The Support of Human Factors for Encompassing Business Intelligence

Abstract

Aim/Purpose: This paper attempts an inquiry into some Business intelligence (BI) implementation challenges related to human factors, and uses empirical survey data to test how the required BI coverage relates to perceived level of BI culture through such important human factors in BI as information sharing. Background: Business intelligence adoption already has a formidable body of experience, yet confusion remains over several key issues – implementation, adoption, created value. The multidimensionality of BI both in business dimensions and implementation dimensions is intended to handle the information integration requirements to produce an overarching view of business environment. The importance of human factors in utilizing BI potential lately has drawn growing attention of researchers, concentrating on such issues as information and insight sharing, emergence of intelligence community, preservation of experience. Methodology: An empirical survey of BI users, and analysis by data mining tools to disclose the strength of relationships between human factors and perceived levels of BI culture. Contribution: The paper points out the most prominent features of BI culture, and investigates their influence on perceived levels of BI culture. Findings: The results of the survey confirm that the dominating share of the respondents are well aware of BI culture, and perceive its level above mediocre. The results also support the existence of variety of delivery modes for BI results, prevalent need for information from other departments for insight development, and multiple modes of information sharing across functional borders. Respondents who are the most satisfied with their BI culture treat information sharing as one of the key features of intelligence environment. Recommendations for Practitioners: The named features of BI culture may be projected against real situation to assist evaluation of BI implementation potential and required action. Recommendation for Researchers: The cultural specifics of intelligence activities may be considered when investigating BI implementation issues. Impact on Society: Better understanding of activities in informing, and especially advanced informing. Future Research: Some issues that clearly merit further inquiry are information integration, insight development, issues of BI dimensions and agility.