BI TOOLS: A SYNERGETIC OPPORTUNITY FOR QUALITY

DECISION MAKING AND ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH IN

IT ORGANIZATIONS

PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

REMYA V G

TVE16MBA74

Under the guidance of

Dr. Sini V Pillai

In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree

Of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

of APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University

CET SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING TRIVANDRUM

JANUARY 2018

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 CET SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING TRIVANDRUM

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the report entitled, “BI Tools: A Synergetic Opportunity For Quality
Decision Making And Organizational Growth In IT Organizations” submitted by Ms.
REMYA V G, Reg. No: TVE16MBA74 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
award of degree of Master of Business Administration is a bonafide record of the work
carried out under our guidance and supervision at CET School of Management during the
academic years 2016-18.

Dr. Suresh Subramoniam Dr. Sini V Pillai

Director Assistant Professor

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 DECLARATION

I undersigned, hereby declare that the report titled “BI Tools: A Synergetic Opportunity For
Quality Decision Making And Organizational Growth In IT Organizations” submitted in
partial fulfillment for the award of Degree of Master of Business Administration of the APJ
Abdul Kalam Technological University is a bonafide record of internship undergone by me
under the guidance of Dr. Sini V Pillai, Assistant Professor, Department of Business
Administration, College of Engineering Trivandrum. This report has not previously formed
the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, or similar title of any other university.

REMYA V G

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With great enthusiasm and pleasure I am bringing out this mini project report here. I use this

opportunity to express my heartiest gratitude to the support and guidance offered to me from

various sources during the course of completion of my project.

I am also grateful to Dr. Suresh Subramoniam, Director, CET School of Management

Trivandrum, for his valuable suggestions.

It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge my Project coordinator, Dr. Sini V Pillai, Assistant

Professor, CET School of Management Trivandrum, who has guided and given supervision

for the project work.

Above all, we owe our gratitude to the Almighty for showering abundant blessing upon us.

I also express my wholehearted gratefulness to all my classmates who have expressed their

views and suggestions about this project and have helped me during the course of the project.

I extend my sincere thanks and gratitude once again to all those who helped us make this

undertaking a success.

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 ABSTRACT
The Information Technology (IT) organizations are generating huge amount of business data
and the data volume is expected to be doubled by next decade. This data need to be processed
and analyzed and to be made available to the management for efficient and quality decisions.
With the help of business intelligence (BI) tool the organizations can quickly generate
insights enabling them to take quality decision and enabling management to drive operational
efficiencies, identify newer opportunities and differentiate them in the competitive market.
The review of the literature reveals the existence of gap with respect to whether BI tool
impact quality of decision-making and organizational growth.

The focus of the study is to determine the impact of business intelligence tool on quality of
decision-making and organizational growth in IT organizations. The study also focuses on
determining the impact of BI tool based quality decision-making on decision categories
(operational, tactical and strategic) and development of leadership traits in managers. The
study also focuses on identifying the areas of usage of BI analytics and important BI analytics
in IT organizations. The study also focuses on identifying relationship between importance
and usage of BI analytics.

Keywords: Business Intelligence tools, Decision making, Information Technology,

Organizational growth.

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Contents
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 9
1.1 Introduction to the study.............................................................................................................................. 9
1.2 Statement of the Problem .......................................................................................................................... 10
1.3 Objectives of the study ............................................................................................................................... 10
1.4 Scope of the study ...................................................................................................................................... 11
1.5 Methodology of the study .......................................................................................................................... 11
1.6 Hypothesis .................................................................................................................................................. 11
1.7 Limitations of the study .............................................................................................................................. 12
1.8 Chapterization ............................................................................................................................................ 12
REVIEW OF LITERATURE ....................................................................................................................................... 13
2.1 General Introduction to the review ............................................................................................................ 13
2.2 Impact of BI tool on quality of decision-making and organizational growth .............................................. 13
2.3 Relationship between BI tool based quality decision making and decision categories .............................. 14
2.4 Areas of usage of various kinds of BI analytics in IT Organizations ............................................................ 15
2.5 Inferences from the reviews ....................................................................................................................... 20
THEORETICAL REVIEW .......................................................................................................................................... 21
3.1 Definition of Business Intelligence Tool ..................................................................................................... 23
3.2 Evolution of Business Intelligence Tools .................................................................................................... 24
3.3 Components of BI ....................................................................................................................................... 28
3.4 Data Sources ............................................................................................................................................... 29
3.5 Issues in BI .................................................................................................................................................. 29
3.6 Future of business intelligence ................................................................................................................... 30
3.7 Reasons for business intelligence ............................................................................................................... 30
3.8 Benefits of BI ............................................................................................................................................... 32
3.9 Business intelligence technology ................................................................................................................ 33
3.10 Designing and implementing a business intelligence ............................................................................... 35
3.11 Importance of Business Intelligence Tools in IT Sector ............................................................................ 36
DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................................................... 38
4.1 Descriptive Statistics for “Use of BI tools across organization” .................................................................. 38
4.2 Descriptive Statistics for “Objectives achieved after BI tool implementation” .......................................... 39
4.3 Descriptive Statistics for “Usage of BI analytics in the organization” ......................................................... 41
4.3 Multiple Response Analysis for “Features of the BI tool deployed in the organization” ........................... 42
4.4 Descriptive Statistics for “Usage of BI tool in decision-making categories in the organization” ................ 44
4.6 Descriptive Statistics for “Quality decision based on BI tool data/information in the organization” ........ 45
4.7 Statistical Analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 46
FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS .............................................................................................................................. 53
5.1 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................................................... 53
5.2 Results of Hypotheses Testing .................................................................................................................... 56
5.3 SUGGESTIONS ............................................................................................................................................. 57
5.4 LIMITATIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 57
5.4 SCOPE OF STUDY ......................................................................................................................................... 57
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................ 58

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LIST OF TABLES
3.1 Evolution of BI tool functionality 23
3.2 Types of BI 24
3.3 Comparison of past and present BI tool characteristics 25
4.1 Use of BI tools across organization 36
4.2 Frequencies of Objectives achieved after BI tool implementation 36
4.3 Frequencies of usage of BI analytics in the organization 37
4.4 Frequencies of features of BI tool deployed in the organization 38
4.5 Summary of most deployed features of BI tool in the organization 39
4.6 Frequencies of usage of BI tool in decision making categories 40
4.7 Frequencies of quality decision based on BI tool data/information in the organization 41
4.8 Skewness and Kurtosis of business benefits before and after BI tool implementation 42
4.9 Result of t test of business benefits before and after BI tool implementation 43
4.10 Friedman test statistics usage for BI tool in decision making categories 47
4.11 Mean rank of usage for BI tool in decision making categories 47
4.12 Friedman test statistics of areas of usage for BI analytics 48
4.13 Mean rank of areas of usage for BI analytics 49

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LIST OF FIGURES
3.1 Organizational level and impact of decision making 20
3.2 BI tools & Applications 22
3.3 A Basic Understanding of BI 29
3.4 BI tool market share 34
4.1 Use of BI tools across organization 37
4.2 Quality decision based on BI tool data / Information 41

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction to the study

Organizations are generating huge amount of business data and the data volume is expected
to be doubled by next decade. This data need to be processed and analyzed and to be made
available to the management for efficient and quality decisions. With the help of business
intelligence (BI) tool the organizations can quickly generate insights enabling them to take
quality decision and enabling management to drive operational efficiencies, identify newer
opportunities and differentiate them in the competitive market.

The focus of the study is to determine the impact of business intelligence tool on quality of
decision-making and organizational growth. The study also focuses on determining the
impact of BI tool based quality decision-making on decision categories (operational, tactical
and strategic) and development of leadership traits in managers. The study also focuses on
identifying the areas of usage of BI analytics and important BI analytics tools. It also focuses
on identifying relationship between importance and usage of BI analytics in service industry.

The impact on quality of decision-making and organizational growth for before and after BI
tool implementation situation can be analyzed.

Business Intelligence (BI) has its roots in the decision support technologies and decision-
support domain have expanded over the years with the development of various decision-
support applications - business information system, on-line analytical processing (OLAP) &
predictive analytic. The BI tools started getting popularity both in the business world and the
academia around 2000.

The business insight generated by BI tools can help service sector in following ways:

 Optimizing the resource utilization for the services

 Optimizing the bench (unutilized employee) cost
 Increasing the revenue per employee
 Improving the quality of service
 Reducing the operational costs such as travel, administration
etc.
 Identification of the up-sell and cross-sell opportunities
 Optimizing global risks
 Compliance and regulatory reporting
 Planning for resource hiring and training

Over the last decades business data volumes have increased tremendously due to rise of
business information systems such as ERP, CRM etc. and is going for further explosive

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growth. International Data Corporation (IDC) highlighted in sixth annual study that the
digital universe comprising of structured and unstructured data will grow 300 times to 40,000
exabytes from 130 exabytes by 2020 and the size of data will double every two years from
2012 onwards.
As a result of data explosion organizations will be creating and storing more business data in
digital form and will have to process the same into useful information to improve their
quality decision-making capabilities. The useful information will need to be provided in
right-time, in right formats and on demand that enable business leaders to take decisions for
optimizing & improving business performance. Good and quality decision in organization
leads to sustainable organization growth and organizations should be better equipped with
tools and processes for meeting the short and long term goals.

With such vast amounts of data that are amassed and available, it is imperative to provide the
timely & correct information to the decision-maker to ensure business decisions success. A
natural dilemma is how businesses can make sense of all the data without wasting time and
resources as the amount of data captured continues to soar. With the increased reliance on the
e-commerce and mobile based platforms for business operations the marketplace conditions
will further complicate, accelerate and intensify the need for Business intelligence (BI) tool
based analysis.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The problems to be addressed in the study are the impact of BI tool in improving the quality
of decision-making in the IT organizations and to understand how BI tool based quality
decision-making help in improving the organizational growth (business performance) in the
IT organizations.

1.3 Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study are as follows:

 To study the impact of business intelligence tool on organizational growth

(business performance).

 To study the impact of BI tool based quality decision-making and decision

categories (operational, tactical and strategic).

 To study the areas of usage of various kinds of BI analytics in IT

organizations.

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1.4 Scope of the study

Powerful transaction-oriented information systems are now commonplace in every major

industry, effectively leveling the playing field for corporations around the world. To remain
competitive, however, now requires analytically oriented systems that can revolutionize a
company’s ability to rediscover and utilize information they already own. The business
intelligence (BI) has evolved over the past decade to rely increasingly on real time data. The
BI systems auto-initiate actions to systems based on rules and context to support several
business processes. These analytical systems derive insight from the wealth of data available,
delivering information that’s conclusive, fact- based, and actionable. Enterprises today
demand quick results. So it is becoming essential nowadays that not only is the business
analysis done, but also actions in response to analysis of results can be performed and
instantaneously changes parameters of business processes.

