"As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881), British Prime Minister
We are in a transformational time for Mobility and Mobile Business Intelligence, with lots of innovation happening in both hardware and software. Factors such as declining data plan prices, improved broadband availability, software investment, and widespread access to Smart Phone applications will continue to drive market acceptance as barriers to adoption fall away.
Taking a channel partner view of the market, this chart shows what SMB Channel Partners (50%+ Revenue from SMBs) are hearing from their customers: overall 60% report that customers are asking for Mobile Solutions, including ~80% of ISVs, 54% of VAR/Sis and 47% of Service Providers.
One of the trends in BI overall is a large increase in embedded BI functionality into software applications. This arose through the enterprise-level dashboards and reporting capabilities that SMBs saw with Salesforce.com functionality and quickly become must-have features for serious software applications, especially those delivered as a Service (SaaS). On premise and SaaS versions have been updated through development of new internal code or OEM arrangements and open source code from players like Pentaho and Jaspersoft.
Enabling BI mobility is accomplished by moving existing functionality to a mobile environment, using the new technologies on top of the old, which is more complicated than starting from scratch in many cases. The larger companies such as Oracle, IBM and SAP are approaching this through acquisition of smaller companies and integrating them into existing products. But in a classic build vs. buy fashion, smaller companies offering SaaS BI services have been building new offers from the ground up, directly employing the newest technologies like HTML5, iOS and Android for delivery to Apple devices, smartphones and the burgeoning number of tablets in the market. Smaller providers in many cases have gained a timing advantage; using native technology brings existing mobile functionality to bear on the problem; instead of simple links to server data, the presentation of the information can immediately be rich and interactive using screen manipulation, i.e., pinch and squeeze or geo-location awareness, as part of the data exploration and visualization experience.
Other features of “true” mobility integrated with “true” BI include the ability to interact with data objects on the screen, such as search, filters, check-boxes, drill-down and drill-through to the record level and other interactive functionality. Of course, then being able to use the built-in device communications capabilities is also important once the information has been isolated – SMS, email and forms should be available for manipulation and dissemination of the information.
Many use case scenarios present themselves from the low end retail – such as immediate revenue and profit reporting from the new generation of card swipers into QuickBooks or MS Dynamics and received on a smartphone, to a mid-market electronic component manufacturer checking inventory turns in the Singapore distribution center using SAP Business Objects or IBM Cognos 10 through a Samsung Galaxy Note Tablet.
Among the pure-play SaaS Mobile BI firms to have emerged in the last few years is Exxova, based out of Atlanta, which we chose as our Cloud Vendor Pick of the Week. We chose Exxova because they have a unique value proposition: although they use some of the most powerful back end analytics technology – SAP, Business Objects, Oracle, etc., they have managed to simplify this technology and allow administration of database structure and reporting by literally dragging and dropping fields in a web-based interface, creating new groups and calculations, and having the results delivered immediately through mobile devices running iOS and Android as described earlier. Having separated the reporting layer from the analytical engine allows them to provide deep BI capabilities to end users without the additional cost of licenses for all the back end tools, while at the same time allowing Flash and Flex to be delivered in original format to the Apple environment.
We interviewed their President Mark Hillam, a BI industry veteran and former Business Objects executive for this post. In response to how Exxova reduces complexity for the users and administrators of Mobile BI, Mr. Hillam replied:
“Every report, dashboard, and analytic is rendered with perfect fidelity to the original source. All of this is accomplished without any modification or changes to the Enterprise BI platform or the existing content. Even full report editing is capable from the mobile platforms.”
Exxova offers a strong example of true Mobile BI functionality which is relatively easy to administer and use at a good price point. There are others in the market such as SAP, Microstrategy, Oracle and IBM, who also have strong mobile solutions. For the SMB marketplace there will always be a balance between cost, complexity and functionality to be taken into account before long term commitments are made, Exxova seems to fit this space well. For more information, see it in action below.
