ON DEMAND Expo offers look at monetizing business intelligence with mobile
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| Jorge Garcia |
May 22, 2012 - Questex Media’s ON DEMAND Expo looks at all manner of digital content across four main tracks: content creation, delivery, marketing technology and the business of social media. The event takes place June 13 to June 14 at the Javits Center in New York.
One of the sessions, “BI Hits the Road: The Mobile Incursion in the BI Space” will focus on how mobile platforms offer new opportunity in business intelligence — and could change the way data and content are actually distributed. The session speaker, Jorge Garcia, BI analyst with Technology Evaluation Centers, gave ABM a preview of the topic and spoke about how tablets and smartphones are changing the way organizations work with information and make decisions.
ABM: How has mobile influenced the distribution and consumption of business intelligence content?
Jorge Garcia: Mobile was not a fast adoption in BI. It took a little time before the BI space saw the use of mobile as standard, which enabled BI providers to mature the technology and take the best of it. Two things are important in BI: ease of use and delivery—you now need to be able to use specific apps anywhere. Traditionally, BI is a discipline used by decision-makers. Mobile BI makes it possible to glean information no matter where they are.
ABM: Are there specific mobile platforms standing out with BI?
Garcia: From a technology perspective, there are still a very large amount of client-based applications. Those tend to have more flexibility of use and sometimes more reliability. On the other hand, there is a growing trend of web-based applications, especially with HTML 5, which has very robust functionality and can adapt to different mobile devices. The good part of HTML 5 is that all information resides on a server which reinforces security and it doesn’t matter what type of device you’re using. I’m not clear how the trend will go — some think it will be HTML 5 and everything will become web-based. I’m not so sure. I think it’s going to be a mix of web and client-based technologies.
ABM: What does this mean for monetizing business intelligence with mobile products?
Garcia: First of all, it’s the possibility to consumerize analytics — you can embed analytics within any type of content. This will be a very good thing. Offering not just content but also the ability to interact with that content and interact with the data in that content will dramatically change how companies distribute and monetize content. The growing trend is in charging for how you use content. Utility companies are giving people more tools to analyze their own consumption. People are getting used to analyzing. It’s about bringing more intelligence to the masses.
ABM: Is there an example you can share of offering business intelligence with interactive content?
Garcia: There is a company called MeLLmo that has an interesting product called Roambi Analytics that lets you distribute content and embed analytics within it. I think that opens the door to new ways of distributing content over the Internet and over mobile devices.
ABM: ABM’s members include business-to-business media and business information providers. While many offer advertising-supported apps and digital replicas of magazine editions, others are creating function-driven apps (retrieving pricing info relevant to their markets, etc.) What’s biggest opportunity for them in mobile? What should they be doing right now to prepare?
Garcia: The best way to go is to get documents and embed interactive content. Information in real-time is key to a BI system reinforced in mobile. Being able to send alerts with new content, new analysis features and letting people know right at the point of what’s going on. Sending not just a message alert but an alert with more interactive content will be a huge improvement.
By Matt Kinsman