1.5 Methodology of the study

The research is aimed at describing relationship between the BI tool and its impact on the
quality of decision-making and organizational growth in information technology
organizations with the help of secondary data. The primary data is collected through
questionnaire survey method. The secondary data is collected from various articles and the
annual reports of the IT companies. Various quantitative techniques like Percentage analysis,
Freidman square test, Paired t test etc are used for data analysis purpose with the help of MS
Excel tool.

1.6 Hypothesis

H10: There is no improvement in the organizational growth (business performance)

after BI tool implementation compared to before BI tool implementation. (µ1 = µ2)
H11: There is significant improvement in the organizational growth (business performance)
after BI tool implementation compared to before BI tool implementation. (µ1 ≠ µ2)

H20: There is no difference in the preference of IT firms for BI tool usage with reference to
decision-making categories in the organization.
H21: There is significant difference in the preference of IT firms for BI tool usage with
reference to decision-making categories in the organization.

H30: There is no difference in the preference for areas of usage for BI analytics.
H31: There is significant difference in the preference for areas of usage for BI analytics.

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1.7 Limitations of the study

The research study is limited to the IT organizations providing services and software in the
field of information technology and does not include organization providing only BPO, BPM,
ITeS, Hardware, Data Center, Engineering Design, Education & Training services.

The research study is limited to the IT organizations using BI tool for reporting, analytics and
decision-making.

1.8 Chapterization

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Review of Literature
Chapter 3: Theoretical Review
Chapter 4: Data Analysis
Chapter 5: Findings and Suggestions
Chapter 6: Conclusion

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 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 General Introduction to the review

This chapter presents a review of business intelligence tool literature to understand the
importance & benefits of the BI tool and to understand the relationship between business
intelligence tool, quality of decision making and organizational growth. Many research
portals (SHODHGANGA, IEEE, PROQUEST, GOOGLE SCHOLAR) were referred for
studying the articles and research papers so as to gain a deep insight into the developments
which have already taken place in the field.

2.2 Impact of BI tool on quality of decision-making and organizational growth

Bartram (2013) in his study has highlighted 8 ways of using BI tools for getting optimized
results - (i) develop an analytical culture in the organization ,(ii) deliver information wherever
it's needed, (iii) make use of unstructured data to get better insights,(iv) implement predictive
analytics rather than analysing too much of historical data,(v) view information pictorially in
the form of dashboards for quicker decision-making,(vi) keep information up to date to
address current/future business problems,(vii) extract intelligence from social sites to give
full picture of the competition,(viii)ensure that managers use the information for decision-
making. The article is conceptual in nature and does not provide details on how above
practices can be implemented for efficient use of BI tool.

Bhatia (2013) has highlighted in her article that the business data volumes have increased
tremendously in last decade which has increased the complexity in processing and analysis.
The author has highlighted that traditional BI tool approach is not meeting the current needs
of high volume/big data processing. The author has highlighted that big data analytics enables
organization to take advantage of totality of their information (internal & external) in real
time and enables fast decision-making for serving the customer & society in unique and
innovative way. The author has highlighted some of the use cases of big data analytics like
better understanding customer needs, making process more efficient, and further reducing
costs. The author has also highlighted that there is need to educate the organizations on the
available big data opportunity to ensure they are not missing the competitive advantage.

According to Najibeh Abbasi Rostami (2014), in today’s world, data are so numerous that
technology is needed to cope with this knowledge. Business Intelligence (BI) is a process that
involves sorting all the collected information and select those that are relevant. BI provides
critical insights that help organizations make right decisions. Knowledge management (KM)
is a key approach to solving current problems. KM can be defined as a systematic process of
finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that
improves an employee's comprehension in a specific area of interest. BI and KM play
an important role in improving the qualitative and quantitative value of information
available for decision making. KM and BI can also benefit from each other. It seems that

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integration of BI and KM can help organizations achieve wider benefits. Integration of BI
and KM will not only help to promote and enhance knowledge for better decision making, but
also improve an organization’s performance. Therefore it is imperative for organizations to
have both BI and KM as an integrated system to get full value from both. This paper shows
the importance of BI and KM Integration through a series of models.

In his opinion, Lawten (2006), businesses continue to use computer systems for a growing
number of functions, they face the challenge of processing and analyzing huge amounts of
data and turning it into profits. In response to this, vendors are trying to upgrade their
business intelligence (BI) products, which are sets of tools and technologies designed to
efficiently extract useful information from oceans of data. If successful, upgrading the
technology would not only help users but could also let BI vendors widen their products'
audience. However, despite the recent improvements, widespread adoption still faces several
key challenges, such as high costs and the need for BI systems to integrate and interoperate
with the many heterogeneous corporate data sources.

According to Vikas Khurana (2015), in today’s business environment, the organization needs
insightful information to make decisions for gaining competitive advantage in the industry.
The data analysis has become a priority activity in all organizations for proper decision-
making and the data is available in multiple sources & formats within the organization. The
Business Intelligence (BI) tools convert the data from multiple sources & formats into
insightful information enabling organization to make better & quicker decision and thus
provide competitive advantage. The study proposes a conceptual model of organizational
growth with the use of business intelligence tools. The study also identifies emerging trends
in business intelligence tools. Here it suggests that, organizations need to conduct further
exploration for use of BI tools in several business functions (supply chain, purchasing, and
human resource). Further studies are required for analyzing the impact of BI tools on quality
decision-making and organizational growth.

2.3 Relationship between BI tool based quality decision making and decision categories

According to Namvar and Cybulski (2014) , Business intelligence (BI) offers opportunities
for managers to master vast data resources for operational and strategic gains, and allows BI-
based organizations to generate significant business value. Here they emphasized the
importance of BI to assist making quality decisions by exploring the use of BI for improved
understanding of business before such decisions are made and assessing the impact of the
actions derived from these decisions. theory of organizational sensemaking. The presented
research uses hermeneutic phenomenology to study the experiences of decision-makers in
using BI-generated insights to guide their actions while altering business processes, structures
and information. The study emphasizes the necessity of using BI in the creation and
maintenance of individual and organizational identity, as well as, enactment of this identity
on the business and its environment, which need to be molded in response to changing
circumstances.

Curko and Pejic (2007) has highlighted in their article that BI tool has become a crucial
technology in banking industry for achieving strategic goals and gaining competitive
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advantage for the future growth .BI techniques can be used to balance & rationalize business
operations, improving performance and reducing operational costs at banks. The authors have
highlighted that larger data volumes of banks can be analysed by using BI analytics for risk
management, additional products selling to the customers, reducing churn rate, customer
segmentation, client lifetime value in the banking industry for strategic decision-making. The
authors have mentioned that BI technology helps bankers in enhancing relations with
customer, improving efficiency of marketing & campaigning activities, increased risk
management, quickly responding to market changes and improving efficiency & quality of
business processes. The rise of new trend of business process intelligence opens novel
improvement areas in banking processes & operations.

Jourdan et al. (2008) have performed secondary research on business intelligence journals
published in ten leading information systems journals during 1997 to 2006 and have
classified 167 articles based on research strategy and BI category. The authors classified 56%
of the research as formal theory/ literature review followed by 13% based on primary data
and 12% based on secondary data and concluded that majority of the research work follows
exploratory methodology. The authors have classified BI article based on five categories such
as benefits, decisions, implementation, strategies and artificial intelligence and found that
35% articles on strategies related to using BI tool in the current business environment and
16% articles correspond to improving the decision-making. The authors highlighted that all
BI categories have used the formal theory/ literature review research strategy and artificial
intelligence used field-secondary and computer simulations strategy. The lab experiments
approach was followed for technology-focused category of decisions and sample survey
approach was followed for implementation, benefits and strategies categories .The authors
also highlighted that there is increasing trend on BI articles/activity over the period of
analysis The authors highlighted that limited work done in decision area is due to challenges
in quantifying the benefits of BI system based improved decision making and further work is
required in the field of decision and benefits.

2.4 Areas of usage of various kinds of BI analytics in IT Organizations

Cody(2002) have highlighted in the research paper that knowledge management and business
intelligence technologies have provided good return on investment to the customers. The
authors have highlighted that the two technologies will blend over a period of time to provide
solution to the problems requiring both data and text analytics. The authors have discussed
two tools eclassifier and sapient developed by IBM for text analytics and a framework for
integrating text into the data warehouse and stated that text integrated with business data
helps in improving the quality of decision.

Ortiz Jr. (2002) has highlighted new trends of BI tools in his article. The author has
mentioned due to high-speed processing and networking technologies increasing amount of
data are getting generating at faster rate, along with typical data generation enterprise
resource planning and human resource applications, due to internet-based applications. The
author has highlighted that the financial services, communications, and manufacturing
industries are the biggest users of business intelligence technology due to emergence of new
trends such as real-time BI, web-based BI and making BI easier to use.
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The author has highlighted that despite recent improvements, BI still faces several obstacles
such as data security, cost and ability to handle large volume data for a widespread adoption.

Abukari and Jog (2003) have highlighted in their study that BI is robust & strategic initiative
by management and the smart managers can generate increased value for investors by
deploying BI tool in their organizations. The authors have described BI as a decision support
system which uses a fact based approach to management decision-making and enables
sustainable competitive advantage for the organization. The authors have recommended six-
step for successful BI tool implementation : (i) link business strategies and goals with the
solution,(ii) identify all the essential data sources existing in organization for building the
system,(iii) create a subject-orientated multidimensional cube and extract, transform and load
(ETL) the relevant information about the subject,(iv) identify a reporting platform to view
and analyze the data in multidimensional cubes ,(v) build standard reports, perform ad-hoc
analysis and data mining to monitor the corporate performance, (vi) implement enterprise-
wide solution .The authors have discussed use case of BI tool in finance, manufacturing and
human resource function and have demonstrated that a systematic effective BI tool
implementation enables transformation of data into insight to support managerial decision-
making and action.

Negash (2004) in his research paper has discussed the concept of BI tool and has provided
framework for using structured and semi-structured data to support informed action by
decision-makers. The author has discussed the architecture for structured and semi-structured
BI tool. The author has also highlighted that market for BI is growing and vendors for
structured data based BI tool are mature in comparison to semi-structured data based BI tool.
The author highlighted that the use of semi-structured data in decision-making process is
increasing. The author has also provided various areas to be covered for further research such
as managing semi-structured information, real-time BI etc. The article is conceptual in nature
and is useful for students, academicians for their study.

Gupta (2004) have discussed the current state of Information Technology (IT) usage in select
Indian organizations in their research paper. The research findings were based on
questionnaire survey & interview of employees (business executives and information system
team) of select IT-savvy organizations. The researchers have highlighted that the issues of IT
usage in India were similar to those of worldwide organizations but some of them were
specific to India such as credibility with business executives, difficulty in measuring return
on investment, lack of business intelligence applications, strategic planning, IS organization
alignment, using data as a resource and integrating technology which is resulting in slow
adoption of information technology in India. The authors have recommended that business
intelligence application needs to be included in the portfolio of applications for business use
and that a culture needs to be developed in the organization for information based decision-
making. Since the study was performed on the companies in multiple industry sectors, the
study could not provide details on how business intelligence applications were used in those
sectors.

