Business Intelligence

CIOs have ranked Business Intelligence among the top 3 most important applications since 2003. In 2012, it was ranked the number one most important application (Luftman and Derkson 2012).

"Business Intelligence combines technologies--such as customer relationship management, data warehousing and mining, and knowledge management --to help organizations leverage their information to make better and faster decisions. As an example, one large European telecommunications company analyzes data from its 5.7 million customers. Key applications, which monitor network utilization and sales force performance, analyze over six terabytes of data. Management is able to drill down in the data to find specific information about new customers, successful sales channels, or popular products, and receive that information in easy-to-read, one page reports. This business intelligence helps management better access performance and improve operational efficiencies." (Luftman & McLean, 2004)

Business intelligence entails significant technical extracts from existing systems and combining and loading clean data into a business intelligence system that focuses on data analysis for strategic decision making. This is the essence of business intelligence.

The group may begin by briefly explaining the Business Intelligence concept, presenting statistics on the dollars spent on business intelligence, the promised benefits of business intelligence, and major challenges. Your group should show how BI entails significant technical extracts from existing systems and combining and loading clean data into a business intelligence system that focuses on data analysis for strategic decision making. For example, the following picture shows a conceptual picture of BI:

Source: http://www.piiglobal.com/images/logo_bi.jpg viewed on Dec 19, 2006

Your presentation should proceed with two or three case studies of organizations' business intelligence. (Preferably original case studies but secondary case studies are available)

Case studies should include the Company Background:

• Size of company in terms of sales and profits
• Major products the company sells
• General characteristics of their customers
• Organizational chart--who does the CIO report to?
• How many people work for the IT organization?
• What is the annual IT budget?

The business intelligence aspect of the case study should include:

• Picture and good description of the organization's Business Intelligence
• Who is responsible for Business Intelligence
• Specific example of how Business Intelligence is used
• What are the perceived benefits and limitations of the Business Intelligence as described by IT managers/business managers
• What plans does the organization have for the future of the Business Intelligence
• Lessons learned by the company

Other potential ideas for the presentation:

• A brief overview or demonstration of Business Intelligence software (10 minutes or less)
• Major BI suppliers (products, services, revenues, profits)

The group should end the presentation on best practices for creating effective Business Intelligence systems, then map how your cases fit into best practices. This is essentially a cross-case comparison that integrates your primary (case studies) and secondary (journal articles & books) research.

If you have other creative ideas, please feel free to discuss them with me.

This is a good overview of BI:

Watson, H., and Wixom, B. (2007), “The Current State of Business Intelligence,” IEEE Computer, pp. 96-99.

I like the article because it explains that the two primary activities of BI are “getting data in” and “getting data out”:

Some helpful cases:

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES: Anderson-Lehman, R., Watson, H., Wixom, B., and Hoffer, J. (2004) “Continental Airlines Flies High with Real-Time Business Intelligence,” MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 3, 4, pp. 163-176. Updated in:

Wixom, B.,Watson, H., Reynolds, A.M., Hoffer, J. (2008) “Continental Airlines Continues to Soar with Business Intelligence,” Information Systems Management, Vol. 25, pp. 102-112.

CARDINAL HEALTH: Case, T., Schwartzkoph, A., Shaft, T., and Zmud, R., (2005) “Advanced Business Intelligence at Cardinal Health,” MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, 4, pp. 413-424).

Some interesting articles in Scholarly Journals:

Davenport, T., Snabe, J.H. (2011), “How Fast and Flexible Do You Want Your Data, Really?,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 52, 3, pg. 57.

Hopkins,M., LaValle, S., Balboni, F., Shockley, R., and Kruschwitz, N (2010), “10 Insights: What Survey Reveals about Competing on Information & 10 Data Points: Information and Analytics at Work,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 52, 1; p. 22.

LaValle, S., Lesser, E., Shockley, R., Hopkins, M., and Kruschwitz, N. (2011), “Big Data, Analytics and the Path From Insights to Value,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 52, 2; p. 21.

Williams, S. (2011), “5 Barriers to BI Success and how to overcome them,” Strategic Finance, Vol. 93, 1, pp. p. 27-35.

Wixon, B., Watson, H., and Werner, T. (2011), “Developing an Enterprise Business Intelligence Capability: The Norfolk Southern Journey,” MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol.