Description
The aim of this paper is to focus on the application of Business Intelligence systems in the support of decision making process in the international enterprises.
Abstract—The aimof this paper is to focus on the application of
Business Intelligence systems in the support of decision making
process in the international enterprises. It provides brief
characteristics of BI systems, advantages resulting from its
application in the management of international enterprises and review
of foreign research and case studies regarding the subject. It also
provides empirical research concerning the role of BI systems in
supporting decision making process in the international enterprises.
Keywords — Business Intelligence systems, business analytics,
big data, data warehousing, data mining, decision support systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
OWADAYS many international enterprises have
implemented Business Intelligence systems of different
vendors in order to achieve multiple advantages such as
improvement of decision making processes at strategic, tactical
and operational level of management, gaining competitive
advantage on the local and international markets, improvement
of communication efficiency and efficacy among different
branches of particular enterprise and so on. The most
important feature of BI systems in the support of decision
making process is acceleration of this process at all levels of
management. Faster making of decisions means e.g. the
possibility of lowering the cost of enterprise’s functionality. T.
Davenport underlines significance of information which is
indispensable in the decision making and claims that the aim
of BI and other decision support systems is “that better
information would lead to better decisions and better ways of
managing organizational processes” [1] and he further
mentions that “if the goal of better information and better
analysis is ultimately better decisions and actions taken based
on them, organizations must have a strong focus on decisions
and their linkage to information” [1]. R. Skyrius et. al.
underline relationship between Management Decision Support
and Business Intelligence and state that "management decision
making is an information-intensive activity, where the
structuredness of the problem to be solved directly translates
to the complexity of the information tasks to produce a well
Author is with the Faculty of Managemen of Czestochowa University of
Technology, Cz?stochowa, Poland (e-mail: [email protected]).
supported decision"[2].
II. CHARACTERISTIC AND ADVANTAGES OF BI SYSTEMS
APPLICATION IN THE DECISION MAKING SUPPORT
There can be found many definitions of Business
Intelligence. Most often it is perceived as provision of the right
information to the right people at the right time. The author of
the term Business Intelligence is Howard Dresner from
Gartner Group who introduced it in 1989. E. Turban perceives
BI as “a broad category of applications and techniques for
gathering, storing, analyzing and providing access to data to
help enterprise user make better business and strategic
decisions”[3]. S. Rouhani et. al claim that "Business
Intelligence is a managerial concept which refers to a set of
programs and technologies that provide capabilities of
gathering, analyzing and accessing data of organization's
processes (...) BI helps to organizations which having
comprehensive knowledge about business affecting factors,
such as standards in selling, production and internal
organization's processes. (...) The ultimate goal of business
intelligence systems in any organization is to help making
optimal decisions as soon as possible and in all organization's
levels" [4].
The fundamental advantages related to the application of
Business Intelligence systems in the management of
enterprises may concern: "getting in one place reliable and
coherent data and information from all areas of organization's
activity which is connected with aspects of systems integration,
facilitated access to data coming from different dispersed
sources, shortening the time of different analyses, decision
making and increasing efficiency and efficacy of management,
efficient planning, simulations and prognoses in different
angles, instant reaction to appearing market trends, detection
of threats and chances in the area of leading activity, current
analysis of financial situation and tracking budget deviations,
financial optimization of undertaken activities, lowering the
number of persons involved in decision making processes,
influence on income growth, reduction of costs and
improvement of customer's satisfaction" [5]. Business
Intelligence systems allow for efficient data transformation
into valuable information and as its consequence enable
acquisition of knowledge indispensable for making efficient
decision. As a result BI systems constitute a solution allowing
The application of Business Intelligence
systems in the support of decision processes in
the international enterprises
Leszek Ziora
N
Recent Advances in Computer Science
ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 127
organizations for using the potential contained in information
resources and for allowing employees to acquire up to date
knowledge on enterprise condition as well as its market
environment [6]. Business Intelligence systems can also be
useful in creation, modification and improvement of
enterprises' strategy as well as in the management of key
business processes and its optimization with the usage of e.g.
real time BI systems, semantic BI, hybrid systems and big data
solutions.
