Description
Dimensions Influencing Business Intelligence Usage in Thailand SMEs
Dimensions Influencing Business Intelligence Usage in Thailand SMEs
Chanootporn Srichai, Nithinant Thammakoranonta
School of Applied Statistics
National Institute of Development Administration
Bangkok, Thailand
[email protected], [email protected]
Abstract—Today, many companies are interested to being
Business Intelligence (BI) to use. There are many factors that
influent BI usage. This research studied BI environments and
how they affect companies’ BI usage. Information Evolution
Model (IEM) is used to explain BI environments and also to
state the level of companies’ BI maturity. Information
Evolution Model considers BI environment in 4 dimensions,
which are Human capital, Knowledge process, Infrastructure
and Culture. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is used to
explain BI usage. This study focused on Thailand SMEs.
Keywords-Business Intelligence, Decision Support Systems,
Culture, Human Capital, Knowledge Process, Infrastructure
I. INTRODUCTION
Computers become an important tool in industry since
mid 1990. Many companies tried to bring IT to support their
business processes [14]. Even though it is expensive to invest
IT, it is worth become IT provides competitive advantages to
companies [16]. IT is now developed rapidly and it is very
efficient. This makes IT products’ price down. IT now
becomes Infrastructure Technology for each company. To
make IT be an important competitive tools, companies must
consider not only hardware and software, but also how to use
data and information [14]. So managers have to focus on
how to get good information. One way to get good
information to support doing business activities is Business
Intelligence [13].
Nowadays many companies are interested in BI as a tool
for analyzing data to be information and knowledge. These
information and knowledge are used to support every
business activities [12, 15]. BI is used in all sizes of
companies because BI can be applied in all job types,
processes and problems [10].
SMEs in Thailand have the largest portion in overall
industry segment about 99.8%. They are very important for
driving Thailand’s economy [2, 9]. It is important to use BI
for supporting business activities, so it can increase
efficiency and productivity of SMEs. This makes significant
economic growth [9].
CIO insight in 2003 found that these are an upward trend
of BI usage. It also found that BI is used in large companies
more than in small companies.[9] Only 2 of 3 companies is
successful in BI usage and many companies were not
satisfied using it [8]. The results of this research were
contrasts with the growth of BI, so it is interesting to study
the factors that influent the BI usage. Also in this study, the
level of BI usage in SMEs was reported.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
SAS in 2006 studied about drives of BI usage and
developed them as Information Evolution Model. The model
describes the way in which organization use information to
advance business and can help top managers to identify and
measure their organization’s current level of BI maturity [7].
The model consists of four critical dimensions:
1) Human capital: The organization’s people and the
quantifiable aspects of their capabilities, recruitment,
training, and assessment.
2) Knowledge process: Policies, best practices,
standards, and governance that define how information is
generated, validated, and used; how it is tied to performance
metrics and reward systems; and how the company supports
its commitment to strategic use of information.
3) Infrastructure: The hardware, software, and
networking tools and technologies that create, manage, store,
disseminate, and apply information.
4) Culture: Organizational and human influences on
information flow—the moral, social, and behavioral norms
of corporate culture (as evidenced by the attitudes, beliefs,
and priorities of its members) related to information as a
long-term strategic asset.
The Model is unique in that it recognizes the complex
relationships among these dimensions, and characteristics in
each dimension have five level of maturity:
1) An operational level, characterized by individual data
“ownership” and control, applied to tackle day-to-day
functional issues.
2) A consolidation level, where individual-level
perspective is replaced by departmental- or functional-level
standards, metrics, and perspective.
3) An integration level, which consolidation into an
enterprise-wide view.
4) An optimization level, in which the organization is
closely aligned with its markets and gains market leadership
by applying predictive insights about customers, suppliers,
and business partners.
5) An innovation level, in which sustainable growth and
most revenue potential is fueled by continuing creativity and
renewal
To evaluate the level of BI, SAS was developed self
assessment instrument. This investment was tested for
32
2011 International Conference on Management and Artificial Intelligence
IPEDR vol.6 (2011) © (2011) IACSIT Press, Bali, Indonesia
validity and reliability. In this study this instrument is
adapted for study the BI status of Thailand SMEs
Figure 1. The Technology Acceptance Model
BI Environment
Figure 2. The research framework
IT usage was depended on technology acceptance [5]. BI
is technology-based application [3]. TAM developed by
Davis is widely used to test technology acceptance [11]. This
instrument was tested for validity and reliability several
times [1]. Figure 1 presents TAM. It represents Perceived
usefulness and Perceive ease of use as antecedents of
technology usage.
