The Influence of business intelligence on the operational capabilities of organisations in South Africa

Abstract

The extent of the success of Business Intelligence (BI) is still unclear as there have been variations in outcomes achieved from BI implementation on business capabilities. It remains a gamble to either employ or to continue employing BI in organisational systems as there is no guarantee whether business process performance will be achieved and eventually business value. BI demands large investments to be effective, and with such investments, the benefits are expected, either as operational efficiency or return on investment (increased organisational profitability). The lack of in-depth literature on BI influence on organisational capability inhibits process performance as practitioners who wish to benefit from BI remain mystified about how business value can be achieved. Further, this lack of understanding can lead organisations to fail to achieve growth, or worse, the decline in the business. The adopted research philosophy for the study is Interpretivism it seeks to establish an understanding of the nuances that enable the realisation of Business Value (BV) from adopting BI. The ontological stance employed for this research is subjectivism which subscribes to the notion that reality is based on social actors’ interaction with the environment around them, which therefore affirms the stance of subjectivity. The epistemological spectrum of the research was established as interpretivist, where perceived reality, the social actors mentioned in the ontology interpret or generate understanding (or knowledge) based on their perception of reality resulting in multiple facets of truth. An inductive approach was employed since the emphasis was on creating a theory that best explains how BI generates BV. A holistic multiple case study was adopted because gaining a detailed insight into how BI influences capabilities to achieve business value requires a holistic analysis of the organisations under study. The unit of analysis was BI infused operations where the extent of the respective capabilities and the overall contribution to BV was assessed, while the unit of observation entailed the IT personnel from various levels of the organisation, specifically representatives from operational, tactical and strategic management. Non-random and convenient sampling were adopted for this research because of the scarcity of organisations currently adopting BI willing to be part of this study for various reasons. Snowballing and referrals were the main strategies for identifying potential respondents for the research. Data collection was executed by utilising in-depth interviews and focus groups suited to the nature and philosophy of the research using Zoom. Due to the nature of the data to be collected, Atlas ti was used for analysis with the use of thematic analysis. The findings revealed the reliance on BI human resource capital, management and infrastructure to achieve BV. Furthermore, expanding BI teams, the need for adequate investment, development and application of advanced analytics and management support were highlighted as integral for realising BV. Moreover, BI Human Resource capital, BI infrastructure and BI management were all identified, in varying degrees, as critical to firm performance. This was through consistent sensing of BI benchmarks and tools against industry and internal standards, seize and transform organisational operations depending the anomalies identified so that organisations can curb or capital on the anomaly. The thesis provides various contributions. From a theoretical contribution perspective, the thesis presents empirical evidence of the BI factors that influence the realisation of BV in the context of South African organisations. It also offers a methodological implication that includes an adopted conceptual framework based on a combination of three (3) theories: RBV, DC, and TOE as a lens for the study, which offers a new perspective relative to what has been done previously on the topic of understanding the relationship between BV adoption and its operational capabilities. The practical contribution stems from the impact the study and its findings can have on BI adoption and implementation in SA organisations.