Business Intelligence may be perceived as a competitor
differentiator. Such systems as it was mentioned can contribute
to achievement of competitive advantage of a company which
have implemented it. E. Turban, R. Sharda, J . Aronson and D.
King put emphasis on e.g. strategic imperative of BI and claim
that BI have significant value to organizations and “in addition
to ROI and other tangible benefits there is increasing evidence
that BI are becoming a strategic imperative” [7, p.22-23]. The
authors underline importance of competitor analysis which
constitute a base for strategic planning. Such solutions can
help to sustain competitive advantage in different industries as
well. It is worth mentioning the success factors of BI system
implementation. E. Turban et al. mention that “the success of
BI depends, in part, on which personnel in the organization
would be the most likely to make use of it and it must be of
benefit to the enterprise as a whole” [7, p.24] C. Olszak and E.
Ziemba draw conclusions on the basis of research on the
sample of small and medium sized enterprises that “"quick
decision-making in enterprise gives a chance to overtake the
competition, and it is possible when the managers have free
access to business information, and it is the result of analysis
of massive amounts of data; such analyses are well performed
by BI systems”. The other conclusions drew by the authors is
that “small and medium enterprises need BI as well as large
enterprises and in order to maintain a competitive advantage it
became a must to implement BI system in the enterprises. To
keep offer of a company competitive they must among others
take decisions quickly [8, p.141]. N. Yogev, A. Even, L. Fink
state that Business Intelligence systems create value for
organizations of different industries. They claim that such
systems “represent the natural evolution of decision support
systems (DSS) and put a strong emphasis on data-driven
decision making, based on the integration of multiple data
resources that reflect different aspects of organizational
activity” [9]. The authors further state that “BI is unique in its
potential to generate both strategic and operational value
through the seamless integration of organizational data to
support decisions at different levels” [9].
As far as architecture and its role in the decision support is
concerned it is worth outlining the exemplary architecture of
such solution. In presented scheme (Fig. 1) the data from all
the transactional systems operated in a company and in case of
international enterprises from its branches as well undergo the
process of ETL - extraction, transformation and load, then data
is directed into corporate data warehouse and as a final part on
the basis of stored data different analyses with the help of data
mining methods and techniques are performed, reports
concerning business activity are created, visualization tools,
managerial dashboards improve communications within the
enterprise. The whole environment is being used to make
decision at strategic, tactical and operational level of
management. At every stage BI systems support the process of
making decision which may be presented as identification of
decision problem, finding alternative solutions and finally
making a choice.
Fig. 1 Example of BI environment for the purpose of decision
making
Source: Author's own study
The decision making process in international enterprises
embraces the headquarter of enterprises and its branches
located in different countries and undergoing different law
regulations. In the international companies BI systems should
take into consideration different organizational structures and
the types of decisions resulting from it. The crucial is the fact
that the organizational structure is the main factor of strategy
creation [10].
The Business Intelligence sector report by Redwood Capital
company states that "over the last few years Business
Intelligence has become the top ranked IT priority among
enterprise business leaders" [10]. The reports announces that
"the global business intelligence market is projected to reach
$20.81 billion in 2018, up from $13.98 billion in 2013,
representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of
8.28%2. Among all regions, North America is the largest,
capturing 49% of the global BI market. It presents the fact that
the BI market is segmented into traditional, mobile, cloud and
social Business Intelligence, based on product architecture and
user interface" [11].
III. REVIEW OF FOREIGN RESEARCH AND CASE STUDIES
On the basis of selected foreign case studies involving the
application of BI it is worth mentioning the solution presented
by Enterprise Iron company and concerning the application of
Recent Advances in Computer Science
ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 128
BI for large international chemical company. The vendor
claims that "for a large chemical company based
internationally, a solution for data warehousing and business
intelligence was needed to standardize across the enterprise. It
was decided that they needed an enterprise solution for these
capabilities to provide the competitive advantage gaining
benefits of effective business intelligence. (...) EI’s Business
Intelligence Solutions practice helped the client write an RFP
and evaluate potential vendors, ultimately selecting SAP
Business Warehouse as the COTS solution. EI’s Data
Warehousing practices helped establish the plans for migrating
data to SAP BW, and were involved in the specification of
solutions to cleanse the data and improve customer data
quality. EI’s Program Management practice provided steering
and program oversight to the project through its
implementation. (...) As a result of engaging EI, the client
consolidated its disparate business intelligence offerings into a
standardized industry leading platform, and was able to
provide business intelligence on a level not previously
possible, exposing insights that promised to enable greater
competitive advantage in their market place, while enabling
them to diagnose and understand their own operations and
customer relationship management for opportunities to
improve and modernize sales and operations"[12].
