BI-Research : Factors influencing the FIT between BI End-user and BI-Solution

Posted on August 12, 2008 by hessel
Filed Under Editorial, Various |

Do you know your BI End-user(s)? Are you wondering why your BI-applications are barely used? Do you think technology is enough? Do you want to want to get maximum benefit from your BI investment(s)? During the next six months a scientific research project is conducted at Capgemini by a graduate student of Utrecht University, the Netherlands to get an answer to these questions. The (main) goal of this research is to obtain insight into the factors influencing the fit between Business Intelligence Solution and End-user.

Nowadays BI-solutions are implemented on a large scale and BI is becoming an organization wide commodity in all organizational levels. In most BI- processes, the goal is to make sure intelligence is available on the right place, for the right people. BI-solutions are usually technology driven with the focus on IT, which means getting the knowledge/ intelligence/ information and supporting applications (e.g. report and query tools, dashboards, statistical analysis tools etc.) available for the decision maker.

Looking from the end-users perspective, end-users simply want a better way to solve data-related business problems. They want to be able to get some degree of self-sufficiency in many cases. Others just want to have the results dropped in their mailbox and continue their regular work. The end-user’s perception of the benefits received from BI is dependent on the degree of productivity increase or the amount of positive results that they receive. If a BI solution helps them look better, lets them do their job better, they will be more likely to use it. (Turban, Aronson, Liang, & Sharda, 2007) Implementation from a technological perspective does not assure the adoption and usage of end-users. Low end-user adoption constrains the organizational goal to gain maximum benefit from its IT investment.

While BI-software enables organization-wide decision support, problems are encountered in the fit between systems’ provision and changing requirements of a growing amount of (end) users. Main reason for a missing “fit” is that when implementing BI-solutions in practice, end-users are usually considered (if even considered) to be equal in their adoption and usage of the system.(Biere, 2003) However this is not always the case. If end-users get provided with a BI-solution that does not fit, they will probably not use it, or use it in the wrong manner, or even become negative about the benefits of BI-solutions. Obviously this does not contribute to a positive result of the BI-adoption in organizations. As stated above the main goal of this research is to obtain insight into the factors influencing the fit between Business Intelligence Solution and End-user. Derived from the research goal(s), the following main question is formulated:

Main research question: “What are the major factors influencing the fit between end-users and Business Intelligence Solutions?”

Results will be posted reguraly at: http://www.intelligent-business.nl.

Call for experts / Respondents: Are you interested in this research project? To validate the research project several semi-structured interviews will be conducted with BI-Practitioners. (In English or Dutch) Details will be announced soon! If you want to coorporate or have other questions / remarks, please send an e-mail to rick.tijsen@capgemini.com or leave a comment in this post.

References
Biere, M. (2003). Business Intelligence for the Enterprise. In: IBM Press.
Pijpers, G., Bemelmans, T., Heemstra, F., & Montfort, K. v. (2001). Senior executives ‘ use of information technology. Journal of Information and Software Technology, 43, 959-971.
Turban, E., Aronson, J. E., Liang, T. P., & Sharda, R. (2007). Decision Support and Business Intelligence Systems. New Jersey: Pearson Education International.

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