From two models discussed above, the research
framework is developed to study the influence of BI
environment on Bi usage as shown in figure 2.
The research hypothesizes are:
H1: BI environment influences perceived usefulness
H2: BI environment influences perceived ease of use
H3: Perceived usefulness influences BI usage
H4: Perceived ease of use influences BI usage
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Instrument Construction
A questionnaire was developed to collect data from
Thailand SMEs. It contained questions about Information
Systems for business operation. This part of questionnaire
was adopted from ”Information Revolution: using the
information evolution model to grow your business“ [7] and
testing 3-likert scale to measure the level of BI usage. It also
contained questions about BI environment in companies that
influent the usage of BI. This part of questionnaire was
adapted from ”Information Revolution: using the
information evolution model to grow your business“ [7].,
where the questions were grouped based on Information
Evolution Model’s dimensions, which are Human capital,
Knowledge process, Infrastructure and Culture. The last part
of questionnaire was adapted form ”A Technology
acceptance model for empirically testing new-user
information systems: theory and results“ [6]. The questions
were in 5-likert scales.
Before collecting the data, a pilot test is conducted. The
result from pilot test confirmed the content validity and
reliability of the instrument.
B. subject
The questionnaires were sent to SMEs listed in office of
Small and Medium Enterprise’s database via emails. 131
filled questionnaires were received. The response rate is
8.5%, which is acceptable [4].
C. Data Analysis
The correlation analysis by using multiple regressions
according to the research framework as follows;
BI usage = Perceived Usefulness + Perceived Ease of
Use
Perceived Usefulness = Human capital+ Knowledge
Process + Infrastructure + Culture
Perceived Ease of Use = Human capital+ Knowledge
Process + Infrastructure + Culture
IV. DEMOGRAPHIC AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Table 1 indicates that most respondents were 21-30 years
old in range with 47.5%, following by 31-40 years old in
range with 33.6%. The respondents were generally well
educated. Most had at least bachelor degree. Most companies
are in service sector. The result indicated that one company
can be in more than one business type. The data in this table
showed that the characteristics of samples are closed to that
of the populations.
Table 2 (A) indicates that most companies have BI at
level 1, even some of them are at level 5. Table 2 (B)
indicates the details of BI maturity in each Information
Evolution Model’s dimensions. For Human Capital
dimension, most companies are at level 1, also as knowledge
process and culture. Only Infrastructure where most
companies are at level 2.
TABLE II. (A)
BI status overview
Maturity frequency percent
Level 1: Operational 54 41.22
Level 2: Consolidation 32 24.43
Level 3: Integration 9 6.87
Level 4: Optimization 26 19.85
Level 5: Innovation 10 7.63
System Usage
Perceived
Ease of
Perceived
Usefulnes
Ease of Use
Antecedent
Usefulness
Anteceden
BI Usage
Perceived
Ease of
Perceived
Usefulnes
Human
Knowledge Process
Infrastructur
Cultur
H1
H2 H4
H3
33
Maturity level (percent)
Dimensions Questions
level
1
level
2
level
3
level
4
level
5
Decision making How to your company's business decision making? 68.7 40.5 22.1 24.4 22.9
Human capital How to the company's staffs work? 51.9 30.5 41.2 22.9 31.3
Knowledge process
Which level of your company's knowledge process? 61.1 43.5 31.3 30.5 13.7
How is your company linking their information? 38.9 36.6 37.4 23.7 22.9
Culture What is your company's culture? 42 33.6 26 32.8 16.8
Infrastructure
Where is most information resides in? 52.7 27.5 21.4 40.5 20.6
How to your company integrates applications or tools in information systems? 38.2 48.1 22.9 25.2 19.8
How to your company accesses information? 45 46.6 37.5 26.7 13.7
Table 2 (C) shows that BI usage in business activities has
average level at 1.98, which means companies use IT or data
collected from IT to support some of their business process
or a part of each business process.
Table 4 (A) indicates that only perceive usefulness can
explain the deviation of BI usage with R
2
= 0.058 which
support H3 but does not support H4 at significant level 0.05.
It implies that users might not know that information systems
used everyday contains BI and they might use BI only when
they have needs. Table 4 (B) indicates that only culture has
an influence on perceive usefulness. However, only 44% of
deviation of perceived usefulness can be explained by culture
which support a part of H1 at significant level 0.05. No BI
environment dimensions influences perceived ease of use.
Table 3 shows that companies realize that the usefulness
of BI at a high level. Also they realize that BI is easy to use
at a high level.
Also the managers have to motivate their employees to
self-improvement.