G. Miller et al. presented the results of the survey conducted
by BetterManagement subscribers who completed a survey
concerning application of BI in their organization. The authors
of state that "the online survey was completed by 220
companies across various industries, sizes, geographic
locations, and job levels and 84% companies have
implemented BI system" [13]. They further claim that "among
those companies that conduct a formal BI needs analysis, three
quarters (73%) perform an ongoing review of BI needs to
ensure that new opportunities or requirements are identified
and added to BI processes. (... )The primary components of a
BI needs analysis are reports (73%) and strategic analytics
(68%). Somewhat less frequently used in the analysis are
compliance/corporate governance issues (46%) and early
warning systems (44%). Fewer than one in three companies
(29%) incorporate legal/ regulatory reporting. The survey also
showed that "BI usage still seems to be restricted to
management level in most companies" [13].
The other research conducted by W. Eckerson and entitled
Business-Driven BI "examines best practices for implementing
self-service BI and the technologies and tools that let users
create their own reports and dashboards and conduct their own
analyses. The survey was taken by 249 people. Survey results
are based on 234 respondents who indicated their positions as
“BI or IT professional,” “BI sponsor or user” or “BI
consultant.” Responses from those who selected “BI vendor”
or “Other” were excluded from the results [14]. (...)
The industry with the highest percentage of respondents was
manufacturing with 13%. Next were consulting with 11%,
retail with 9% and banking, health care and software, all at
8%. Self-Service BI allows users to create own reports and
dashboards so they get the information they want, when they
want it and how they want it displayed. Self-service BI
removes IT professionals as intermediaries between business
users and the data. This gives business users direct access to
the raw material" [14]. (...) "There are two types of self-service
BI, one for report users and another for report authors. The
number one challenge cited by almost three-quarters, or 73%,
of BI professionals is counterintuitive: Self-service BI
“requires more training than expected. Survey respondents
also said self-service BI “creates report chaos” (61%), “makes
it harder to find the right report” (36%) and the “tools confuse
users” (42%). The research showed that there is a correlation
between success with self-service BI and BI adoption rates"
[14]. The author drew the conclusion that "self-service BI can
empower users and increase BI adoption, but it is difficult to
implement properly because there are many types of users with
different information requirements. There is no single tool or
approach to self-service BI that works in all situations" [14].
Another example of BI application in the organizations is an
example of healthcare industry. P. Dindigal presents BI
application in saving people's lives and claims that "time is
perhaps the most important factor when people are stricken
with heart attacks" [15]. He says that "thanks to computer
systems that enable clinicians to analyze treatment procedures
for suspected coronary victims, Florida’s BayCare Hospital
has reduced the time it takes to diagnose and process a heart
patient by 20 minutes [15]". He further states that "reducing
medication errors is another priority for healthcare providers.
In Cincinnati, the Children's Hospital Medical Center cut
medication errors in half by analyzing orders and feeding the
results back to a medication-administration system [15]". "In
Tulsa, OK, the St. J ohn Medical Center recently reduced the
number of transfusions leading to negative reactions by 18
percent. That saves $1.4 million annually, and eliminates the
opportunity for numerous errors" [15]. The author indicates
benefits of BI systems in healthcare such as "faster data
gathering and meaningful analytical report production helps in
decision support and operational management, while seamless
integration and pre-data integration efforts cleanse data and
remove duplicate data from various sources. They also provide
high-quality data for enterprise decision making. Further,
performance and quality improve by segregating main subject
areas into key performance indicators (KPIs)" [15]. It should
be remembered that " Information Systems of hospital must
possess appropriate degree of technological advancement
which allows for gathering and delivery of useful data which
may be used by BI systems" [16].
