Mosaic Readies Data Analytics Mobile App

In April, Mosaic Smart Data announced plans for a mobile phone version of its MSX data analytics platform. The vendor told WatersTechnology that the project had been accelerated to meet the needs of remote workers and would be available as a mobile version by Q3. CEO Matthew Hodgson says the mobile implementation of MSX for clients has been pushed back, probably to Q4.

Hodgson says he has been working on making the product relevant, not only for coronavirus-led remote working, but for a workforce readying itself to go back to the office.

“It’s not a case of saying this is the window of opportunity now; it’s more that there is a strategic and directional shift for everybody,” he says.

Since announcing the product in April, the vendor has been focusing efforts on creating a digital voice assistant feature for the mobile app. This would be similar in principle to Google’s Cortana or Amazon’s Alexa, in that it can anticipate questions posed by the user and can interact in a “human” way.

Hodgson says the aim of the digital assistant feature is to ask questions like “What products has Client X been using in the last month?” or “What should I be talking to this client about?”. The digital assistant should be able to pull up the most relevant research for a client. This could be something like changes in patterns of behaviour or developing problems.

“The generation that is going to lead the future are mobile savvy and believe that pretty much all of their requirements can be met on a mobile device that becomes, essentially, your digital assistant,” he says.

Hodgson recently spoke with a large bank that is not planning to send staff back to the office until next year at the earliest. He says that if employees are now believing that they can work at equal or higher levels of productivity through remote working, then access to information wherever they are is essential.

MSX allows users to process and normalize data and distribute insights to a large audience in real time. In December 2019, it launched MSX 360, which went live earlier this year and lets users serve clients on a priority basis. For example, Hodgson says, a firm that has seen a drop in its business with specific clients can use MSX 360 to gain insights into reasons for the decline, and the steps it can take to improve the situation.

On the back end, the platform works with machine learning to generate suggestions for users. Hodgson says it uses different machine learning technologies, including supervized and unsupervized learning, recommendation systems and deep learning.   

The platform also leverages natural language understanding, the comprehension of human communication through a computer, and natural language generation, the process of turning data into human communication.