Hall (2004) has highlighted in her article that companies which have invested in CRM
technologies and were not realizing full benefit from the same is likely due to missing critical
piece of the solution which is business intelligence process that drives behavioural change.
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The author highlighted that due to increase in number of business decisions, complexity and
customers demanding higher level of services results in multiple technical and business
challenges for the enterprise. The author highlighted that BI tool plays a critical role in
comprehensive CRM strategy of the organization and with the use of BI tool in the CRM, the
enterprise can best manage customer relationships for maximum customer satisfaction,
loyalty, retention and profitability.

According to Chen (2005), multi-national organizations had started investing heavily in BI

tools for supporting the analysis process due to tougher business outlook and a systemic
approach is required to ensure that the business intelligence process involves the right stages
from data collection through to usage of the final input. The author has highlighted and
importance of BI tools by citing various examples such as “Apple” who has used strategic
business intelligence for becoming the fastest computer’s brand. The author has highlighted
that right business team (who were impacted by the change) should be involved in the
implementation of BI tool in order to have successful change management in the
organization. The research paper has not addressed other challenges of implementation of BI
tool such as data integration, skill level of implementation partner, unambiguous user
requirement.

According to Graves (2005) BI tool plays a strategic role in achieving regulatory compliance
in faster and easier manner in the legal (law firms), financial industry and government
agencies. The author has highlighted that a BI tool can help companies overcome hurdles
related to gathering, analysing, presenting and storing information. The insightful information
helps management take effective decision by quickly visualizing the answers for business
queries on corporate data. The author has discussed various features of BI tool but has not
provided the full usage/functionality details of BI tool in legal, financial and government
agencies. The research paper has highlighted that still there are organizations that have not
implemented the BI tool.

Havenstein (2005) has highlighted in his article that new BI tool & capabilities such as
operational analytics/ analytics embedded in the business process are enabling ease of daily
decision-making process for front-line workers by providing access to operational data. The
author highlighted that with the use of new BI tool in hospitals ambulance dispatcher section
can help improve efficiency by allowing dispatcher to see where service level agreements are
getting missed. The author also highlighted that BI dashboard can be developed for hospital
emergency rooms to monitor metricsperformance on admission, discharge times and other
treatment related threshold information.

Watson et al. (2006) have highlighted the importance of real time BI solution by citing the
example of continental airlines which has received 1000 percent return on investment. The
authors have highlighted that objective of real-time BI solution is to improve profitability by
increasing revenue and decreasing cost. The authors have provided guidelines for successful
implementation of real-time BI tools and key elements of the guideline are (i) change in
organization process and technology architecture (ii) defining the real-time BI in the context
of the business, (iii) automation of extraction, transformation and loading process, (iv) help
user to understand the potential of real time BI, (vi) calculate the return on investment before

17
starting the journey. The authors have discussed that real-time BI enables decision making for
the operations staff.

In his article, Panian (2006) has highlighted the importance of BI tool in human resources
(HR) department for meeting company goals & objectives. The author has mentioned that BI
tool based insights help in strategic decision-making for staffing, planning and budgeting in
the organization. The author has highlighted the seven areas of HR management where BI
tool can be used such as HR scorecard, recruiting analytics, retention analytics, workforce
analytics, succession planning analytics, training programs design and tracking, and
compensation analytics. The author highlighted that BI tool enables HR manager to predict
staffing requirements, challenges & trends, the impact of challenges on payroll and their
effect on performance of the business. The BI tool enables HR managers to collaborate and
share information with managers and empowering them to make informed decisions about
employee performance and career progression.

Watson and Wixom (2007) have highlighted in their research paper the benefits of BI tool,
critical success factors for BI tool implementation and the new trends in the BI tool. The
authors have highlighted that BI tool implementation provide spectrum of benefits such as
reduction in cost, increased efficiency for data suppliers & users by saving time, better
decisions due to better information resulting in improved business processes & meeting
strategic business objectives. The authors have highlighted that senior management support is
a critical success factor for BI tool implementation. The authors highlighted that real-time BI,
pervasive BI and business performance management are the emerging trends by discussing
use cases from gaming and airline industry. The authors have mentioned that BI framework
has primarily two activities (i) sourcing data in and (ii) data out and suggested that BI tool
will change the practices and strategies with respect to management of the companies, fact &
rational based decisions, and performance of the people on their jobs.

Smietana (2010) has highlighted the importance of pervasive BI tool in helping

manufacturing and service providers to manage their supply chain operations efficiently and
in profitable manner. The author discussed how pervasive BI tool is helping in plan, source,
make, deliver and return stages of SCOR (Supply chain operations reference) framework of
supply chain process by citing example of wine & spirit distributor and healthcare provider.
The author highlighted that supply chain managers have to look for reduction in cost and
have to protect the margin and pervasive BI tool helps in decreasing inventory, improving
customer satisfaction rating and cost reduction in supply chain process. During planning
stage, the BI tool can help in demand forecasting based on the historical data, In sourcing
stage the BI tool help in evaluating vendor performance and helps in reducing inventory cost.
In make stage, BI tool helps manufacturer to re-deploy excess capacity and underutilized
assets, reduce waste and decrease operating costs. In delivery stage, geographical based BI
tool helps in identifying transportation bottlenecks and alternate delivery routes for efficient
delivery and in return stage, BI tool can help in root cause analysis of return goods and
customer feedback analysis.

Ahmad and Shiratuddin (2010) have highlighted in their study that BI tool is the key source
for acquiring knowledge for sustaining in competitive telecommunication industry in
Malaysia. The researchers had undertaken a qualitative field study of BI implementation of
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four telecommunication services providers. The researchers have used convenience non-
random method for selecting the sample for the data collection. The study was conducted on
key personnel taking decisions in their organizations via interviews. The study highlighted
that following major factors: quality of information, quality of users, quality of systems and
governance of BI tool affect successful implementation and this coupled with organization
strategy, culture and use of BI tools leads to generating insight for sustainable competitive
advantage. The article has not addressed the various business functions where the business
intelligence tool was used in telecommunication industry and has not quantified the
sustainable competitive edge.

Popescu (2012) has highlighted various benefits the organization will gain by adopting the BI
solutions. The paper highlights that BI tool can enable organizations to view single version of
truth/data, perform the historical data analysis, align operations to strategic objective and
organizations should adopt for BI solutions. The author has highlighted the traditional
information support systems were application oriented while new BI tool focused on
enterprise based single decision support solution. The article highlights that organization gets
a better view of business environment based on the opportunities and insights provided by the
BI tool enables best decisions in the organization. The paper has not quantified the efficiency
and effectiveness gains achieved arising out of implementation of BI tool.

Custis (2012) has highlighted the importance of BI systems and data mining technology in
the hospitality industry in the research paper. The author has carried out extensive literature
review and has highlighted various scenarios where BI & data mining technology can be used
such as improving customer relationship by providing personalized service, improving
effectiveness of loyalty program and managing human capital more efficiently. The author
has highlighted that data mining and BI tools are useful at managerial and operational level in
industry in order to understand their guests and for identifying trends. The author also
highlighted that online feedback/opinion are available in the form of text and mining of the
same could be of big value to the industry. The author highlighted that the agile development
strategy must be followed for BI tool in order to have maximum return on investment from
initiatives. The author suggested to have environmental scanning strategy to limit the data
need for proactive search to reduce stress on company resources and suggested for having
industry specific data acquisition & use strategy. The author recommended that BI system
should be included in the overall business strategy of hospitality industry.

Jai (2013) has highlighted in his article that private firms like Tata Power and Reliance are
using weather forecasting data of skymet (weather analysis and forecast agency) and are
accurately forecasting the power consumption demand which enables power firms to help
them make accurate decisions regarding the sale and purchase of power. The author has also
highlighted that BSES uses a load forecasting system developed by SAS analytics to helps its
distribution companies to predict the load factor more accurately. The BI analytics has helped
the organization to keep the power purchase cost to low and in result passing the higher
benefits to the consumer.

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2.5 Inferences from the reviews

The findings from the literature reviews depicted that business intelligence tool information
has significant influence on quality of decision-making and quality of decision-making has
significant influence on organizational growth. It is depicted that there is significant
difference in the quality of decision-making after BI tool implementation. Some of them
reveals that there is significant improvement in the organizational growth after BI tool
implementation.

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 CHAPTER 3

THEORETICAL REVIEW

In today’s global, complex, complicated, competitive and continuously changing business,

political and technological environment, the management need to respond swiftly to market
dynamics in order to survive and to stay competitive which in turns demand for taking
effective, efficient, timely, speedy and quality decisions.

It is known fact that sustainable practices and decisions lead to profitability, growth and
success of the organization. Organizations are getting new set of challenges and they must
deliver results with both effectiveness and efficiency in current business environment. The
managers spent lot of time to manage and sustain the health and performance of their
organization and the decision-making process is further complicated as organizations need to
consider information beyond its boundaries with the progression of technology and our
ability to engage in more streamlined business, the role of decision-making in today’s
organizations became even more critical.

The ability to optimize company performance typically depends on decision-maker’s skills to

analyse & measure business performance and to take timely action based on the information.
The complexity of today’s business operations, competition and regulations has made the job
of the manager increasingly difficult and numerous factors affects the manager’s decision and
manager requires the analysed and summarized information in timely manner for effective
decision-making (Arsham,n.d.).Due to the improvements in technology, innovations in
communication and globalization of workforce, management has to consider numerous
alternatives and dimensions when making a decision. The information needs of management
have changed and they require new, reliable and quality information at speed to support
quality decision-making within organizations.

The decision speed is recognized as a critical factor of organization performance in dynamic

and volatile environments (Kownatzki et al., 2013) and the organization performance
deteriorates when decision-makers are not able to respond quickly to the business situation
due to lack of information and the decisions related to revenue and profitability, compliance
and risk management should be taken faster as the outcome of the same results in competitive
edge (Wilson, 2011).

According to Arif et al. (2012) success of any organization depends on its strategic decision
and has defined the decision making process as the identification of best plan of action from
alternatives and process consists of four steps namely developing premises, identifying
alternative, evaluating alternative and decision implementation.

According to Rodrigues and Hickson (1995) a decision-making process in which information

and means of implementation were readily available most likely result to a successful
decision. The decision making process requires accurate, complete information at each step
for quality decision. GE and Helfret (2013) highlighted in their study that information
accuracy and completeness affect decision quality significantly.
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The decision-making in management is an essential skill required at all level and the quality
of decision impacts the performance of the organization. The top management has to take
strategic and complex decisions which affect the long-term direction of the business based on
the organization's vision, goals and values, the middle management have to take tactical and
less complex decision to meet the strategic objective and finally the front-line management is
responsible for operational and routine decision as depicted below:

Figure 3.1: Organizational level and impact of decision making (Taylor, 2009)

Operational decisions are high in volume but have relatively low economic impact/value on
the organization, tactical decision has middle volume and middle impact on the business and
strategic decisions are of high value and low volume in nature.

