A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the SAPPHIRE NOW event in Orlando, FL. There, I refreshed my knowledge—and learned—about products, offerings, and concepts such as SAP Leonardo, SAP HANA, internet of things (IoT), machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and so on.
While attending the different sessions and interacting with dozens of partners and co-workers, I was reminded of the importance of mobilizing data in an actionable and accessible way. As I was walking the show floor, one question kept coming to my mind:
Out of these 25,000+ high-tech enthusiasts, what is the ratio of people carrying laptops versus smartphones?
Of course, the answer was overwhelmingly in favor of smartphones. Smartphones everywhere. All the time. Some of us even carry two smartphones at a time! Laptops? Not so much.
As thousands of meetings and interactions happened during the show, it was clear that
we were all mobile workers who needed access to actionable and relevant data—right there in the palm of our hands. We need access to price lists, the latest inventory, the status of a procurement order, backlogs, financials, and more.
Analytics Strategies for Mobile End Users
As you deploy or plan your analytics strategy, you need to keep in mind that sooner or later, all of your end users are or will be a mobile worker. It’s critical to evaluate your solution and offerings with the following
four principles in mind:
- Design mobile first, with a clear user interface (UX) that is tailored to a small screen.
- Offer access to actionable, real-time data.
- In mobile, less is better. This means, organize your data in small, quick-to-access, reports.
- Remember that a mobile worker is also an office worker, so keep consistency of the data between desktop and mobile access. Mobile analytics is an extension—a very important one—of your overall analytics strategy.
In closing, ask yourself and ask your team:
- Is your analytics strategy and deployment inclusive of mobile workers?
- Are you providing access to data to your users for both office and mobile (on-the-go) consumption?
- Do you follow the principles above? (Your users will thank you for it.)
By the way, if you haven’t been to a SAPPHIRE NOW event yet, I recommend you include this event in your budget for 2018—it’s an incredible experience. It will give you access to the latest products and innovations from both the SAP and the partner ecosystem.
Learn More
Continue the conversation here or on Twitter at
@SAPAnalytics. And learn more about mobile analytics solutions from SAP, including SAP Roambi, by reading the
other series blogs.