’re seeing a ramp up in operations as well.
The First Users of Mobile BI
The first users not surprisingly were executives. They had the budget, and the ability to deliver a new technology is not surprisingly going to senior executives at that point in time. So definitely they were the earlier adopters, but as a technology is improved and as the ubiquity of mobile devices, smartphones particularly, has increased, you’re seeing it with a lot of the frontline business managers and decision makers.
Store managers in the retail environment are looking to get real-time data on buying habits and trends. Service organizations need that mobile access to data about customers and trends and the equipment that they’re servicing and things of that nature. So it has very much spread outside of just the mahogany row and into the ranks of line of business decision makers as well.
The last question is how does collaboration play into analytics?
It’s just a short answer for me here. Collaborative analytics are really the ability to bring multiple perspectives in on the interpretation and the creation of insight. It is something that few people are doing well, but the potential there is really enormous, when you think about all the different channels and the pathways of getting information. Collaborating on something, whether it’d be through public social or internal social networks or what not presents opportunities. There are major opportunities to understand what’s going on in the business, getting perspectives from people both inside and outside of the company.
We hear from our customers that they really want to be able to collaborate from within the analytics. So we get that, it’s confusing if you have to go outside into other collaboration tools and cut and paste the analytics that you’re looking at, and that is really important because most people are wanting to collaborate to make decisions together. So what we’ve done is integrated collaboration into our analytic tools.
Next Version of Mobile BI
In our next version of our mobile release for analytics we have them integrated. So you can have discussions. We also have the ability for you to do e-mail, so you can e-mail from right within the BI platform and send a link. You and your team can actually collaborate right there and have a place where you can keep kind of that discussion around the analytics instead of it floating away in e-mail land or collaboration land. So that’s how we’re focused on it right now to meet their needs.
The first step in creating a mobile BI dashboard with StyleBI is defining clear business objectives. Mobile dashboards work best when they focus on delivering only the most critical KPIs, such as sales metrics, operational alerts, or customer service insights. By identifying which data points matter most for mobile users, teams can avoid clutter and ensure the dashboard remains functional and easy to navigate on smaller screens. This stage also includes connecting and preparing data sources, which StyleBI simplifies with its mashup and virtualization tools, ensuring that mobile users access clean, accurate, and timely information.
Once objectives and data preparation are complete, attention turns to designing a mobile-friendly layout. StyleBI offers responsive templates and drag-and-drop design features, enabling developers to create dashboards that adapt gracefully to different screen sizes. For mobile, a vertical flow is usually more effective, highlighting single-value KPIs, compact charts, and streamlined filters. At this stage, designers should also ensure visual clarity by applying intuitive color coding, using thresholds for alerts, and keeping touch targets large enough for smooth interaction.
Performance optimization is a critical factor for mobile BI adoption, and StyleBI provides caching and query optimization to keep dashboards fast and reliable. Pre-aggregating data and reducing complex queries helps mobile users access insights without delays. Beyond speed, interactivity also adds value. Carefully chosen filters, drill-down paths, and navigation options let users explore the data in more depth, but these features must be lightweight and intuitive to avoid overwhelming the mobile experience.
Finally, dashboards should be tested across multiple devices and platforms to ensure usability and responsiveness. StyleBI allows previews and adjustments for both iOS and Android environments, ensuring consistency in layout and functionality. After deployment, dashboards can be published in StyleBI’s serverless environment, shared via secure links, or embedded within mobile applications and portals. Continuous feedback gathering and iteration are essential, as they help refine the dashboard over time, improving both end-user satisfaction and long-term adoption of mobile BI within the enterprise.