From imaging to content to the cloud to Big Data to Business Intelligence to Mobile Business Intelligence.
May 2012-
We're moving from marks on paper to the clouds, all the data is moving off the paper files.
But the data is just data, unusable.
In the old days, we would 'crunch' the numbers either manually or on a spreadsheet.
Today, there is an app for that; instead of the numbers getting crunched on paper, it's being presented on a screen.
Typewriters and impact printers - are gone. Carbon paper, white-out - gone.
Add cubicles, office furniture, water coolers, uniform rental programs, IT departments, factory floors, inventory shelving, hi-los, truck docks, and pallets to that list.
Then take away the roads, parking lots, air conditioning units, and tons of paper.
And all those useless meetings. Gone like a freight train. Gone.
How so?
The answer is in the palm of your eleven-year-olds hand...
What is mobile business intelligence?
Here's the short version:
Mobile business intelligence is a set of tools that allows data from multiple databases to be connected, sliced and diced, and presented on your PADD, iPad, Android, or iPhone.
The data is live, sync'd, and in the cloud.
Your information is represented in pretty, colorful dots, bars, and graphs on a single pane.
For a decade the "remote" or "mobile" workforce has referred to the corporate sales team.
Executive management was still chained to the machine: Mainframe, Mini, Micro, PC, Laptop, or Notebook.
The C-levels were tied to devices because that's how they kept in touch with corporate data (JD Edwards, SAP, etc); converting that data to information and the information into intelligence. Business intelligence is why they got paid the big bucks and the corner office with all the trappings.
Enter MBI.
Today, not only can the executives open and send emails, read magazines, and check spreadsheets they can look at live inventory levels, orders entered, web traffic, and conversions - from any spot on the planet, even at 37,000 feet.
Without teams of number-crunchers, accountants, middle managers, or MBAs.
But wait, there is so much more.
Big data. "Big" like we in the soon-to-be-defunct imagining industry have never seen.
Big as in every single page that has been generated from every single device ever sold. Big as in every single book, magazine, newspaper, blog, website, status, invoice, check, financial report, inventory sheet, delivery receipt, and email ever generated - BI taps into that and mobile BI lets me do it from the beach.
In Bali.
Don't think this only affects the imagining/copying/printing function - no, this reflects the changes in everything.
Because the growth of Big Data is not going to rely on humans entering the data - machines will talk to machines on the intake side of the process and machines will talk to machines during the data-crunch stages - ultimately presenting an intelligent and relevant representation to a person.
The human. Yes, we're still part of the process, we've just shifted the 'grunt' work to the machines in the cloud, while we toil away on the beach.
I love that I can do work from anywhere. And the easier it is to work with the easier it is to do my job no matter what happens or where I am. It connects me with employees that may be halfway around the world and keeps me in the loop in the real-time. The downside of course is that even at the beach work can still reach me!
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