IV. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
In order to prove that Business Intelligence systems have a
significant influence on acceleration of decision making
process at strategic, tactical and operational level of
management there was conducted a survey research on the
sample of 34 international enterprises which embraced
different industries such as e.g. energetics, electronics,
building and construction, retail sale, banking, clothing, IT,
logistics, metallurgy, chemical etc. The research was
conducted for the purpose of PhD thesis realization of the
author. Most of surveyed enterprises belonged to the group of
large enterprises. The results showed that thanks to the
implementation of Business Intelligence system in a particular
Recent Advances in Computer Science
ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 129
international enterprise the decision making process at all level
of management was accelerated. The average values for 3
levels of management is presented in Fig. 2
Fig. 2 The average level of decision making support by BI systems
with the division into three levels of management
Source: Author's own study
As far as the methodology is concerned the respondents had to
select in the research questionnaire whether the decision
making process in a given enterprise was greatly, moderately
not significantly, was not at all accelerated or it was slowed
down after implementation of BI system.
Besides mentioned acceleration of decision making BI systems
bring such advantages in surveyed enterprises as an increase of
decisions' efficacy at all level of management and it can be
also stated on the basis of the research that BI systems have
significant impact on such areas of decision making as
consumer relationship management, marketing, sales,
distribution, human resources management, controlling and
logistics. The other selected advantages were improvement of
communication among employees, increase of information
which was indispensable for making a decision and
improvement of reporting and different analyses realization.
V. CONCLUSION
As a conclusion it is worth mentioning that Business
Intelligence systems have many advantages for the companies
which implemented it, from the acceleration of decision
making process at all levels of management to the facilitation
of different types of analyses. As it was also mentioned BI
system are a key feature for achievement of competitive
advantage. All the modern technologies applied in
contemporary enterprises such as BI systems, business
analytics tools, data mining methods and techniques, cloud
computing and big data solutions contribute to better
communication within a particular enterprise, optimization and
improvement of management processes.
REFERENCES
[1] T. Davenport.: Business Intelligence and organizational processes.
International J ournal of Business Intelligence Research, 1(1), 1-12,
J anuary-March 2010, www.igi-global.com
[2] R. Skyrius, G. Kazakeviciene, V. Bujauskas: The relationship between
Management Decision Support and Business Intelligence: Developing
Awareness. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing vol. 206,
2013, pp 587-598
[3] E. Turban, R. Sharda, D. Delen, “Decision Support Systems and
Intelligent Systems”, 8th edition, Prentice Hall, 2006
[4] Rouhani S., Asgari S., and Mirhosseini S., 2012, "Review Study:
Business Intelligence Concepts and Approaches", American J ournal of
Scientific Research
[5] D. Dziembek, L. Ziora.: Business intelligence systems in the SaaS
model as a tool supporting knowledge acquisition in the virtual
organization. Online J ournal of Applied Knowledge Management,
Volume 2, issue 2, 2014, p.82-96
[6] D. Dziembek: Systemy Business Intelligence w modelu SaaS w
dzia?alno?ci ma?ych i ?rednich przedsi?biorstw.http://www.ptzp.org.pl
[7] E. Turban, R. Sharda, J .E. Aronson, D. King: "Business Intelligence.
A Managerial Approach", Pearson, New J ersey 2010
[8] C. Olszak, E. Ziemba: Critical Success Factors for Implementing
Business Intelligence Systems in Small and MediumEnterprises on the
Example of Upper Silesia, Poland. Interdisciplinary J ournal of
Information, Knowledge, and Management Volume 7, 2012.http://www.ijikm.org/Volume7/IJ IKMv7p129-150Olszak634.pdf
[9] Yogev N., Even A., Fink L.: How Business Intelligence Creates Value:
An Empirical Investigation. International J ournal of Business
Intelligence Research, 4(3), 16-31, J uly-September 2013, www.igi-
global.com
[10] J .C. Leontiades: Managing the Global Enterprise. Competing in the
information age. Prentice Hall, London 2001, pp. 146-155
[11] Redwood capital sector report: Business Intelligence report,http://www.redcapgroup.comApril 2014
[12] Enterprise Iron: large international chemical company standardizes data
warehouse and business intelligence solutions.http://www.enterpriseiron.com/large-international-chemical-company-
standardizes-data-warehouse-and-business-intelligence-solutions/
[13] G. Miller, D. Brautigam, S. Gerlach: Business Intelligence Competency
Centers. A team approach to maximizing competitive advantage.
