Keeping the faith in Mobile BI: Channeling Bieber and The Matrix’s Morpheus

Are you a believer? And no, I’m not asking if you’re a Belieber – someone who, according to urbandictionary.com, loves teen mega-nuisance Justin Bieber and ‘beliebes’ in his (questionable) ability.


Photo: Bieber’s dismal attempt to channel MJ in the hope of stumbling upon some talent.

What I mean is, are you a believer in the power of Mobile Business Intelligence (BI)? Of course many of you will be Mobile BI converts, and whilst there’s no point preaching to the choir, many skeptics still question its ability to deliver faster facts to decision-makers, boost user adoption rates and produce strong Return on Investment.

Preaching the importance of Mobile BI

Professional networking and research group, Business Intelligence Tool Box, is spreading the good word; proclaiming the higher power of mobile reporting and analytics in their BI Tool Survey 2012.

The study revealed survey respondents are Keeping The Faith – Edward Norton and Ben Stiller style – with 77 percent believing that BI will become completely mobile within the next few years.

These sentiments echo the views espoused by author of the industry-leading Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study, former Gartner Research Fellow, and President and Founder of Dresner Advisory Services, Howard Dresner.

Dresner has stated that the rapidly growing uptake and interest in Mobile BI would mean that in the future, it wouldn’t merely represent a growing facet of BI, but would become the main form of delivery for business analytics and the focal point of the entire industry: “Moving forward I expect to see a rising tide across all segments, all classes of user, and all verticals. I do believe that [Mobile BI] becomes fundamentally the new platform for Business Intelligence.”

Global research firm, Forrester, has published predictions of equally biblical proportions, stating that 73 percent of the global workforce will be made up of enterprise mobile workers by 2013. The need to act on Mobile BI is further underlined by IBM’s The 2011 IBM Tech Trends Report, which suggests that 85 percent of people will receive critical business information via enterprise mobile applications within the next 18 months.

Mobile BI: Take the red pill

So to quote Morpheus from Larry and Andy Wachowski’s indelible sci-fi thriller The Matrix, “this is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill [refuse to believe in the promise and inevitable importance of Mobile BI], the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill [accept and actively pursue the benefits of mobile analytics], you stay in Wonderland [ironically aka; the real world] and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more… Follow me.”

Yellowfin: Making Mobile Business Intelligence easy – for those who live in the real world.