TABLE IV. (A)
Two multiple regression: BI usage = Usefulness + Ease of use
usage
scale 1-3
Coefficients p
Dimensions Influencing Business Intelligence Usage in Thailand SMEs
Dimensions Influencing Business Intelligence Usage in Thailand SMEs
Chanootporn Srichai, Nithinant Thammakoranonta
School of Applied Statistics
National Institute of Development Administration
Bangkok, Thailand
[email protected], [email protected]
Abstract—Today, many companies are interested to being
Business Intelligence (BI) to use. There are many factors that
influent BI usage. This research studied BI environments and
how they affect companies’ BI usage. Information Evolution
Model (IEM) is used to explain BI environments and also to
state the level of companies’ BI maturity. Information
Evolution Model considers BI environment in 4 dimensions,
which are Human capital, Knowledge process, Infrastructure
and Culture. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is used to
explain BI usage. This study focused on Thailand SMEs.
Keywords-Business Intelligence, Decision Support Systems,
Culture, Human Capital, Knowledge Process, Infrastructure
I. INTRODUCTION
Computers become an important tool in industry since
mid 1990. Many companies tried to bring IT to support their
business processes [14]. Even though it is expensive to invest
IT, it is worth become IT provides competitive advantages to
companies [16]. IT is now developed rapidly and it is very
efficient. This makes IT products’ price down. IT now
becomes Infrastructure Technology for each company. To
make IT be an important competitive tools, companies must
consider not only hardware and software, but also how to use
data and information [14]. So managers have to focus on
how to get good information. One way to get good
information to support doing business activities is Business
Intelligence [13].
Nowadays many companies are interested in BI as a tool
for analyzing data to be information and knowledge. These
information and knowledge are used to support every
business activities [12, 15]. BI is used in all sizes of
companies because BI can be applied in all job types,
processes and problems [10].
SMEs in Thailand have the largest portion in overall
industry segment about 99.8%. They are very important for
driving Thailand’s economy [2, 9]. It is important to use BI
for supporting business activities, so it can increase
efficiency and productivity of SMEs. This makes significant
economic growth [9].
CIO insight in 2003 found that these are an upward trend
of BI usage. It also found that BI is used in large companies
more than in small companies.[9] Only 2 of 3 companies is
successful in BI usage and many companies were not
satisfied using it [8]. The results of this research were
contrasts with the growth of BI, so it is interesting to study
the factors that influent the BI usage. Also in this study, the
level of BI usage in SMEs was reported.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
SAS in 2006 studied about drives of BI usage and
developed them as Information Evolution Model. The model
describes the way in which organization use information to
advance business and can help top managers to identify and
measure their organization’s current level of BI maturity [7].
The model consists of four critical dimensions:
1) Human capital: The organization’s people and the
quantifiable aspects of their capabilities, recruitment,
training, and assessment.
2) Knowledge process: Policies, best practices,
standards, and governance that define how information is
generated, validated, and used; how it is tied to performance
metrics and reward systems; and how the company supports
its commitment to strategic use of information.
3) Infrastructure: The hardware, software, and
networking tools and technologies that create, manage, store,
disseminate, and apply information.
4) Culture: Organizational and human influences on
information flow—the moral, social, and behavioral norms
of corporate culture (as evidenced by the attitudes, beliefs,
and priorities of its members) related to information as a
long-term strategic asset.
The Model is unique in that it recognizes the complex
relationships among these dimensions, and characteristics in
each dimension have five level of maturity:
1) An operational level, characterized by individual data
“ownership” and control, applied to tackle day-to-day
functional issues.
2) A consolidation level, where individual-level
perspective is replaced by departmental- or functional-level
standards, metrics, and perspective.
3) An integration level, which consolidation into an
enterprise-wide view.
4) An optimization level, in which the organization is
closely aligned with its markets and gains market leadership
by applying predictive insights about customers, suppliers,
and business partners.
5) An innovation level, in which sustainable growth and
most revenue potential is fueled by continuing creativity and
renewal
To evaluate the level of BI, SAS was developed self
assessment instrument. This investment was tested for
32
2011 International Conference on Management and Artificial Intelligence
IPEDR vol.6 (2011) © (2011) IACSIT Press, Bali, Indonesia
validity and reliability. In this study this instrument is
adapted for study the BI status of Thailand SMEs
Figure 1. The Technology Acceptance Model
BI Environment
Figure 2. The research framework
IT usage was depended on technology acceptance [5]. BI
is technology-based application [3]. TAM developed by
Davis is widely used to test technology acceptance [11]. This
instrument was tested for validity and reliability several
times [1]. Figure 1 presents TAM. It represents Perceived
usefulness and Perceive ease of use as antecedents of
technology usage.