Wuiley&Sons, New J ersey 2006, pp. 15-34
[14] W. Eckerson: Business-Driven BI:http://www.beyeresearch.com/study/16441
[15] P. Dindigal: Healthcare Business Intelligence: Saving lives through
enhanced information. Satyam Healthcare Practice.http://www.himss.org/files/HIMSSorg/content/files/Satyam021109.pdf
[16] A. Chluski, L. Ziora: The Possibilities of Business Intelligence Systems
Application in Polish Hospitals. Current Problems of Maintenance of
Electrical Equipment and Management. Monograph. Scientific Editors
Michal Kolcun, Lech Borowik, Tomasz Lis. Technicka Univerzita v
Kosiciach. 2014, p.245-254
[17] L. Ziora: The role of Business Intelligence systems in the decision
making process of international enterprises, Phd thesis, 2011
Leszek Ziora Ph.D., employed as Assistant Professor at Czestochowa
University of Technology, the Faculty of Management, Business Informatics
Department. He is the author of over 30 papers published in domestic and
international journals. His scientific interests include Business Intelligence
systems, data security in computer networks, big data and cloud computing
solutions, application of linguistics in management. He is member of
Scientific Association of Business Informatics and International Association
of Engineers.
Recent Advances in Computer Science
ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 130
doc_834511941.pdf
The aim of this paper is to focus on the application of Business Intelligence systems in the support of decision making process in the international enterprises.
Abstract—The aimof this paper is to focus on the application of
Business Intelligence systems in the support of decision making
process in the international enterprises. It provides brief
characteristics of BI systems, advantages resulting from its
application in the management of international enterprises and review
of foreign research and case studies regarding the subject. It also
provides empirical research concerning the role of BI systems in
supporting decision making process in the international enterprises.
Keywords — Business Intelligence systems, business analytics,
big data, data warehousing, data mining, decision support systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
OWADAYS many international enterprises have
implemented Business Intelligence systems of different
vendors in order to achieve multiple advantages such as
improvement of decision making processes at strategic, tactical
and operational level of management, gaining competitive
advantage on the local and international markets, improvement
of communication efficiency and efficacy among different
branches of particular enterprise and so on. The most
important feature of BI systems in the support of decision
making process is acceleration of this process at all levels of
management. Faster making of decisions means e.g. the
possibility of lowering the cost of enterprise’s functionality. T.
Davenport underlines significance of information which is
indispensable in the decision making and claims that the aim
of BI and other decision support systems is “that better
information would lead to better decisions and better ways of
managing organizational processes” [1] and he further
mentions that “if the goal of better information and better
analysis is ultimately better decisions and actions taken based
on them, organizations must have a strong focus on decisions
and their linkage to information” [1]. R. Skyrius et. al.
underline relationship between Management Decision Support
and Business Intelligence and state that "management decision
making is an information-intensive activity, where the
structuredness of the problem to be solved directly translates
to the complexity of the information tasks to produce a well
Author is with the Faculty of Managemen of Czestochowa University of
Technology, Cz?stochowa, Poland (e-mail: [email protected]).
supported decision"[2].
II. CHARACTERISTIC AND ADVANTAGES OF BI SYSTEMS
APPLICATION IN THE DECISION MAKING SUPPORT
There can be found many definitions of Business
Intelligence. Most often it is perceived as provision of the right
information to the right people at the right time. The author of
the term Business Intelligence is Howard Dresner from
Gartner Group who introduced it in 1989. E. Turban perceives
BI as “a broad category of applications and techniques for
gathering, storing, analyzing and providing access to data to
help enterprise user make better business and strategic
decisions”[3]. S. Rouhani et. al claim that "Business
Intelligence is a managerial concept which refers to a set of
programs and technologies that provide capabilities of
gathering, analyzing and accessing data of organization's
processes (...) BI helps to organizations which having
comprehensive knowledge about business affecting factors,
such as standards in selling, production and internal
organization's processes. (...) The ultimate goal of business
intelligence systems in any organization is to help making
optimal decisions as soon as possible and in all organization's
levels" [4].