Techaisle Blog
Please click through for a quick snapshot of Current Adoption and Purchase Intentions for Marketing Automation within the US Small and Medium Business (SMB) Market:
As mentioned in a previous post on Marketing Automation, the adoption patterns and benefits of these applications and services differ by size of company. In this post we will focus on the applications and functionality currently used and planned for purchase by Mid-Market companies, from 100-999 employees.
What we found in a recent SMB survey of just over 1,200 respondents is that typically, the larger the company the more likely they are to be using Marketing Automation Apps/Functions within their existing software solutions. By the time SMBs reach the 500-999 employee level, certain applications such as outsourced email and campaign management are used in 70%+ of the accounts surveyed, expected to reach 90%+ by this time next year. Other fast growing areas include Personalization, CRM Integration and Web Analytics, all expected to reach a penetration level of at least 80% by 2013 in the upper segments of the SMB market.
Research also shows that adoption has been spurred by the changing characteristics of the market today; there is much less risk involved in adopting SaaS and/or Cloud-based software applications than there used to be - when internal groups were responsible for rolling out complex solutions involving purchase and configuration of hardware, software licenses and provisioning of datacenter services. Ability to take advantage of this Enterprise-level functionality based on a monthly subscription and minimal impact on HR requirements is a no-brainer for most SMBs.
In the coming few weeks, we will provide additional analysis from our latest including Virtualization, Mobility and Managed Services as well as Cloud Computing.
Davis Blair
Techaisle
It is becoming quite well-known that traditional channel relationships, which developed over a thirty period based on PC, LAN, PC Server and Client Server architecture are changing rapidly based on the characteristics of Cloud Computing products and services. And now we have data to prove it based on Techaisle surveys of SMBs.
It is in some ways analogous to how the industries where value could be digitized were essentially transformed by the Internet because the value could move instantly around the globe. On a worldwide network, even a relatively slow one, bits gained an advantage over molecules in advertising, banking, music and entertainment, travel, insurance, and many others.
With Cloud Computing, Remote Managed Services, Virtualization and other emerging cloud-based technology applications such as marketing automation, business intelligence and vertical applications exploding in the SMB marketplace, distribution channels face new challenges; these solutions can be efficiently delivered directly to the SMB customer, can be downloaded from the Internet, can be configured by savvy SMB customers or remotely, can be maintained, updated and upgraded online - in many cases the value can be delivered online. To further stack the deck, vendors who do not need help delivering complex solutions don't really have an incentive to work with a partner; to the contrary, they are able to sell much more efficiently by using the web channel and an inbound sales force. If you doubt it, sign up for a free SaaS trial and if they don't call within two hours, you are the exception.
SMB Channel Preference by Cloud Technology
The survey data shows a cross-tab of SMB decision makers, and shows that for the majority of new cloud-based applications and services Vendor Direct and VAR are the preferred sources of purchase.
At this point it makes sense to discuss the channels and why some are more suited to certain types of employee size businesses than others. We categorize Cloud Services into Infrastructure, Communications, Business Applications and Vertical Market categories. Provisioning of infrastructure services, like adding remote storage and back up services, has been simplified through web based interfaces and is well within the reach of IT staff. Similarly, horizontal SaaS applications can be up and running in minutes and customized by business users in a matter of hours or less - think GoDaddy, Constant Contact, Central Desktop, GotoMeeting, Sherweb - why pay a channel partner to implement these services?
Adding Value to Self Service Applications
Value Added Services become necessary in relation to the level of solution complexity; in business applications like robust CRM and ERP solutions from companies like Salesforce.com and Netsuite. Even if configuration can be accomplished with Internal IT staff, it may be better to let a VAR or specialist do it to save time and money, as with configuring Enterprise Applications like Siebel and SAP. Cloud Data, Network and Application Integration Services are also in high demand and capable Service Providers have no shortage of potential partners.
As discussed in an earlier post, these relatively easy-to-deploy solutions have also given rise to an important new source of advice, recommendations and services - the independent IT consultant - which will be the subject of one of our next posts.
Davis Blair
Techaisle