Over the last decades business data volumes have increased tremendously due to rise of
business information systems such as ERP, CRM etc. and is going for further explosive
growth. International Data Corporation (IDC) highlighted in sixth annual study that the
digital universe comprising of structured and unstructured data will grow 300 times to 40,000
exabytes from 130 exabytes by 2020 and the size of data will double every two years from
2012 onwards.

As a result of data explosion organizations will be creating and storing more business data in
digital form and will have to process the same into useful information to improve their
quality decision-making capabilities. The useful information will need to be provided in
right-time, in right formats and on demand that enable business leaders to take decisions for
optimizing & improving business performance. Good and quality decision in organization
leads to sustainable organization growth and organizations should be better equipped with
tools and processes for meeting the short and long term goals.

With such vast amounts of data that are amassed and available, it is imperative to provide the
timely & correct information to the decision-maker to ensure business decisions success. A
natural dilemma is how businesses can make sense of all the data without wasting time and
resources as the amount of data captured continues to soar. With the increased reliance on the
e-commerce and mobile based platforms for business operations the marketplace conditions
22
will further complicate, accelerate and intensify the need for Business intelligence (BI) tool
based analysis.

3.1 Definition of Business Intelligence Tool

Luhn (1958) was the first to define the “business intelligence system” term in 1958 in his
research. He has defined business as a combined activities performed by government,
science, technology, commerce, industry, law, defence sectors etc. and intelligence as “the
ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way to guide action
towards a desired goal”. The communication facility supporting the execution of a business
was introduced as an intelligence system in his research.

Business intelligence (BI) has its roots in the decision-support technologies first developed in
the late 1970s. Gartner analyst (Howard Dresner) coined and popularized the term “business
intelligence” in 1989.Gartner has defined “Business intelligence (BI) - as an umbrella term
that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to
and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance”.

According to Almeida et al. (1999) "Business intelligence means using your data assets to
make better business decisions. It is about access, analysis, and uncovering new
opportunities."

Business intelligence (BI) market can be defined as a set of methodologies, processes,

architectures, and technologies that leverage the output of information management processes
for analysis, reporting, performance management, and information delivery. Research
coverage includes executive dashboards as well as query and reporting tools.

Business intelligence allows people at levels of an organization to access, interact with, and
analyse data to manage the business, improve performance, discover opportunities and
operate efficiently.

According to Williams and Williams (2007), "BI combines products, technology and
methods to organize key information that management needs to improve profit and
performance. In particular, it means leveraging information assets within key business
processes to achieve improved business performance".

The Data Warehousing Institute defines “Business intelligence (BI) unites data, technology,
analytics, and human knowledge to optimize business decisions and ultimately drive an
enterprise’s success”.

According to Eckerson, "Taking a big picture view, BI is an umbrella term that encompasses
a raft of data warehousing, and data integration technologies as well as querying, reporting
and analysis tools, required to fulfil the promise of giving business users self-service access
to information’’.

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According to Sabherwal and Becerra-Fernandez, “Business intelligence (BI) means providing
decision makers with valuable and information knowledge by leveraging a variety of sources
of data as well as structured and unstructured information”.

In general, BI tool generate insightful information by processing the business partners,

products, services, customers and suppliers data. BI tools are used for reporting & analysis,
performance management, predictive analysis, and for the purpose of decision-making in the
business functions (sales & marketing, finance, human resource, manufacturing, supply
chain) of the organization as depicted in figure.

Figure 3.2 : BI tools & applications

3.2 Evolution of Business Intelligence Tools

The mainframe computer developed in 1950s led to the evolution of data processing systems
which further led to development of decision support system in late 1960 and throughout the
mid-1980. Watson and Marjanovic (2013) have classified decision support system into four
generations and have mentioned that the first two generations were used for tactical and
strategic decision, but third and fourth generation tools are used for operational decisions as
well. Each generation has laid down foundation for building the next generation.

Business Intelligence (BI) has its roots in the decision support technologies and decision-
support domain have expanded over the years with the development of various decision-
support applications - business information system, on-line analytical processing (OLAP) &
predictive analytic. The BI tools started getting popularity both in the business world and the
academia around 2000.

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The BI tools functionality has evolved over time and the key functionality developments are
provided in table below.

Table 3.1 : Evolution of BI tool functionality adapted from (Eckerson, 2011)

Year BI tools functionality Purpose

1970-1980 Mainframe based reporting Traditional decision support system

tools/4GL

1980-1990 RDBM's based reporting Management/Execution decision

and analytics support system

1990-2000 Rise of OLAP/Data Historical data analysis comparison and

warehouse, Business decision support
analytics and BI tools

2000-2010 Enterprise performance Measuring Key performance indicators

management and predictive of the organization and to predict about
analytics future

2010-Now Big data, social, mobile & To unlock the value of structured and
cloud based analytics unstructured data and to drive
innovation, competition, and
productivity in the organization

Almeida et al. (1999) have classified BI tools into three generations.The first generation
consists of the host-based query and reporting tools ran in batch mode to provide business
users with the information in paper format and management need to go through the papers
reports for answers to the business question.The second generation consisting of data
warehousing which was a giant leap in the technology and were designed to satisfy the needs
of business user for strategic and tactical purpose and supplied both historical and
summarized information to the user.In the third generation tools, the focus shifted from
technology to the business solution and packaged application/analytics were provided to the
customer for supporting the business requirements.

White (2006) has classified BI application into strategic, tactical, and operational categories
based on business focus, users, timeframe and data. Strategic BI is used for managing long-
term objectives, tactical BI is used for measuring & optimizing the performance of business
initiatives and operational BI is used for managing and optimizing day-to-day operations.

25
The characteristics of each type of BI is discussed in table below.

Table 3.2 : Types of BI sourced from White (2006)

Types of BI Strategic BI Tactical BI Operational BI

Business Achieve long-term Manage tactical Manage and

focus goals & objectives initiatives to Enhance day-to-
meet strategic day operations
goals

Users Senior management Senior managers Managers

& Business
executives

Timeframe months - years day - months 1 day

Data Historical data Historical data Intra-day data

The BI services and deployment model have also evolved, traditional BI which is designed
and built on enterprise data warehouse, the infrastructure was owned by the customer . The
two new BI models (on-demand and open source) of service delivery have been evolved in
the recent past. The BI vendor manages and hosts the application in on-demand BI (software
as a service; SaaS) service model and customer uses the application on demand and makes
payment based on the subscription amount agreed with the vendor. The open source BI
products are freely available and the vendor takes an existing product & develops/enhances
the product and makes it their own so that they can market and sell the product. Open-source
vendors charges to the customer for services support for the add-ons developed by vendor.

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Gentile (2010) has simplified the classification of BI tools into two categories past and the
present based on business purpose, decision timeline, architecture and data accessibility as
described in table .

Table 3.3 : Comparison of past and present BI tool characteristics sourced from
Gentile (2010)

Characteristic Past BI Tools Now

Business Purpose Individual Decisions Collaborative Decision

Decision Timeline What Happened? What's Happening?

Architecture Closed, Proprietary, Open Standards-Based, Web

Client/Server 2.0

Access Point Desktop Computer Thin Client/Browser, Mobile

App

Type of User Power User End User

Users Reached Few Many

Data Access Structured/Relational Almost Anything

Type of deployment On-Premises: Desktop On-Premises, Virtualized,

and Server SaaS, and Cloud

The BI technology and business models has evolved over the past decades and is driving data
driven decision culture in the organization for operational, tactical and strategic decision and
customer can select from cloud/on-premise/open source based platform to access and
generate insight from structured and un-structured data for individual, predictive &
collaborative quality decision making for organizational growth.

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3.3 Components of BI

 OLAP (On-line analytical processing): It refers to the way in which business users
can slice and dice their way through data using sophisticated tools that allow for the
navigation of dimensions such as time or hierarchies. Online Analytical Processing or
OLAP provides multidimensional, summarized views of business data and is used for
reporting, analysis, modeling and planning for optimizing the business. OLAP
techniques and tools can be used to work with data warehouses or data marts designed
for sophisticated enterprise intelligence systems. These systems process queries
required to discover trends and analyze critical factors. Reporting software generates
aggregated views of data to keep the management informed about the state of their
business. Other BI tools are used to store and analyze data, such as data mining and
data warehouses; decision support systems and forecasting; document warehouses and
document management; knowledge management; mapping, information visualization,
and dash boarding; management information systems, geographic information
systems; Trend Analysis; Software as a Service (SaaS).

 Advanced Analytics: It is referred to as data mining, forecasting or predictive

analytics, this takes advantage of statistical analysis techniques to predict or provide
certainty measures on facts.

 Corporate Performance Management (Portals, Scorecards, Dashboards): This

general category usually provides a container for several pieces to plug into so that the
aggregate tells a story. For example, a balanced scorecard that displays portlets for
financial metrics combined with say organizational learning and growth metrics.

 Real time BI: It allows for the real time distribution of metrics through email,
messaging systems and/or interactive displays.

 Data Warehouse and data marts: The data warehouse is the significant component
of business intelligence. It is subject oriented, integrated. The data warehouse supports
the physical propagation of data by handling the numerous enterprise records for
integration, cleansing, aggregation and query tasks. It can also contain the operational
data which can be defined as an updateable set of integrated data used for enterprise
wide tactical decision-making of a particular subject area. It contains live data, not
snapshots, and retains minimal history. Data sources can be operational databases,
historical data, external data for example, from market research companies or from the
Internet), or information from the already existing data warehouse environment. The
data sources can be relational databases or any other data structure that supports the
line of business applications. They also can reside on many different platforms and
can contain structured information, such as tables or spreadsheets, or unstructured
information, such as plaintext files or pictures and other multimedia information.

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 A data mart is a collection of subject areas organized for decision support based on
the needs of a given department. Finance has their data mart, marketing has theirs, and
sales have theirs and so on. And the data mart for marketing only faintly resembles
anyone else's data mart. Perhaps most importantly, the individual departments own the
hardware, software, data and programs that constitute the data mart. Each department
has its own interpretation of what a data mart should look like and each department's
data mart is peculiar to and specific to its own needs. Similar to data warehouses, data
marts contain operational data that helps business experts to strategize based on
analyses of past trends and experiences. The key difference is that the creation of a
data mart is predicated on a specific, predefined need for a certain grouping and
configuration of select data. There can be multiple data marts inside an enterprise. A
data mart can support a particular business function, business process or business unit.

BI tools are widely accepted as a new middleware between transactional applications

and decision support applications, thereby decoupling systems tailored to an efficient
handling of business transactions from systems tailored to an efficient support of
business decisions. The capabilities of BI include decision support, online analytical
processing, statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.