The fundamental advantages related to the application of
Business Intelligence systems in the management of
enterprises may concern: "getting in one place reliable and
coherent data and information from all areas of organization's
activity which is connected with aspects of systems integration,
facilitated access to data coming from different dispersed
sources, shortening the time of different analyses, decision
making and increasing efficiency and efficacy of management,
efficient planning, simulations and prognoses in different
angles, instant reaction to appearing market trends, detection
of threats and chances in the area of leading activity, current
analysis of financial situation and tracking budget deviations,
financial optimization of undertaken activities, lowering the
number of persons involved in decision making processes,
influence on income growth, reduction of costs and
improvement of customer's satisfaction" [5]. Business
Intelligence systems allow for efficient data transformation
into valuable information and as its consequence enable
acquisition of knowledge indispensable for making efficient
decision. As a result BI systems constitute a solution allowing
The application of Business Intelligence
systems in the support of decision processes in
the international enterprises
Leszek Ziora
N
Recent Advances in Computer Science
ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 127
organizations for using the potential contained in information
resources and for allowing employees to acquire up to date
knowledge on enterprise condition as well as its market
environment [6]. Business Intelligence systems can also be
useful in creation, modification and improvement of
enterprises' strategy as well as in the management of key
business processes and its optimization with the usage of e.g.
real time BI systems, semantic BI, hybrid systems and big data
solutions.
Business Intelligence may be perceived as a competitor
differentiator. Such systems as it was mentioned can contribute
to achievement of competitive advantage of a company which
have implemented it. E. Turban, R. Sharda, J . Aronson and D.
King put emphasis on e.g. strategic imperative of BI and claim
that BI have significant value to organizations and “in addition
to ROI and other tangible benefits there is increasing evidence
that BI are becoming a strategic imperative” [7, p.22-23]. The
authors underline importance of competitor analysis which
constitute a base for strategic planning. Such solutions can
help to sustain competitive advantage in different industries as
well. It is worth mentioning the success factors of BI system
implementation. E. Turban et al. mention that “the success of
BI depends, in part, on which personnel in the organization
would be the most likely to make use of it and it must be of
benefit to the enterprise as a whole” [7, p.24] C. Olszak and E.
Ziemba draw conclusions on the basis of research on the
sample of small and medium sized enterprises that “"quick
decision-making in enterprise gives a chance to overtake the
competition, and it is possible when the managers have free
access to business information, and it is the result of analysis
of massive amounts of data; such analyses are well performed
by BI systems”. The other conclusions drew by the authors is
that “small and medium enterprises need BI as well as large
enterprises and in order to maintain a competitive advantage it
became a must to implement BI system in the enterprises. To
keep offer of a company competitive they must among others
take decisions quickly [8, p.141]. N. Yogev, A. Even, L. Fink
state that Business Intelligence systems create value for
organizations of different industries. They claim that such
systems “represent the natural evolution of decision support
systems (DSS) and put a strong emphasis on data-driven
decision making, based on the integration of multiple data
resources that reflect different aspects of organizational
activity” [9]. The authors further state that “BI is unique in its
potential to generate both strategic and operational value
through the seamless integration of organizational data to
support decisions at different levels” [9].
As far as architecture and its role in the decision support is
concerned it is worth outlining the exemplary architecture of
such solution. In presented scheme (Fig. 1) the data from all
the transactional systems operated in a company and in case of
international enterprises from its branches as well undergo the
process of ETL - extraction, transformation and load, then data
is directed into corporate data warehouse and as a final part on
the basis of stored data different analyses with the help of data
mining methods and techniques are performed, reports
concerning business activity are created, visualization tools,
managerial dashboards improve communications within the
enterprise. The whole environment is being used to make
decision at strategic, tactical and operational level of
management. At every stage BI systems support the process of
making decision which may be presented as identification of
decision problem, finding alternative solutions and finally
making a choice.