From two models discussed above, the research
framework is developed to study the influence of BI
environment on Bi usage as shown in figure 2.
The research hypothesizes are:
H1: BI environment influences perceived usefulness
H2: BI environment influences perceived ease of use
H3: Perceived usefulness influences BI usage
H4: Perceived ease of use influences BI usage
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Instrument Construction
A questionnaire was developed to collect data from
Thailand SMEs. It contained questions about Information
Systems for business operation. This part of questionnaire
was adopted from ”Information Revolution: using the
information evolution model to grow your business“ [7] and
testing 3-likert scale to measure the level of BI usage. It also
contained questions about BI environment in companies that
influent the usage of BI. This part of questionnaire was
adapted from ”Information Revolution: using the
information evolution model to grow your business“ [7].,
where the questions were grouped based on Information
Evolution Model’s dimensions, which are Human capital,
Knowledge process, Infrastructure and Culture. The last part
of questionnaire was adapted form ”A Technology
acceptance model for empirically testing new-user
information systems: theory and results“ [6]. The questions
were in 5-likert scales.
Before collecting the data, a pilot test is conducted. The
result from pilot test confirmed the content validity and
reliability of the instrument.
B. subject
The questionnaires were sent to SMEs listed in office of
Small and Medium Enterprise’s database via emails. 131
filled questionnaires were received. The response rate is
8.5%, which is acceptable [4].
C. Data Analysis
The correlation analysis by using multiple regressions
according to the research framework as follows;
BI usage = Perceived Usefulness + Perceived Ease of
Use
Perceived Usefulness = Human capital+ Knowledge
Process + Infrastructure + Culture
Perceived Ease of Use = Human capital+ Knowledge
Process + Infrastructure + Culture
IV. DEMOGRAPHIC AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Table 1 indicates that most respondents were 21-30 years
old in range with 47.5%, following by 31-40 years old in
range with 33.6%. The respondents were generally well
educated. Most had at least bachelor degree. Most companies
are in service sector. The result indicated that one company
can be in more than one business type. The data in this table
showed that the characteristics of samples are closed to that
of the populations.
Table 2 (A) indicates that most companies have BI at
level 1, even some of them are at level 5. Table 2 (B)
indicates the details of BI maturity in each Information
Evolution Model’s dimensions. For Human Capital
dimension, most companies are at level 1, also as knowledge
process and culture. Only Infrastructure where most
companies are at level 2.
TABLE II. (A)
BI status overview
Maturity frequency percent
Level 1: Operational 54 41.22
Level 2: Consolidation 32 24.43
Level 3: Integration 9 6.87
Level 4: Optimization 26 19.85
Level 5: Innovation 10 7.63
System Usage
Perceived
Ease of
Perceived
Usefulnes
Ease of Use
Antecedent
Usefulness
Anteceden
BI Usage
Perceived
Ease of
Perceived
Usefulnes
Human
Knowledge Process
Infrastructur
Cultur
H1
H2 H4
H3
33
Maturity level (percent)
Dimensions Questions
level
1
level
2
level
3
level
4
level
5
Decision making How to your company's business decision making? 68.7 40.5 22.1 24.4 22.9
Human capital How to the company's staffs work? 51.9 30.5 41.2 22.9 31.3
Knowledge process
Which level of your company's knowledge process? 61.1 43.5 31.3 30.5 13.7
How is your company linking their information? 38.9 36.6 37.4 23.7 22.9
Culture What is your company's culture? 42 33.6 26 32.8 16.8
Infrastructure
Where is most information resides in? 52.7 27.5 21.4 40.5 20.6
How to your company integrates applications or tools in information systems? 38.2 48.1 22.9 25.2 19.8
How to your company accesses information? 45 46.6 37.5 26.7 13.7
Table 2 (C) shows that BI usage in business activities has
average level at 1.98, which means companies use IT or data
collected from IT to support some of their business process
or a part of each business process.
Table 4 (A) indicates that only perceive usefulness can
explain the deviation of BI usage with R
2
= 0.058 which
support H3 but does not support H4 at significant level 0.05.
It implies that users might not know that information systems
used everyday contains BI and they might use BI only when
they have needs. Table 4 (B) indicates that only culture has
an influence on perceive usefulness. However, only 44% of
deviation of perceived usefulness can be explained by culture
which support a part of H1 at significant level 0.05. No BI
environment dimensions influences perceived ease of use.
Table 3 shows that companies realize that the usefulness
of BI at a high level. Also they realize that BI is easy to use
at a high level.
Also the managers have to motivate their employees to
self-improvement.
TABLE IV. (A)
Two multiple regression: BI usage = Usefulness + Ease of use
usage
scale 1-3
Coefficients p