3.4 Data Sources

Data sources can be operational databases, historical data, external data for example, from
market research companies or from the Internet), or information from the already existing
data warehouse environment. The data sources can be relational databases or any other data
structure that supports the line of business applications. They also can reside on many
different platforms and can contain structured information, such as tables or spreadsheets, or
unstructured information, such as plaintext files or pictures and other multimedia information.

3.5 Issues in BI

 Experts View: Experts view BI in different ways. Data warehousing experts view BI
as supplementary systems and is very new to them. These experts treat BI as
technology platform for decision support application. The author is of opinion that to
data mining experts BI is set of advanced decision support systems with data mining
techniques and applications of algorithms. To statisticians BI is viewed as a
forecasting and multidimensional analysis based tool.

 Approaches in Data Warehousing: The main key to successful BI system is

consolidating data from the many different enterprise operational systems into an
enterprise data warehouse. Very few organizations have a full-fledged enterprise data
warehouse. This is due to the vast scope of effort towards consolidating the entire
enterprise data. (Berson et.al, 2002) emphasizes that in view of emerging highly
dynamic business environment, only the most competitive enterprises will achieve
sustained market success. The organizations will distinguish themselves by the
capability to leverage information about their market place, customers, and operations
to capitalize on the business opportunities.
29
  Analysis of right information: Several surveys including Gartner, Forrester and
International Data Centre report that most of the firms throughout the globe are
interested in investing in BI. It is to be noted that despite major investments in
enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM)
over the last decade businesses are struggling to achieve competitive advantage. It is
due to the information captured by these systems. Any corporate would look forward
for one goal called ‘right access to information quickly’. Hence, the firms need to
support the analysis and application of information in order to make operational
decisions. Say for marking seasonal merchandise or providing certain
recommendations to customers, firms need right access to information quickly.
Implementing smarter business processes is where business intelligence influences
and influences the bottom line and returns value to any firm.

3.6 Future of business intelligence

In this rapidly changing world consumers are now demanding quicker more efficient service
from businesses. To stay competitive companies must meet or exceed the expectations of
consumers. Companies will have to rely more heavily on their business intelligence systems
to stay ahead of trends and future events. Business intelligence users are beginning to demand
Real time Business Intelligence or near real time analysis relating to their business,
particularly in frontline operations. They will come to expect up to date and fresh information
in the same fashion as they monitor stock quotes online. Monthly and even weekly analysis
will not suffice. In the not too distant future companies will become dependent on real time
business information in much the same fashion as people come to expect to get information
on the internet in just one or two clicks.

Also in the near future business information will become more democratized where end users
from throughout the organization will be able to view information on their particular segment
to see how it's performing.

So, in the future, the capability requirements of business intelligence will increase in the same
way that consumer expectations increase. It is therefore imperative that companies increase at
the same pace or even faster to stay competitive.

3.7 Reasons for business intelligence

Business Intelligence enables organizations to make well informed business decisions and
thus can be the source of competitive advantages. This is especially true when firms are able
to extrapolate information from indicators in the external environment and make accurate
forecasts about future trends or economic conditions. Once business intelligence is gathered
effectively and used proactively then the firms can make decisions that benefit the firms.

The ultimate objective of business intelligence is to improve the timeliness and quality of
information. Timely and good quality information is like having a crystal ball that can give an
indication of what's the best course to take.
30
Business intelligence reveals:

• The position of the firm as in comparison to its competitors

• Changes in customer behavior and spending patterns
• The capabilities of the firm
• Market conditions, future trends, demographic and economic information
• The social, regulatory, and political environmen
• What the other firms in the market are doing

Businesses realize that in this very competitive, fast paced and ever-changing business
environment, a key competitive quantity is how quickly they respond and adapt to change.
Business intelligence enables them to use information gathered to quickly and constantly
respond to changes.

The Figure below presents an understanding of BI. A BI system in other words is a

combination of data warehousing and decision support systems. The figure also reveals how
data from disparate sources can be extracted and stored to be retrieved for analysis. The basic
BI functions and reports are shown in figure.

Fig 3.3: A basic understanding of BI

The primary activities include gathering, preparing and analyzing data. The data itself must
be of high quality. The various sources of data is collected, transformed, cleansed, loaded and
stored in a warehouse. The relevant data is for a specific business area that is extracted from
the data warehouse. A BI organization fully exploits data at every phase of the BI architecture
as it progresses through various levels of informational metamorphosis. The raw data is born
31
in operational environments, where transactional data pours in from every source and every
corner of the enterprise. Therefore, that is the business intelligent organization vision: A
natural flow of data, from genesis to action. In addition, at each step in the flow, the data is
fully exploited to ensure the increase of information value for the enterprise. The challenge
for BI, of course, is to build any organization’s vision.

3.8 Benefits of BI

BI provides many benefits to companies utilizing it. It can eliminate a lot of the guesswork
within an organization, enhance communication among departments while coordinating
activities, and enable companies to respond quickly to changes in financial conditions,
customer preferences, and supply chain operations. BI improves the overall performance of
the company using it.

Information is often regarded as the second most important resource a company has (a
company's most valuable assets are its people). So when a company can make decisions
based on timely and accurate information, the company can improve its performance. BI also
expedites decision-making, as acting quickly and correctly on information before competing
businesses do can often result in competitively superior performance. It can also improve
customer experience, allowing for the timely and appropriate response to customer problems
and priorities.

The firms have recognized the importance of business intelligence for the masses has arrived.
Some of them are listed below.

• With BI superior tools, now employees can also easily convert their business knowledge via
the analytical intelligence to solve many business issues, like increase response rates from
direct mail, telephone, e-mail, and Internet delivered marketing campaigns.

• With BI, firms can identify their most profitable customers and the underlying reasons for
those customers’ loyalty, as well as identify future customers with comparable if not greater
potential.

• Analyze click-stream data to improve e- commerce strategies.

• Quickly detect warranty-reported problems to minimize the impact of product design

deficiencies.

• Discover money-laundering criminal activities.

• Analyze potential growth customer profitability and reduce risk exposure through more
accurate financial credit scoring of their customers.
• Determine what combinations of products and service lines customers are likely to purchase
and when.

• Analyze clinical trials for experimental drugs.

32
• Set more profitable rates for insurance premiums.

• Reduce equipment downtime by applying predictive maintenance.

• Determine with attrition and churn analysis why customers leave for competitors and/or
become the customers.

• Detect and deter fraudulent behavior, such as from usage spikes when credit or phone cards
are stolen.

• Identify promising new molecular drug compounds.

Customers are the most critical aspect to a company's success. Without them a company
cannot exist. So it is very important that firms have information on their preferences. Firms
must quickly adapt to their changing demands. Business Intelligence enables firms to gather
information on the trends in the marketplace and come up with innovative products or
services in anticipation of customer's changing demands.

Competitors can be a huge hurdle on firm’s way to success. Their objectives are the same as
firms’ and that is to maximize profits and customer satisfaction. In order to be successful
firms must stay one step ahead of the competitors. In business we don't want to play the catch
up game because we would have lost valuable market share. Business Intelligence tells what
actions our competitors are taking, so one can make better informed decisions.

3.9 Business intelligence technology

Business intelligence provides organizational data in such a way that the organizational
knowledge filters can easily associate with this data and turn it into information for the
organization. Persons involved in business intelligence processes may use application
software and other technologies to gather, store, analyze, and provide access to data, and
present that data in a simple, useful manner. The software aids in Business performance
management, and aims to help people make "better" business decisions by making accurate,
current, and relevant information available to them when they need it. Some businesses use
data warehouses because they are a logical collection of information gathered from various
operational databases for the purpose of creating business intelligence.

33
In order for BI system to work effectively there must be some technical constraints in place.
BI technical requirements have to address the following issues:

• Security and specified user access to the warehouse

• Data volume (capacity)

• How long data will be stored (data retention)

• Benchmark and performance targets

People working in business intelligence have developed tools that ease the work, especially
when the intelligence task involves gathering and analyzing large quantities of unstructured
data. Each vendor typically defines Business Intelligence their own way, and markets tools to
do BI the way that they see it.

Business intelligence includes tools in various categories, including the following:

• AQL - Associative Query Logic

• Scorecarding
• Business Performance Management and Performance Measurement
• Business Planning
• Business Process Re-engineering
• Competitive Analysis
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Marketing
• Data mining (DM), Data Farming, and Data warehouses
• Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Forecasting
• Document warehouses and Document Management
• Enterprise Management systems
• Executive Information Systems (EIS)
• Finance and Budgeting
• Human Resources
• Knowledge Management
• Mapping, Information visualization, and Dash boarding
• Management Information Systems (MIS)
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and multidimensional analysis; sometimes simply
called "Analytics" (based on the so-called "hypercube" or "cube")
• Real time business intelligence
• Statistics and Technical Data Analysis
• Supply Chain Management/Demand Chain Management
• Systems intelligence
• Trend Analysis
• User/End-user Query and Reporting
• Web Personalization and Web Mining
• Text mining

34
BI often uses Key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the present state of business and to
prescribe a course of action. More and more organizations have started to make more data
available more promptly. In the past, data only became available after a month or two, which
did not help managers to adjust activities in time to hit Wall Street targets. Recently, banks
have tried to make data available at shorter intervals and have reduced delays.

For example, for businesses which have higher operational/credit risk loading (for example,
credit cards and "wealth management"), a large multi-national bank makes KPI-related data
available weekly, and sometimes offers a daily analysis of numbers. This means data usually
becomes available within 24 hours, necessitating automation and the use of IT systems.

3.10 Designing and implementing a business intelligence

When implementing a BI programme one might like to pose a number of questions and take a
number of resultant decisions, such as:

• Goal Alignment queries: The first step determines the short and medium-term purposes of
the programme. What strategic goal(s) of the organization will the programme address? What
organizational mission/vision does it relate to? A crafted hypothesis needs to detail how this
initiative will eventually improve results / performance (i.e. a strategy map).

• Baseline queries: Current information- gathering competency needs assessing. Does the
organization have the capability of monitoring important sources of information? What data
does the organization collect and how does it store that data? What are the statistical
parameters of this data, e.g. how much random variation does it contain? Does the
organization measure this?

• Cost and risk queries: The financial consequences of a new BI initiative should be
estimated. It is necessary to assess the cost of the present operations and the increase in costs
associated with the BI initiative? What is the risk that the initiative will fail? This risk
assessment should be converted into a financial metric and included in the planning.

• Customer and Stakeholder queries: Determine who will benefit from the initiative and who
will pay. Who has a stake in the current procedure? What kinds of customers/stakeholders
will benefit directly from this initiative? Who will benefit indirectly? What are the
quantitative / qualitative benefits? Is the specified initiative the best way to increase
satisfaction for all kinds of customers, or is there a better way? How will customers' benefits
be monitored? What about employees,... shareholders,... distribution channel members?

• Metrics-related queries: These information requirements must be operationalized into

clearly defined metrics. One must decide what metrics to use for each piece of information
being gathered. Are these the best metrics? How do we know that? How many metrics need
to be tracked? If this is a large number (it usually is), what kind of system can be used to
track them? Are the metrics standardized, so they can be benchmarked against performance in
other organizations? What are the industry standard metrics available?

