Can we still separate reporting from mobility?

I have written this article as a reaction to the IBM study of 3,000 CIOs, according to which the three priorities for 2011 are data analysis, mobility and cloud computing. This leads me to ponder on the following question: “Can we still envisage a future IT infrastructure by dissociating these three elements?”Considering the amounts of data that companies have to handle nowadays, which rapidly increase when data analysis is performed at an international level, I think that business intelligence tools will easily find their place within cloud computing. Without mentioning the ecological and economic advantages of this upgrade, the major benefit is the global access to information. As soon as we become aware of the concept, a great number of new ideas automatically emerges.There are many available reporting tools, both proprietary solutions and OpenSource applications, which provide web interfaces allowing for a fast dissemination of information and offering an access from anywhere on the planet where there is an internet connection. The reflection on information retrieval must go beyond the company level and must be considered together with all the assets that Cloud Computing and the different media may bring. Indeed, with the proliferation of PDA-type mobile devices, Business Intelligence takes on a new dimension. Mobile applications allowing to retrieve data from the data warehouse are ready and, if we equip these applications with geolocation functions – which is a standard feature on these terminals – information retrieval becomes a lot more targeted and relevant.These options can be applied in several ways. Let us imagine that a manager who has just arrived in a branch office of his group can immediately obtain, through a simple click on his phone, the data pertaining to the country, the region or even the office where he has been geolocated. The same goes for sales managers who can obtain information on their clients by way of a few clicks, on arriving to their meeting. If we associate this to corporate CRM, you can only imagine all the possibilities offered to these new users of BI 2.0.As they are easy to implement, these technologies can now be used; they are also upgradeable, as cloud computing offers very appealing possibilities in terms of computing power and performance; moreover, they are cutting-edge solutions which benefit from the different modules of mobile devices and IT technologies.Whatever ideas you may have had after reading this article, don’t hesitate to contact me. We will surely find a solution. In fact, you can take a look at our business intelligence and mobility offers on our website www.pentalog.com.