Fig. 1 Example of BI environment for the purpose of decision
making
Source: Author's own study
The decision making process in international enterprises
embraces the headquarter of enterprises and its branches
located in different countries and undergoing different law
regulations. In the international companies BI systems should
take into consideration different organizational structures and
the types of decisions resulting from it. The crucial is the fact
that the organizational structure is the main factor of strategy
creation [10].
The Business Intelligence sector report by Redwood Capital
company states that "over the last few years Business
Intelligence has become the top ranked IT priority among
enterprise business leaders" [10]. The reports announces that
"the global business intelligence market is projected to reach
$20.81 billion in 2018, up from $13.98 billion in 2013,
representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of
8.28%2. Among all regions, North America is the largest,
capturing 49% of the global BI market. It presents the fact that
the BI market is segmented into traditional, mobile, cloud and
social Business Intelligence, based on product architecture and
user interface" [11].
III. REVIEW OF FOREIGN RESEARCH AND CASE STUDIES
On the basis of selected foreign case studies involving the
application of BI it is worth mentioning the solution presented
by Enterprise Iron company and concerning the application of
Recent Advances in Computer Science
ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 128
BI for large international chemical company. The vendor
claims that "for a large chemical company based
internationally, a solution for data warehousing and business
intelligence was needed to standardize across the enterprise. It
was decided that they needed an enterprise solution for these
capabilities to provide the competitive advantage gaining
benefits of effective business intelligence. (...) EI’s Business
Intelligence Solutions practice helped the client write an RFP
and evaluate potential vendors, ultimately selecting SAP
Business Warehouse as the COTS solution. EI’s Data
Warehousing practices helped establish the plans for migrating
data to SAP BW, and were involved in the specification of
solutions to cleanse the data and improve customer data
quality. EI’s Program Management practice provided steering
and program oversight to the project through its
implementation. (...) As a result of engaging EI, the client
consolidated its disparate business intelligence offerings into a
standardized industry leading platform, and was able to
provide business intelligence on a level not previously
possible, exposing insights that promised to enable greater
competitive advantage in their market place, while enabling
them to diagnose and understand their own operations and
customer relationship management for opportunities to
improve and modernize sales and operations"[12].
G. Miller et al. presented the results of the survey conducted
by BetterManagement subscribers who completed a survey
concerning application of BI in their organization. The authors
of state that "the online survey was completed by 220
companies across various industries, sizes, geographic
locations, and job levels and 84% companies have
implemented BI system" [13]. They further claim that "among
those companies that conduct a formal BI needs analysis, three
quarters (73%) perform an ongoing review of BI needs to
ensure that new opportunities or requirements are identified
and added to BI processes. (... )The primary components of a
BI needs analysis are reports (73%) and strategic analytics
(68%). Somewhat less frequently used in the analysis are
compliance/corporate governance issues (46%) and early
warning systems (44%). Fewer than one in three companies
(29%) incorporate legal/ regulatory reporting. The survey also
showed that "BI usage still seems to be restricted to
management level in most companies" [13].
The other research conducted by W. Eckerson and entitled
Business-Driven BI "examines best practices for implementing
self-service BI and the technologies and tools that let users
create their own reports and dashboards and conduct their own
analyses. The survey was taken by 249 people. Survey results
are based on 234 respondents who indicated their positions as
“BI or IT professional,” “BI sponsor or user” or “BI
consultant.” Responses from those who selected “BI vendor”
or “Other” were excluded from the results [14]. (...)
The industry with the highest percentage of respondents was
manufacturing with 13%. Next were consulting with 11%,
retail with 9% and banking, health care and software, all at
8%. Self-Service BI allows users to create own reports and
dashboards so they get the information they want, when they
want it and how they want it displayed. Self-service BI
removes IT professionals as intermediaries between business
users and the data. This gives business users direct access to
the raw material" [14]. (...) "There are two types of self-service
BI, one for report users and another for report authors. The
number one challenge cited by almost three-quarters, or 73%,
of BI professionals is counterintuitive: Self-service BI
“requires more training than expected. Survey respondents
also said self-service BI “creates report chaos” (61%), “makes
it harder to find the right report” (36%) and the “tools confuse
users” (42%). The research showed that there is a correlation
between success with self-service BI and BI adoption rates"
[14]. The author drew the conclusion that "self-service BI can
empower users and increase BI adoption, but it is difficult to
implement properly because there are many types of users with
different information requirements. There is no single tool or
approach to self-service BI that works in all situations" [14].
