The Strategic value of business intelligence systems : a case study of GSM companies in Kenya

Abstract

This research is intended to establish why companies especially in Telcom sector have low adoption rates of business intelligence tools already implemented. Telcom industry anywhere in the world is highly dynamic and super competitive. Implementation of suitable business intelligence and performance management tools can potentially tilt companies' competitive edge over competitors. However this seems not to be the case as adoption of business intelligence is still very poor. This research has unearthed various barriers to adoption to business intelligence(BI) and PM(performance management) in GSM companies in Kenya. These barriers are either operational, people and to small extent systems issues. The choice of GSM companies in Kenya was advised by the facts such as , (i) Some of GSM companies have already implemented BI systems, (ii) heterogeneity of various business applications used these companies, (iii) volumes of data generated by numerous processes, (iv) need for predictive analytics by GSM companies to predict trends in the industry and, (v) lack of or insufficient frameworks to fully help adoption BI systems hence increasing strategic value of BI projects. The research revealed an interesting observation that although many managers knew of existence of BI systems at their companies they did not know of its objectives. Also many managers used very few functionalities of BI (business intelligence) system. This clearly inhibits adoption of BI (business intelligence) and due to this it is very hard to establish strategic value of BI (business intelligence). Although management staff believe the BI(business intelligence) can help in increased profit growth, they never attributed growth of their organization to BI (business intelligence). In this consideration of the outcome, organizations need to balance between the effort of BI (business intelligence) implementation process and stimulating use and adoption of the same. To realize fully strategic value of BI(business intelligence) organization need to invest both during acquisition phase and adoption phase at almost equal measure.