Business intelligence (BI) will eventually drive every business decision, across departments and operational areas, says Hywel Moore, MicroStrategy UK sales engineer.
Moore says, 10 years ago, this was the vision in the world of customer relationship management. "Now, we are moving closer to a point where every decision is driven by BI. This means enterprises will be making the right decisions based on real information, which is available immediately and allows them to take immediate action, rather than waiting six weeks for a report on paper."
Moore says MicroStrategy is helping to realise this vision, with its recent expansion from a focus on its pure BI platform to seven key product areas.
"A key area for us is mobile BI," says Moore. "There has been significant growth in demand for mobile BI tools, particularly with the advent of the tablet PC, which makes data visualisation easier than it is when using a smartphone."
Moore says mobile BI is mostly used by those who travel as part of their jobs, but in the UK, MicroStrategy also notes that many information workers routinely analyse data and update information from their mobile devices while commuting to work.
"Our mobile BI solutions include features specifically driven by customers," he says. "For example, in line with customer demand, the data in use can be cached and accessed offline as well as online. Changed data and queries update as soon as the device is connected again."
Meeting another market need is MicroStrategy's agile business analytics tools, which empower information workers to quickly build applications and analyse their own data, with minimal training needed.
Moore says: "BI is now becoming available to everybody, everywhere. IT has become easy to consume, easy to use, and is now within reach of even small businesses and individual departments. Making it even more accessible, MicroStrategy will launch its cloud-based services in South Africa later this year."
Moore will be one of five BI experts addressing the upcoming MicroStrategy Mobile Commerce Executive Forum, in Johannesburg. The event, to be presented in partnership with ITWeb, will highlight new trends in BI - particularly in the mobile space - and will explore MicroStrategy's expanded product portfolio. This event is free for C-level executives. For more information, click here.
Share