Another example of BI application in the organizations is an
example of healthcare industry. P. Dindigal presents BI
application in saving people's lives and claims that "time is
perhaps the most important factor when people are stricken
with heart attacks" [15]. He says that "thanks to computer
systems that enable clinicians to analyze treatment procedures
for suspected coronary victims, Florida’s BayCare Hospital
has reduced the time it takes to diagnose and process a heart
patient by 20 minutes [15]". He further states that "reducing
medication errors is another priority for healthcare providers.
In Cincinnati, the Children's Hospital Medical Center cut
medication errors in half by analyzing orders and feeding the
results back to a medication-administration system [15]". "In
Tulsa, OK, the St. J ohn Medical Center recently reduced the
number of transfusions leading to negative reactions by 18
percent. That saves $1.4 million annually, and eliminates the
opportunity for numerous errors" [15]. The author indicates
benefits of BI systems in healthcare such as "faster data
gathering and meaningful analytical report production helps in
decision support and operational management, while seamless
integration and pre-data integration efforts cleanse data and
remove duplicate data from various sources. They also provide
high-quality data for enterprise decision making. Further,
performance and quality improve by segregating main subject
areas into key performance indicators (KPIs)" [15]. It should
be remembered that " Information Systems of hospital must
possess appropriate degree of technological advancement
which allows for gathering and delivery of useful data which
may be used by BI systems" [16].
IV. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
In order to prove that Business Intelligence systems have a
significant influence on acceleration of decision making
process at strategic, tactical and operational level of
management there was conducted a survey research on the
sample of 34 international enterprises which embraced
different industries such as e.g. energetics, electronics,
building and construction, retail sale, banking, clothing, IT,
logistics, metallurgy, chemical etc. The research was
conducted for the purpose of PhD thesis realization of the
author. Most of surveyed enterprises belonged to the group of
large enterprises. The results showed that thanks to the
implementation of Business Intelligence system in a particular
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ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 129
international enterprise the decision making process at all level
of management was accelerated. The average values for 3
levels of management is presented in Fig. 2
Fig. 2 The average level of decision making support by BI systems
with the division into three levels of management
Source: Author's own study
As far as the methodology is concerned the respondents had to
select in the research questionnaire whether the decision
making process in a given enterprise was greatly, moderately
not significantly, was not at all accelerated or it was slowed
down after implementation of BI system.
Besides mentioned acceleration of decision making BI systems
bring such advantages in surveyed enterprises as an increase of
decisions' efficacy at all level of management and it can be
also stated on the basis of the research that BI systems have
significant impact on such areas of decision making as
consumer relationship management, marketing, sales,
distribution, human resources management, controlling and
logistics. The other selected advantages were improvement of
communication among employees, increase of information
which was indispensable for making a decision and
improvement of reporting and different analyses realization.
V. CONCLUSION
As a conclusion it is worth mentioning that Business
Intelligence systems have many advantages for the companies
which implemented it, from the acceleration of decision
making process at all levels of management to the facilitation
of different types of analyses. As it was also mentioned BI
system are a key feature for achievement of competitive
advantage. All the modern technologies applied in
contemporary enterprises such as BI systems, business
analytics tools, data mining methods and techniques, cloud
computing and big data solutions contribute to better
communication within a particular enterprise, optimization and
improvement of management processes.
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Leszek Ziora Ph.D., employed as Assistant Professor at Czestochowa
University of Technology, the Faculty of Management, Business Informatics
Department. He is the author of over 30 papers published in domestic and
international journals. His scientific interests include Business Intelligence
systems, data security in computer networks, big data and cloud computing
solutions, application of linguistics in management. He is member of
Scientific Association of Business Informatics and International Association
of Engineers.
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ISBN: 978-1-61804-320-7 130
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