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November 30, 2009
New Whitepaper on Mobility Business Intelligence
Our Knowledge team have produced a great new paper on Business Intelligence on Mobile devices.
Download Here
http://yellowfin.com.au/Document.i4?DocumentId=99556
Extract
With the advent of the mobile phone a fundamental shift occurred in telecommunications. You no
longer called a place but you called a person. The internet provides an even greater degree of
interconnectivity, and it is these changes which are having a profound impact on businesses and the
way in which they manage their people mobile or otherwise and the access that they provide to their
data assets. This white paper addresses these changes and discusses the impact it is having on
business information delivery.
The convergence of Business Intelligence and mobility, resulting in the capability to deliver data
anytime anywhere, has been well underway for some time. Professionals are fast becoming
comfortable with the use of smart phones not only for communication purposes but also as a means
of keeping up to date on business information. The result of this is that your company’s work force
will soon see mobility as the norm rather than a specialised set of applications when they happen to
be on the road. The dispersed work force and the end of the commuting to a cubicle era will soon be
upon us, and you should build out the IT plan to accommodate mobility as the rule rather than the
exception.
This paper looks at who the audience for mobile BI applications is. Senior management and
executives, key sales people and field service personnel. What are the key influencers driving the
need for mobile BI, and the benefits that are in store for an organization that embraces mobile
analytics.
Beyond that, this paper analyses the requirements, both technical and organisational that are required
to ensure a successful rollout of a mobile BI platform. One that will have a direct impact on improving
an organisaton’s bottom line, by increasing its competitive advantage, its employee productivity and
the level of customer satisfaction.
Posted by Justin Hewitt at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
Yellowfin launches its Business Intelligence application for the iPhone
Leading Business intelligence (BI) firm, Yellowfin, today announced the immediate availability of its BI application specifically designed for the iPhone - Yellowfin for the iPhone.
Unlike the majority of BI applications for the iPhone, which simply use the browser as a delivery mechanism, Yellowfin for the iPhone is a native application, which makes full use of the iPhone’s functionality to deliver Yellowfin’s renowned industry leading, easy to use, analytic capabilities.
“What’s different about Yellowfin on the iPhone compared to other BI apps is that we understand the Business intelligence needs of a Mobile worker are different from that of an analyst sitting at their PC.” says Yellowfin CEO, Glen Rabie, “They are not using their phone with its tiny screen to do advanced analytics, rather they want instant access to data without the fuss. This is why we completely redesigned the user interface and navigation to meet the needs of the Mobile worker.”
The benefits of Mobile BI to an organisation with a large field team are enormous, the major benefits are:
* Improved Customer Service – Saving customer’s time, by enabling mobile workers to make decisions based on the right information, right now.
* Increased Productivity - Speed-up the decision making process, by extending critical information out to decision-makers in the field.
* Increased Competitive Advantage - Be a more responsive and flexible organization, by adapting having access to data that keeps the mobile worker ahead of the competition.
“As business people begin to use mobile phones and laptops almost interchangeably, and as those phones become capable of displaying rich Web content, mobile workers are seeking more extensive access to corporate data”, says Glen Rabie. “Yellowfin for iPhone connects you to the information you need - wherever you are, whenever you need it. You can view, analyse, interact with, and share information - then make important decisions on-the-go.”
The Yellowfin application for the iPhone addresses the concerns and requirements for a Mobile Business intelligence solution.
Fast – no rework. Users reuse existing report content, simply logging into their existing Yellowfin account. With Yellowfin you do not have to re-create content for the mobile platform or repackage it for mobile distribution. This allows customers to gain the benefits of Mobile BI immediately.
Secure – reuse of all of the Yellowfin security infrastructure means that security is assured. No data is stored on the phone so the loss of the phone does not enable unauthorized access to your data.
Easy to use – intuitive navigation and quick access to favourite’s means that users need no extra training to use the application.
Yellowfin has been offering integrated reporting and analysis software to organisations and its OEM software partners worldwide. "Many of our customers have thousands of people both inside and outside of their organisations that rely on Yellowfin reports and dashboards to provide timely business information," said Rabie. "We are delighted to offer interactive reporting and analytics on the iPhone to help enhance the productivity of our mobile BI users."