35
• Measurement Methodology-related queries: One should establish a methodology or a
procedure to determine the best (or acceptable) way of measuring the required metrics. What
methods will be used, and how frequently will the organization collect data? Do industry
standards exist for this? Is this the best way to do the measurements? How do we know that?

• Results-related queries: Someone should monitor the BI programme to ensure that

objectives are being met. Adjustments in the programme may be necessary. The programme
should be tested for accuracy, reliability, and validity. How can one demonstrate that the BI
initiative (rather than other factors) contributed to a change in results? How much of the
change was probably random?

3.11 Importance of Business Intelligence Tools in IT Sector

According to the Gartner (2012) report, BI tools & analytics was the top-ranked technology
for 2012 of the Chief Information Officer’s (CIO’s) in organization. According to Gartner
(2014), worldwide business intelligence (BI) and analytics software revenue was $14.4
billion in 2013 and is expected to grow at fast pace in the coming years and top 5 vendor
holds the 70% market share as depicted below:

Figure 3.3 : BI tool market share adapted from Gartner (2014)

The analytics (business intelligence), social, mobility & cloud technology will provide long
term growth to the information technology industry and IT organizations should give high
focus on building the capabilities in the emerging technologies. The Indian IT sector is highly
dependent on software exports and organizations operate in volatile and changing global
environment. Any adverse political, economic condition of the major consumer countries
such as USA, UK and Europe has negative impact on the Indian IT sector as seen in the past
recession of 2007/2008. The technology and regulatory landscape is very complex and
organizations have to continuously take decisions to survive in the global environment.

The management has to not only take operational decision for optimizing day to day
operations but have to also take difficult tactical and strategic decision in order to build the
capabilities for next generation technologies and to drive growth. The success of the decision
depends on the quality of decision for which reliable & quality information/data is required.
36
In informational technology organization a typical management hierarchy starts with project
manager who has to take operational decision with respect to day-to-day decision for running
of the project, followed by program/delivery manager at middle management who has to take
tactical decisions such as improving the margin, cross-sell of the opportunities and followed
by program directors/business unit heads at top management who has to take strategic
decision related to growth of the business.

The organizations in IT Sector are generating huge amount of business data and the data
volume is expected to be doubled by next decade. This data needs to be processed and
analyzed and to be made available on-time to the management for efficient and quality
decisions. With the help of BI tool, the IT organizations can quickly generate insights
enabling them to take quality decision and enabling management to drive operational
efficiencies, identify newer opportunities and differentiate them in the competitive market.
The decision-making powered by BI tool will become a formidable force for competitive
advantage and organizational growth for organizations in the coming years.

37
 Chapter 4

DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter contains the data collection and analysis of BI tool impact on quality of
decision-making and organizational growth. The chapter is organized into three sections: The
first section contains the data obtained through secondary data collection. The second section
contains descriptive statistics of the data such as mean, standard deviation, frequency
distribution, figures and interpretation. The third section contains hypotheses testing on the
research objectives.
The primary data is collected through questionnaire survey method. The secondary data is
collected from other related articles. Questionnaire survey is used to collect data from 50
employees in various IT organizations. Among these sample, the good quality response was
received from the following categories of respondents: Executives (CIO, CEO, and CFO) -
6%, Director-8%, Sr. Manager -56% and Managers-30%.

4.1 Descriptive Statistics for “Use of BI tools across organization”

Respondents were asked to comment on " Use of BI tools across organization" using five
response options (Integrated use for all business function across the entire organization, used
for few business functions in the entire organization, used in specific business verticals and/or
specific horizontals in the organization, isolated use for a very specific issue and not used in
the organization). The response data were analysed with MS Excel.

The frequency table and pie chart of response is provided below:

Table 4.1 Use of BI tools across organization

Use of BI tools across Frequency Valid Cumulative

organization Percent Percent
Integrated use for all business 36 70.6 70.6
functions
Used for few business functions 11 21.6 92.2
Used in specific business 4 7.8 100.0
verticals/horizontals
Total 50 100.0

38
 Interpretation:

70.59% of respondents said

“Integrated use of BI tools”.
21.57% of respondents said
“Selected use of BI tools for
few business functions”.
7.84% of respondent said
“Used in specific business
verticals/horizontals”

Figure 4.1. Use of BI tools across organization

Inference: From the above interpretation it is concluded that majority of the respondents
agree that BI tools are used in integrated manner in all business functions in the organization.

4.2 Descriptive Statistics for “Objectives achieved after BI tool implementation”

Respondents were asked to comment on “Objectives achieved after BI tool implementation”

using 5 point likert scale (1=Strongly disagree,2 =Disagree,3=Neither agree Nor
disagree,4=Agree,5=Strongly Agree ) .Further they were offered the following eight BI
objectives (Standardized Reporting & Analytics ,Timely Report availability ,Improving
quality of decision-making, Improved Efficiency , Organizational Growth ,Optimized
internal process ,Platform enabling data driven decision-making culture for future
organizational strategies , Competitive Advantage ) and were asked to comment on the each
objective on the above scale . The response data were analyzed with MS Excel. The
frequency and descriptive statistics of response is provided below:

Table 4.2 Frequencies of objectives achieved after BI tool implementation

Objectives N Vali Strongly Disagree Neither Agree Strongl

achieved after d% disagree (Frequen agree (Freq y Agree
BI tool (Freque cy %) nor uency (Freque
implementation ncy %) disagre %) ncy %)
e
(Frequ
ency
%)
Standardized 50 100 3.9 0 3.9 54.9 37.3
Reporting &
Analytics

39
 Timely Report 50 100 0 0 2 58.8 39.2
availability
Improving 50 100 3.9 0 11.8 52.9 31.4
quality of
decision-making
Improved 50 100 3.9 2 9.8 47.1 37.3
Efficiency
Organizational 50 100 0 0 37.3 45.1 17.6
Growth

Optimized 50 100 0 2 21.6 54.9 21.6

internal process
Platform 50 100 0 3.9 21.6 49.0 25.5
enabling data
driven decision-
making culture
for future
organizational
strategies
Competitive 50 100 0 3.9 41.2 45.1 9.8
Advantage

Inference: From the interpretation table it is concluded that most of the respondents agree
that the following objectives are achieved after BI tool implementation in their organization:

a) Standardized Reporting & Analytics

b) Timely Report availability
c) Improving quality of decision-making
d) Improved Efficiency
e) Organizational Growth
f) Optimized internal process
g) Platform enabling data driven decision-making culture for future
organizational strategies
h) Competitive Advantage

40
4.3 Descriptive Statistics for “Usage of BI analytics in the organization”

Respondents were asked to comment on “Usage of BI analytics in the organization” using 5

point likert scale (1=Strongly disagree,2 =Disagree,3=Neither agree Nor
disagree,4=Agree,5=Strongly Agree ) .Further they were offered the following nine
analytics (Sales/Revenue Analytics, Utilization Analytics, Profitability Analytics, Bench
Analytics, Sales & General Administrative Expense Analytics, Quality (Project Delivery)
Analytics, Training Analytics, Hiring Analytics & Attrition Analytics) and were asked to
comment on the usage/adoption of each analytics on the above scale. The response data
were analysed using MS Excel. The frequency and descriptive statistics of response is
provided below:
Table 4.3 Frequencies of usage of BI analytics in the organization

Usage of
BI N Vali Very Low Not High Very
analytics in d Low Usage Deployed/ Usage High
the % Usage (Frequ used over (Freque Usage
organization (Freque ency BI ncy %) (Freque
ncy %) %) (Frequenc ncy %)
y %)
Sales/Rev. 50 100 4.0 0.0 6.0 64.0 26.0
Analytics
Utilization 50 100 7.8 2.0 5.9 49.0 35.3
Analytics
Profitability 50 100 0.0 12.2 14.3 46.9 26.5
Analytics
Bench 50 100 8.2 8.2 28.6 34.7 20.4
Analytics
Sales & 50 100 6.7 8.9 35.6 42.2 6.7
General Adm.
Expense
Analytics
Quality 50 100 7.8 15.7 19.6 33.3 23.5
(Project
Delivery)
Analytic
Training 50 100 12.2 18.4 40.8 24.5 4.1
Analytics
Hiring 50 100 22.9 8.3 37.5 25.0 6.3
Analytics
Attrition 50 100 18.8 10.4 35.4 29.2 6.3
Analytics

41
Inference:
From the above interpretation table, it is concluded that BI analytics has high usage except for
training, hiring & attrition analytics which are not deployed/used. The BI analytics with high
usage in the organization are:

a) Sales/Revenue Analytics
b) Utilization Analytics
c) Profitability Analytics
d) Bench Analytics
e) Quality (Project Delivery) Analytics

4.3 Multiple Response Analysis for “Features of the BI tool deployed in the
organization”

Respondents were asked to comment on “Features of the BI tool deployed in the

organization” and were offered with five features (Standardized Reporting, Ad-hoc Analysis,
Scorecard/Dashboard, KPI (Key Performance Indicator), Predictive Analytics) used in each
of the following analytics (Sales/Revenue Analytics, Utilization Analytics, Profitability
Analytics, Bench Analytics, Sales & General Administrative Expense Analytics, Quality
(Project Delivery) Analytics, Training Analytics, Hiring Analytics & Attrition Analytics).

Table 4.3 Frequencies of features of BI tool deployed in the organization

Features of Std. Ad-hoc Scorecard/ KPI Predictive

BI Reporting Analysis Dashboard Analytics
Analytics
N Perce N Perce N Perce N Percent N Percen
nt nt nt t
Sales/Reven 32 29.1 15 13.6 32 29.1 18 16.4 13 11.8
ue Analytics
Utilization 27 29.7 10 11.0 19 20.9 24 26.4 11 12.1
Analytics
Profitability 25 30.9 7 8.6 24 29.6 17 21.0 8 9.9
Analytics
Bench 22 44.0 6 12.0 16 32.0 3 6.0 3 6.0
Analytics
Sales &
General
Administrati 26 49.1 10 18.9 9 17.0 6 11.3 2 3.8
ve Expense
Analytics
Quality 23 31.5 8 11.0 16 21.9 21 28.8 5 6.8

42
 (Project
Delivery)
Analytics
Training 16 38.1 11 26.2 7 16.7 6 14.3 2 4.8
Analytics
Hiring
15 34.1 9 20.5 9 20.5 6 13.6 5 11.4
Analytics
Attrition 15 33.3 9 20.0 9 20.0 4 8.9 8 17.8
Analytics

Inference: From the above interpretation table, most commonly deployed features for each
BI analytics in the organization is summarized below:
Table 4.4 Summary of most commonly deployed features of BI tool in the organization.

