How Touch Can Revolutionize the Business Intelligence Industry

Touch screens have revolutionized everything about the way we interact with technology, and with the world around us. While smartphones and tablets like the iPhone and iPad have changed our technology forever, the idea that it’s beneficial to be able to touch and manipulate data and information on the screen in front of us has long been around. The way that we interact with information is changing the way that we gather and sort through data as part of our daily lives, and especially at work. With the right tools, individuals can be manipulating and gathering business intelligence (BI) that change the way companies innovate, connect with existing customers, and reach out to new customers.

The first ever touch screen was invented even before we had personal computers as a regular part of our lives, and certainly before billions of people had smartphones and tablets. In fact, it was more than five decades ago, in 1965, that the first touchscreen technology was ever used. Over the next three decades the technology continued to advance, and it may surprise you to find out that Apple actually released a touchscreen device long before they had the famous iPhone-in 1993 it was the Newton PDA (personal digital assistant).

Today touch technology is one of the most universally used technologies across several devices that we have, including tablets and smartphones, and now spilling over into laptops and desktop computers as well.

Before the world of touch screens evolved to the point it is today, we used to look at data and information in a more static environment-even though you had the ability to use a mouse or other device to click through information, review it, change it, and manipulate it, our interactions with data were pretty one-dimensional.

The world today is filled with information-with more than 3 million emails sent around the world every second, 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, and 50 million tweets sent every day. With all this available information about consumers and their behaviors, companies have a unique opportunity to gather and use information like never before.

The problem with most BI is that sometimes data is just information. It cannot tell us the story behind the numbers, identify specific reasons something happened in the past, and while it can identify trends and project future data based on past data, it cannot really predict the future. Numbers and statistics compiled in a report or on a screen will not tell you why a person did what they did, or what that person will do next. This information only becomes useful when your team can manipulate it, study it, change it, and follow the existing information to logical conclusions about future behavior.

When companies merge the volume of information that they have from data they collect with the intuitive exploration that people want to do with the technology that touch screens offer. The ease with which people can manipulate and change information offers the perfect opportunity to take data and statistics and make it into a useful tool for engaging your intelligence team in predicting the future that your consumers want to see.

Touch screens have revolutionized the way that we do business, and will continue to play a major role in the future of gathering and analyzing data. The right strategy can ensure that your team is able to use this information to get more out of the data than just numbers, and to really use it to change the way you do business.