Yellowfin recently launched version 4.1 of its BI Suite and a generic mobile interface that provides full- featured delivery of both dashboards and reports to a mobile workforce. The iPhone module released today is available for free from iTunes.
About Yellowfin
Yellowfin is passionate about making Business Intelligence easy. Recently recognised among 25 rising companies that CIO’s must know about, Yellowfin is a leading web-based BI solution that can be easily integrated into any third-party application or delivered as a stand-alone enterprise platform. Yellowfin is an innovative and flexible solution for reporting and analytics, providing a full range of data access, presentation and information delivery capabilities.
Posted by Justin Hewitt at 4:45 AM | Comments (0)
Watch the Yellowfin iPhone Demo Video
Click on the following link to watch the demo video showcasing Yellowfin on the iPhone
http://yellowfin.bi/YFSite.i4?currentPage=24436
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Posted by Justin Hewitt at 4:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2009
Yellowfin Demo on YouTube
Yellowfin Demo on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSDvmD3xeUg
Posted by Justin Hewitt at 3:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2009
Yellowfin dives into Partnership with Techwave in the Philippines
Philippines, November 13, 2009 – leading Business intelligence (BI) firm, Yellowfin, today announced details of its exclusive distribution partnership with Techwave. The new alliance will see Techwave offer the Australian-developed BI solution to corporate and government clients as well as develop a larger reseller and partner community within the Philippines.
Yellowfin is a global business intelligence (BI) software development company that offers a flexible 100 per cent Web-based solution for reporting and analytics, providing a full range of data access, presentation and information delivery capabilities.
Yellowfin helps organisations to see and understand their data better than ever. CEO, Glen Rabie is currently in the Philippines to launch the partnership with Techwave at a special client event and said “we are very delighted to be announcing this partnership and look forward to working with Techwave to develop a successful business here in the Philippines.”
“Techwave, as our partner are a great fit in terms of both their technology skills and their complementary relationships such as with Redhat and Sybase that sit very well with the Yellowfin platform,.” said Rabie.
Techwave Managing Director, Michelle Hallare, said “the partnership with Yellowfin significantly makes it easier for enterprises, especially the SME market to implement a Business Intelligence solution that is less risky due to Yellowfin’s ease of use and low price points.”
About Yellowfin
Yellowfin is passionate about making Business Intelligence easy. Recently recognised among 25 rising companies that CIO’s must know about, Yellowfin is a leading web-based BI solution can be easily integrated into any third-party application or delivered as a stand-alone enterprise platform. Yellowfin is an innovative and flexible solution for reporting and analytics, providing a full range of data access, presentation and information delivery capabilities. www.yellowfin.bi
About Techwave
Techwave was established in 2004 and has an outstanding team that specializes in networking, data communication and reporting. Since its inception, Techwave has established itself as a trusted provider and partner of numerous companies here and abroad. To date, it is the exclusive distributor of Yellowfin Technologies in the Philippines, one of Red Hat’s Advanced Business Partners, a reseller of Portwise and a successful distributor of the Secure Computing Line of McAfee. With Techwave’s expertise and Yellowfin, Red Hat, Portwise and McAfee’s line of products, we can provide businesses large and small with award winning products that will help secure, analyze and report their important information.
http://www.techwave.com.ph
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Posted by Justin Hewitt at 6:30 AM | Comments (0)
November 7, 2009
Yellowfin Business Intelligence discuss “Too much ink” and poor dashboard design
In a recent article in Computerworld, Monash University lecturer, Peter O’Donnell gave his opinion that; BI solutions are too sexy, contributing to low utilisation rates.
Peter argues, "A lot of the tools are very sexy. You can do 3D pie charts and donut charts; in theoretical terms it is known as the data to ink ratio. If you have embellishments and 3D effects you are using a lot of ink for only a small amount of data". This he added makes it difficult for your average user to understand the reports generated out of the BI tool.