BI Analytics Most commonly deployed features of BI tool

Sales/Revenue Analytics Standardized Reporting

Scorecard/Dashboard
Utilization Analytics Standardized Reporting
KPI
Profitability Analytics Standardized Reporting
Scorecard /Dashboard
Bench Analytics Standardized Reporting
Scorecard /Dashboard
Sales & General Adm. Standardized Reporting
Expense Analytics
Quality (Project Delivery) Standardized Reporting
Analytics KPI
Training Analytics Standardized Reporting
Ad-hoc Analysis
Hiring Analytics Standardized Reporting
Scorecard/Dashboard
Ad-hoc Analysis
Attrition Analytics Standardized Reporting
Scorecard/Dashboard
Ad-hoc Analysis

43
4.4 Descriptive Statistics for “Usage of BI tool in decision-making categories in the
organization”

Respondents were asked to comment on the “Usage of BI tool in decision-making categories

in the organization” using 5 point likert scale (1=Strongly disagree, 2 =Disagree, 3=Neither
agree nor disagree, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree). Further they were offered following three
decision categories (Operational Decision-making, Tactical Decision-Making, Strategic
decision-making) and were asked to comment on each category on the above scale. The
response data were analysed with MS Excel and frequency and descriptive statistics of
response is provided below:
Table 4.5 Frequencies of usage of BI tool in decision-making categories

Usage of BI N Vali Strongly Disagree Neither Agree Strongly

tool in d disagree (Frequen agree (Freq Agree
decision- % (Frequency cy %) nor uency (Frequen
making %) disagree %) cy %)
categories (Freque
ncy %)
Operational 50 100 0.0 0.0 2.0 51.0 47.1
Decision-
making
Tactical 50 100 0.0 6.4 17.0 38.3 38.3
Decision-
Making
Strategic 50 100 4.0 2.0 14.0 44.0 36.0
decision-
making

Inference: From the above interpretation table it is concluded that most of the respondents
agree that BI tools are used in following decision-making categories in the organization:

a) Operational decision-making
b) Tactical decision-making
c) Strategic decision-making

44
4.6 Descriptive Statistics for “Quality decision based on BI tool data/information in the
organization”

Respondents were asked to comment on “Quality decision based on BI tool data/information

in the organization” using five response options (0-20%, 21-40%, 41-60%, 61-80%, 81-
100%). The response data were analyzed using MS Excel. The frequency , bar chart and
interpretation of response is provided below:
Table 4.6 Frequencies of quality decision based on BI tool data/information

Quality decision based Frequency Percent Valid Cumulative

on BI tool (%age) Percent Percent
0-20% 9 17.6 17.6 17.6
21-40% 8 15.7 15.7 33.3
41-60% 12 23.5 23.5 56.9
61-80% 16 31.4 31.4 88.2
81-100% 6 11.8 11.8 100.0
Total 50 100.0 100.0

17.65% of respondent said “0-20%

quality decision”.
15.69% of respondent said “21-
40% quality decision”.
23.53 % of respondent said “41-
60% quality decision”.
31.37% of respondent said “61-
80% quality decision”.
11.76 % of respondent said “81-
100% quality decision”.

Figure 4.6 Quality decision based on BI tool data/information

Inference: From the frequency distribution and bar chart it is concluded that 31.37%
respondents are taking 61-80% of quality decision based on BI tool data/information.

45
4.7 Statistical Analysis

Hypothesis Testing – H1

Research Objective: To study the impact of business intelligence tool on organizational

growth (business performance).

Test of Normality: Variables with skewness and kurtosis values between ±1 indicates
normality. The details of skewness and kurtosis for each variable is provided below

Table 4.7 Skewness and kurtosis of business benefits before and after BI tool
implementaion

Business benefits before and after N Mean Skewness Kurtosis

BI tool
Increase in revenue before BI tool 50 3.16 .368 .174
Improved customer satisfaction 50 3.06 .241 -.097
before BI tool
Increased Efficiency before BI tool 50 2.90 .306 -.635
Reduction in cost (IT & Non-IT 50 2.67 .177 -.598
cost) before BI tool
Identifying new business 50 2.94 .315 -.149
opportunities before BI tool
Increase in Revenue after BI tool 50 3.44 .357 -.629
Improved customer satisfaction 50 3.98 -.793 .060
after BI tool
Increased Efficiency after BI tool 50 4.33 -.913 1.821
Reduction in cost (IT & Non-IT 50 3.94 -.669 .532
cost) after BI tool
Identifying new business 50 3.50 -.507 -.462
opportunities after BI tool
Valid N (listwise) 50

From the table it can be seen that all variables have skewness and kurtosis value within
suggested threshold range except for increased efficiency after BI tool which has missed the
threshold range marginally. Hence paired sample t test is applied for statistical testing.

Statistical Test: Paired Sample t test

Variables & Measurement:

Independent Variable: Before BI tool implementation/After BI tool implementation situation

Dependent Variables: Improvement in organizational growth (business performance)

46
Respondents were asked to comment on improvement in following five business benefits
after BI tool implementation compared to before situation.

a) Increase in revenue

b) Improved customer satisfaction

c) Increased efficiency

d) Reduction in cost (IT & Non-IT cost)

e) Identifying new business opportunities

Each dependent variable is measured on a 5 point likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 2

=Disagree, 3=Neither agree nor disagree, 4=Agree, 5=strongly agree) for before and after BI
tool implementation situation.

Research Hypothesis:
H10: There is no improvement in the organizational growth (business performance)
after BI tool implementation compared to before BI tool implementation. (µ1 = µ2)

H11: There is significant improvement in the organizational growth (business performance)

after BI tool implementation compared to before BI tool implementation. (µ1 ≠ µ2)

Level of Significance:=0.05
The response data were analysed using MS Excel. The mean and the paired sample t test
details are provided in below table.
Table 4.8 Result of t test of business benefits before and after BI tool implementation

Variable Pair Mean Std. t df P Result

Deviat
ion
Pair Increase in 3.16 0.74 -2.137 49 .038 Significant
1 revenue before
BI tool
Increase in 3.44 0.91
revenue after
BI tool
Pair Improved 3.06 0.89 -6.334 49 .000 Significant
2 customer
satisfaction
before BI tool
Improved 3.98 0.91
customer
satisfaction
after BI tool

47
 Pair Increased 2.90 1.06 -9.142 50 .000 Significant
3 efficiency
before BI tool
Increased 4.33 0.65
efficiency
after BI tool
Pair Reduction in 2.67 0.79 -8.912 50 .000 Significant
4 cost before BI
tool
Reduction in 3.94 0.79
cost after BI
tool
Pair Identifying new 2.94 0.87 -3.694 49 .001 Significant
5 business
opportunitie
s
before BI tool
Identifying 3.50 1.15
new business
opportunitie
s
after BI tool

Inference

1. Increase in revenue before and after BI tool implementation: P< than 0.05, null is
rejected. Hence there is significant difference in the mean values of increase in
revenue before BI tool implementation (Mean=3.16) and after BI tool
implementation (Mean=3.44). Hence it is concluded that increase in revenue is
improved after BI tool implementation compared to before situation.

2. Improved customer satisfaction before and after BI tool implementation: P< than
0.05, null is rejected. Hence there is significant difference in the mean values of
improved customer satisfaction before BI tool implementation (Mean=3.06) and
after BI tool implementation (Mean=3.98). Hence it is concluded that customer
satisfaction is improved after BI tool implementation compared to before
situation.

3. Increased efficiency before and after BI tool implementation: P< than 0.05, null is
rejected. Hence there is significant difference in the mean values of increased
efficiency before BI tool implementation (Mean=2.90) and after BI tool
implementation (Mean=4.33). Hence it is concluded that efficiency is increased
after BI tool implementation compared to before situation.

4. Reduction in cost before and after BI tool implementation: P< than 0.05, null is
rejected. Hence there is significant difference in the mean values of reduction in
cost before BI tool implementation (Mean=2.67) and after BI tool implementation
48
 (Mean=3.94). Hence it is concluded that cost reduction is improved after BI tool
implementation compared to before situation.
5. Identifying new business oppurtunities before and after BI tool Implementation:
P< than 0.05, null is rejected. Hence there is significant difference in the mean
values of identifying new business opportunities before BI tool implementation
(Mean=2.94) and after BI tool implementation (Mean=3.50). Hence it is
concluded that identification of new business opportunities improved after BI tool
implementation compared to before situation.

Since all above business benefits have improved after BI tool implementation, it is concluded
that there is positive improvement in the organizational growth (business performance) after
BI tool implementation compared to before situation.

49
Hypothesis Testing-H2

Research Objective: To study impact of BI tool based quality decision-making on decision

categories (operational, tactical and strategic) usage.
Statistical Test: Friedman square test
Variables & Measurement: Respondents were offered the following 3 decision-making
categories for BI tool usage

a) Operational decision-making
b) Tactical decision-making
c) Strategic decision-making

Each decision-making category is measured on a 5 point likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 2

=Disagree, 3=Neither agree nor disagree, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly agree)

Research Hypothesis:
H20: There is no difference in the preference of IT firms for BI tool usage with reference to
decision-making categories in the organization.
H21: There is significant difference in the preference of IT firms for BI tool usage with
reference to decision-making categories in the organization.
Level of Significance =0.05
The response data were analyzed using IBM SPSS and the Friedman square test statistics is
provided below:

Table 4.9: Friedman test statistics usage for BI tool in decision-making categories

Friedman N Chi-Square df Asymp. Sig.

Test 50 8.220 2 .016

Inference: Since P value (0.016) is less than the level of significance ( =0.05) hence null
hypothesis is rejected. Hence it is concluded that there is significant difference in the
preference of IT firms for BI tool usage with reference to decision-making categories in the
organization.To find out where the difference lies, the mean rank table of usage for BI tool in
decision-making categories is referred.
Table 4.10: Mean rank of usage for BI tool in decision-making categories

Rank
Usage for BI tool in decision-making categories Mean Rank order

Operational decision-making 2.22 1

Tactical decision-making 1.91 2
Strategic decision-making 1.86 3

Hence it can be concluded that BI tool has top usage at operational decision-making category
in the IT firms.

50
Hypothesis Testing – H3

Research Objective: To study the areas of usage of BI analytics in information technology

organization.
Statistical Test: Friedman square Test
Variables & Measurement: Respondents were offered the following 9 BI analytics

a) Sales/Revenue Analytics
b) Utilization Analytics
c) Profitability Analytics
d) Bench Analytics
e) Sales & General Administrative Expense Analytics
f) Quality (Project Delivery) Analytics
g) Training Analytics
h) Hiring Analytics
i) Attrition Analytics
Each analytics is measured on a 5 point likert scale (1=Very Low Usage, 2 = Low Usage,
3=Not Deployed/used over BI, 4= High Usage, 5= Very High Usage)

Research Hypothesis:
H30: There is no difference in the preference for areas of usage for BI analytics.
H31: There is significant difference in the preference for areas of usage for BI analytics.

