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In a recent PWC and Business Higher Education Forum (BHEF) survey, 59% of employers responding said data science and analytics skills would be required of all finance and accounting managers by 2020; 51% said these skills would be required by all marketing and sales managers; 49% said they would be required of all executive leaders; and 48% said they would be required of all operations managers.
Yet, according to a recent survey by Gartner, BI and analytics adoption currently stands at only 32% of employees in an organization. Gartner Research VP Cindi Howson notes in a recent blog, however, that there are numerous data driven companies where adoption stands at 50% to 100%, and this is due to employees being empowered with data where, when, and how they need it.
Empowering More Employees with Mobile BI
This is where mobile apps play a huge part. In a recent survey of data analytics users conducted by Clutch, 70% of respondents say they consider a mobile application crucial to their use of BI software. For those organizations just starting to make analytics more accessible to more employees via mobile, how do you get off to the best start?
Gartner suggests that every good B2E app begins with a “product” rather than a “project” approach. As a project, one team builds the app, calls it done on their side, and then hands it off to another team to support thereafter. But Gartner recommends organizations look at mobile apps in an entirely different light – approaching them as products where development, improvement, and promotion is a continual group effort.
The 4 Ps of a Product Management Mindset
In the research note, Treat Mobile Apps as Products, Rather Than Projects, to Maximize Their Value, analysts Marty Resnick and Adrian Leow detail Gartner’s 4Ps framework which includes:
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- Product
- Price
- Placement
- Promotion
Many apps suffer from low or no adoption because in a B2E setting, the fourth P is not given proper attention. But, the only way to ensure mass adoption and continuous use is promotion – and that’s where the product vs. project mindset shines the brightest. It’s not just the IT side of the house that should own the app and its success, but the entire organization.
Another key is understanding mobile app usage. What screens are people going or not going to? What functions are they accessing? How’s the app performing? Just like a B2C app, organizations must think of their employees as customers and focus on how to increase engagement and satisfaction in order to maximize value and, ultimately, adoption.
Gartner predicts that by 2022, 80% of enterprises successfully building, deploying, and maintaining mobile apps will have adopted product management principles to manage the mobile application life cycles of their portfolios. Use their 4P framework to make your organization part of that 80%.
(This post was originally published on MicroStrategy.com.)