Some tools offer too many widgets and buttons, over complicating the user experience and therefore end up being hard to use; but in my view, sexy isn’t the problem, says Glen Rabie, CEO of Yellowfin Business Intelligence. If a BI tool is sophisticated and provides the business user with an easy to use interface then what is going to stop high take up rates.
As a world trend, BI utilization rates are actually growing, you see analytics almost everywhere in many different forms; Workers at many levels of the modern organisation use and benefit from data analysis tools. So for those BI vendors that offer “easy to use” tools with some of that sexy functionality, you don't want to confuse implementation with what is often required in the sales process.
The idea that vendors are responsible for the poor implementations of BI projects is not correct. Any enterprise product can be implemented badly or well. Just because a product offers extravagant features does not immediately mean it will be a dead duck. However, vendors are driven to show-off their “bells and whistles” ("extra ink") during the sales cycle to differentiate their product from the competition. Implemented well, these “bells and whistles” can look awesome and really help to sell product.
O’Donnell refers to Edward Tuffe in terms of Ink and quite frankly his comments are not an accurate fit when discussing modern BI tools. Tuffe was talking about too much Ink back in 1975 when the main place people came across charts and data visualisation was in newspapers where artists emphasised the slant of the article through exaggerated graphics.
Having said that, we acknowledge, some of the modern vendor bells and whistles have crossed the line into bloat-ware. A classic example is the bouncing flash chart. It’s painful to wait for the bouncing to stop so you can focus on the value of the data.
It is clear that BI vendors are feeling the pressure to include these embellishments; but what is driving these developments? After all vendors don’t develop product for the fun of it – new releases and upgrades are based upon getting a positive return on investment; In short, increased sales.
If we could somehow stop the demand for things like the rotating 3D pie then all would be good. Unfortunately, I cannot see how that will change in the short term (not that I am a huge fan of even the basic 3D pie anyway!).
The landscape is changing, today’s analytics and the expectation of a clean ‘low ink’ delivery style is becoming more pervasive. A good example is Google Analytics.
At Yellowfin, we often have customers referring to Google Analytic dashboards when describing the type of BI deployment they want. That’s not to say that Google is perfect but some of the things they do is clever and great design. The interesting attitude is that people refer to it as a benchmark.
With the evolution of the web - customers and vendors alike are able to easily research all the BI tools available and are deciding what tools work for them. Like natural selection, the market driven by users and their business problems will over time select for features that work, ignoring features that offer little value.
What is interesting though is there is a growing debate about ‘what is good report design?’ in terms of delivery, I agree with the discussion and I am eager to watch the outcomes of it.
Traditionally BI tools were the domain of IT rather than business users. Very little focus is given to the design of content and the information it is intended to convey. Report and dashboard development is all too often a technical process not a design one.
Now with BI tools such as Yellowfin that have been designed specifically for the business professional; these subject matter experts now have the ability to deliver data and visualise business meaning in ways most effective in communicating to stakeholders.
At Yellowfin, we are going to do our bit, clearly there are some things we do to help sell our application but at the same time we make sure that it does not get in the way of ease of use. People can quickly and easily build reports and data visualisations that they need to help them in their knowledge work. Sometimes there is a place for the bell and whistle - often it’s about the right choice of bell and whistle to draw the user’s attention to what they should be looking for in the data.
www.yellowfinbi.com
Posted by Justin Hewitt at 5:30 AM | Comments (0)
November 4, 2009
Jet Interactive embeds Yellowfin
New Blog from Jet Interactive, showcasing their embedded use of Yellowfin Business Intelligence
http://blog.jetcallanalytics.com/
Jet Call Tracker™ is a comprehensive set of 50 online reports that display a wealth of information about call patterns and the people who call your 13, 1300 and 1800 phone numbers.
Jet Call Tracker is an analytics, or business intelligence (BI) tool that features numerous dashboards and reports that can be accessed online via any browser. The reports are interactive and can be used to dissect every aspect of caller’s behavior such as geographic regions and demographic profiles of the suburb, town or post code they are calling from.
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Posted by Justin Hewitt at 4:30 AM | Comments (0)
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