Level of Significance:=0.05

The response data were analysed using MS Excel and the Friedman Square Test and statistics
is provided below:

Table 4.11: Friedman test statistics of areas of usage for BI analytics

Friedman N Chi-Square df Asymp. Sig.

Test 50 96.788 8 .000

Inference: Since P value (0.000) is less than the level of significance ( =0.05) hence null
hypothesis is rejected. Hence it is concluded that there is significant difference in the
preference for areas of usage for BI analytics.

51
The mean rank table of areas of usage for BI analytics is referred for determining the
difference in preference.
Table 4.12 Mean rank of areas of usage for BI analytics

Rank
Areas of usage for BI analytics Mean Rank Order

a) Sales/Revenue Analytics 6.53 2

b) Utilization Analytics 6.57 1
c) Profitability Analytics 6.16 3
d) Bench Analytics 5.30 4
e) Sales & General Administrative Expense Analytics 4.47 6
f) Quality (Project Delivery) Analytic 5.12 5
g) Training Analytics 3.80 7
h) Hiring Analytics 3.50 9
i) Attrition Analytics 3.55 8

Hence it can be concluded that top 3 analytics used in BI tool are:

a) Utilization Analytics
b) Sales/Revenue Analytics
c) Profitability Analytics

52
 CHAPTER 5

FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 FINDINGS

This chapter contains major findings, suggestions and scope for further research of the study.

The findings of areas of usage of BI analytics in the organization are:

 Most of the respondents agree to high usage of following analytics:
Sales/revenue analytics. (Mean = 4.08, Std. Deviation = 0.829)
Utilization analytics. (Mean = 4.02, Std. Deviation = 1.104)
Profitability analytics. (Mean = 3.88, Std. Deviation = 0.949)
Bench analytics. (Mean = 3.51, Std. Deviation = 1.157)
Quality analytics. (33.3% respondents agree high usage and 23.5% strongly agree)
 Most of the respondents agree that following analytics are not deployed/used:
Sales & general administrative expense analytics. (Mean = 3.33, Std. Deviation =
0.977)
Training analytics. (40.8% respondents agree)

Hiring analytics. (37.5% respondents agree)

Attrition analytics. (35.4% respondents agree)

The findings of importance of BI analytics in the organization are:

 Most of the respondents agree that following analytics are important in the
organization:
Sales/revenue analytics. (Mean = 4.42, Std. Deviation = 0.647)
Utilization analytics. (Mean = 4.33, Std. Deviation = 0.595)
Profitability analytics is important. (Mean = 4.15, Std. Deviation = 0.759)
Bench analytics. (Mean = 3.59, Std. Deviation = 0.884)
Sales & general administrative expense analytics. (Mean = 3.59, Std. Deviation =
0.923)
Quality analytics. (Mean = 3.90, Std. Deviation = 0.778)

 Most of the respondents agree that following analytics are somewhat important in the
organization:
Training analytics. (Mean = 3.19, Std. Deviation = 0.699)
Hiring analytics. (Mean = 3.38, Std. Deviation =0.716)

53
 Attrition analytics. (Mean = 3.38, Std. Deviation = 0.0806)

 Most of the respondents agree to usage of BI tool in following decision making

categories:
Operational decision-making. (Mean = 4.45, Std. Deviation = 0.541)
Tactical decision-making. (Mean = 4.09, Std. Deviation = 0.905)
Strategic decision-making. (Mean = 4.06, Std. Deviation = 0.978)

 17.65% respondents are taking 0-20% quality decision based on BI analytics ,15.69%
respondents are taking 21-40% quality decision based on BI analytics, 23.53 %
respondents are taking 41-60% quality decision based on BI analytics,31.37%
respondents are taking 61-80% quality decision based on BI analytics and 11.76%
respondents are taking 81-100% decision based on BI analytics
The findings of quality of decision attributes before BI tool implementation in the
organization are:
 Most of the respondents neither agree nor disagree to the following:
On-time decisions were taken before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 2.86, Std.
Deviation = 0.917)
Faster decisions were taken before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 2.71, Std.
Deviation = 0.855)
Appropriate decisions were taken before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.08, Std.
Deviation = 0.891)
Effective decisions were taken before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.06, Std.
Deviation = 0.925)
Right amount of effort was utilized before BI tool implementation. (37.3%
respondents neither agree nor disagree and 27.5% respondents disagree).
Informed decisions were taken before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 2.94, Std.
Deviation = 0.925)
 Most of the respondents disagree that inputs for multiple problems were provided at
the same time before BI tool implementation. (31.4% respondents neither agree nor
disagree, 29.4% respondents disagree and 11.8% respondents strongly disagree).
 Most of the respondents agree to the following quality of decision attributes after
BI tool implementation in the organization:
On-time decisions are taken after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.12, Std.
Deviation = 0.653)
Faster decisions are taken after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.20, Std. Deviation
= 0.633)
54
 
Appropriate decisions are taken after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.16, Std.
Deviation = 0.579)
Effective decisions are taken after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.08, Std.
Deviation = 0.659)
Right amount of effort is utilized after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.02, Std.
Deviation = 0.787)

Informed decisions are taken after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.20, Std.
Deviation = 0.775)
Inputs for multiple problems are provided at the same time after BI tool
implementation. (Mean = 4.00, Std. Deviation = 0.849)
The findings of improvement in business benefits before BI tool implementation in the
organization are:
 Most of the respondents neither agree nor disagree to the following:
Revenue was increased before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.16, Std. Deviation
= 0.738)
Customer satisfaction was improved before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.06,
Std. Deviation = 0.890)
Cost was reduced before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 2.67, Std.Deviation =
0.792)
New opportunities were identified before BI tool implementation. (Mean = 2.94, Std.
Deviation = 0.867)
 Most of the respondents disagree that efficiency was increased before BI tool
implementation. (29.4% respondents neither agree nor disagree, 35.3% respondents
disagree and 5.9% strongly disagree)

The findings of improvement in business benefits after BI tool implementation in the

organization are:

 Most of the respondents agree to the following:

Customer satisfaction is improved after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.98, Std.
Deviation = 0.915)
Efficiency is increased after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 4.33, Std. Deviation =
0.653)
Cost is reduced after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.94, Std. Deviation = 0.785)
New opportunities are identified after BI tool implementation. (Mean = 3.50, Std.
Deviation = 1.147)
55
  Most of the respondents neither agree nor disagree that revenue is increased after BI
tool implementation. (Mean = 3.44, Std. Deviation = 0.907)

5.2 Results of Hypotheses Testing

1. The hypothesis findings of improvement in the organization growth (business

performance) before and after BI tool implementation are:
a) There is significant difference in the mean values of increase in revenue before
BI tool implementation (Mean=3.16) and after BI tool implementation
(Mean=3.44). [ t (49) = -2.137, P = .038]
b) There is significant difference in the mean values of improved customer
satisfaction before BI tool implementation (Mean=3.06) and after BI tool
implementation (Mean=3.98). [ t (49) = -6.334, P = .000]
c) There is significant difference in the mean values of increased efficiency
before BI tool implementation (Mean=2.90) and after BI tool implementation
(Mean=4.33). [ t (50) = -9.142, P = .000]
d) There is significant difference in the mean values of reduction in cost before
BI tool implementation (Mean=2.67) and after BI tool implementation
(Mean=3.94). [ t (50) = -8.912, P = .000]
e) There is significant difference in the mean values of identifying new business
opportunities before BI tool implementation (Mean=2.94) and after BI tool
implementation (Mean=3.50). [ t (49) = -3.694, P = .001]
2. The hypotheses findings of impact of BI tool based quality decision-making on decision
categories are:
a) BI tool based quality decision-making has no influence on operational
decision. [F (2, 44) = 0.560, P = 0.575)]
b) BI tool based quality decision-making has significant influence on tactical
decision. [F (2, 44) = 7.720, P = 0.001)]
c) BI tool based quality decision-making has significant influence on strategic
decision [F (2, 44) = 13.569, P = 0.000)]
3. There is significant difference in the preference for areas of usage for BI analytics. [ χ2(8)
= 96.788, P =0.000]

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5.3 SUGGESTIONS
Organizations should consider surveying of BI users to measure user satisfaction and to meet
new business requirements on periodic basis. Based on the study following are the
recommendations for IT organizations:

1. Few of the organizations have multiple BI tools and custom analytics;

organization can optimize their landscape to a single BI tool and can reduce
license and operational cost.
2. The result of the study clearly indicates BI tool has positive impact on quality of
decision-making and organizational growth. The IT organizations not having BI
tool should consider implementing the same in order to stay competitive in the
global business environment.

5.4 LIMITATIONS
The scope of the study was to determine the impact of BI tool on quality of decision-making
and organizational growth in IT organization. Obtaining data from larger population was the
limitation. The majority of the respondents were manager and not CIO, CEO which is a
limitation in this study. Only limited numbers of respondents were having access to the
business analytics information.

5.4 SCOPE OF STUDY

The current study has found relationship between BI tool, quality of decision-making &
organizational growth and BI tool has positive impact on quality of decision-making and
organizational growth. Further research can be extended to quantify the impact on business
performance.

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 CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

The conclusion of usage and importance of BI analytics in IT organization is summarized

below :
1. The IT organization has high usage of following analytics
Sales/Revenue Analytics
Utilization Analytics
Profitability Analytics
Bench Analytics
Quality (Project Delivery) Analytics

The mini project result confirms that the above five analytics and sales & general
administrative expense analytics are also important to the IT organization.
The Friedman (χ2) test result confirm that utilization analytics, sales/revenue analytics and
profitability analytics are top 3 analytics used in the organization and are also top 3 analytics
important to the IT organization.
2. The most commonly used features of BI analytics in the organization are
a) Standardized reporting & scorecard/dashboard are the most commonly used
feature in sales/revenue analytics, profitability analytics and bench analytics.
b) Standardized reporting & KPI are the most commonly used feature in
utilization analytics and quality analytics.
c) Standardized reporting & ad-hoc analysis are the most commonly used feature
in training analytics.
d) Standardized reporting is the most commonly used feature in sales & general
administrative expense analytics.
3)The mini project result confirms that changing business requirement and data integration
are the two key challenges faced during BI tool implementation in the organization. The
project result confirms that the best practices followed during the implementation of BI tool
are:

 Business analytics are designed keeping future needs in mind.

 Availability of design and Technical Templates to capture the design and technical
aspects.
 Availability of data standards such as naming standards, data modeling standards,
reporting and other data architecture standards.

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  Policies & procedure to govern the creation, standardization and dissemination of
data.

 Identification of data steward/ owners for managing the data Data/Information quality
is addressed as part of the project

4) The conclusion of objective, challenges and best practices of BI tool

implementation are summarized below:

The IT organization has achieved following objectives after BI tool implementation

Standardized Reporting & Analytics

Timely Report availability
Improving quality of decision-making
Improved Efficiency
Organizational Growth
Optimized internal process
Platform enabling data driven decision-making culture for future
organizational strategies
Competitive advantage

59
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APPENDIX

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