Impact of Business Intelligence (BI) Systems Use on Process Level Performance

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between BI systems use, IT infrastructure capability, and firm performance at the process level. Even though a majority of past studies considered BI system usage as a single item variable, this study has taken a broader view of the BI system use and measured it with reference to four aspects – extent of use of various applications/business processes a BI system supports, extent of use of several technology components of a BI system, level of management/governance of BI system use and time since the adoption of a BI system. Based on the survey data collected from 128 business intelligence (BI) users in Australia, this study observed that the firms are using BI software solutions for more than 5 years and mostly using them to support financial and performance reporting processes. In spite of reporting satisfaction with the capabilities of the BI system, a majority of firms continue to use Excel for reporting and analysis functions bypassing the BI system. We found that poor management of access, rigidity of the BI system in its inability to meet dynamic changing business requirements, inadequacy of user training, poor data handling procedures, and absence of data governance are some of the challenges identified in the management of BI system usage. This study confirmed the enabling role of IT infrastructure capability in improving firm performance, and found this to be a significant predictor of process level performance. Firm size, measured by gross revenue and employee strength, had no influence on process level performance, the study found. Effective usage of the applications that support specific business processes and good management of use tend to deliver performance benefits to organizations, rather than just the deployment of technology tools. This study demonstrates the complementarity between BI systems use, IT infrastructure and business processes and highlights the importance of ‘BI use’ and its governance.