Exploration of Influential Determinants for the Adoption of Business Intelligence System in the Textile and Apparel Industry

Sumera Ahmad,Rana Alabdan,Iskander Tlili,Suraya Miskon

doi:10.3390/su12187674

Sumera Ahmad, Rana Alabdan + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187674

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Abstract

The textile and apparel industry is prone to digitization with business intelligence systems (BIS) and big data concepts to contribute the global sustainability. BIS, an impactful and leading technology, is being implemented in many industrial sectors but almost 80% of BIS fail to give expected results due to unknown reasons. Although many scholars put effort into finding the influential determinants for the BIS implementation, they neglect the BIS adoption context, especially in the textile and apparel industry. A purposive and proportionate choice of potential determinants in the context of adoption would contribute significantly to the success of BIS. Multi-stage research is employed to identify and prioritize the significant determinants. In the first stage, twenty-two semi-structured in-depth interviews are conducted with seventeen textile and apparel companies. Ten significant determinants emerged after thematic analysis of interview data. The determinants are sustainability, competitive pressure, market trends, compatibility, technology maturity, leadership commitment and support, satisfaction with existing systems, sustainable data quality and integrity, users’ traits, and interpersonal communications that influence the adoption of BIS. In the second stage, the Best Worst Method (BWM) is used to calculate the weights for prioritizing the determinants based on experts’ opinion. These weights are then used to evaluate and rank the determinants. The findings of this research show that the leadership commitment and support, sustainability, users’ traits, and technology maturity, are the top-ranked determinants that influence the practitioners’ choice to adopt the BIS in the textile and apparel industry. The results of this study enable the BIS stakeholders to holistically comprehend the significant determinants that would drive or impede the success of BIS projects in the sustainable textile and apparel industry.

Highlights

An aggressive race towards market shares and international competition drives the practitioners of the textile and apparel industry to seek ways of achieving low manufacturing costs by outsourcing productions in developing countries
The main themes which emerged reveal how decision-makers reach their business intelligence system (BIS) adoption decision; further, there is an exploration of significant determinants that influence BIS adoption in the textile and apparel industry and a ranking of the determinants using Best Worst Method (BWM) according to their significance and participants’ preferences
Competitive advantage is another driver for BIS adoption, as five interviewees described it in this way; “Competitive advantage has been achieved with well-informed decision-making processes, such as time efficiency, increases in profitability, and cost efficiency, which can be perceived as measurable and tangible aspects through adequate decision-making.”

Summary

Introduction

An aggressive race towards market shares and international competition drives the practitioners of the textile and apparel industry to seek ways of achieving low manufacturing costs by outsourcing productions in developing countries. The BIS technology is a well-known mature technology and still maintains its position among the top priority technologies of various decision-making authorities such as chief information officers, business owners, and managers [4,5,6,7]. This is because, with the help of BIS adoption they can be better aware of their business competitors, market conditions, opportunities, and challenges by integrating and analyzing large data sets [8,9,10]

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