Business Intelligence Center Concepts

The approach of Business Intelligence (BI) as a support function for management decisions is established in practice and theory. BI can not just be considered as a simple sequence of isolated single projects. Its coordination requires permanent efforts to keep the BI function and the business organization in alignment. In the context of the present empirical study, BI organizations have been analyzed for the diffusion of BI units and their distinct characteristics. Furthermore these organizations have been classified in different types of BI centers based on development and operational tasks. The results indicate a wide spread implementation of BI units in companies with a multifaceted range of duty. Thereby conclusions for the practical constitution of BI centers are deduced from the results

Business Intelligence in the Cloud?

Business Intelligence (BI) deals with integrated approaches to management support. In many cases, the integrated infrastructures that are subject to BI have become complex, costly, and inflexible. A possible remedy for these issues might arise on the horizon with “Cloud Computing” concepts that promise new options for a net based sourcing of hard- and software. Currently, there is still a dearth of concepts for defining, designing, and structuring a possible adaption of Cloud Computing to the domain of BI. This contribution combines results from the outsourcing and the BI literature and derives a framework for delineating “Cloud BI” approaches. This is the bases for the discussion of six possible scenarios – some of which within immediate reach today

The ICT convergence discourse in the information systems literature - A second-order observation

The growing relevance, scale, and complexity of Business Intelligence (BI) entails the need to find agile and efficient solutions for the coordination of maintenance and release processes – under consideration of the heterogeneity of the involved units on the IT and the business side. The finance industry with its mature BI infrastructures and its highly turbulent business environment is a forerunner for these developments. Based on a survey among BI users in the finance sector, relevant problem areas in the BI service provision are identified and structured. A series of qualitative interviews among banks and insurance companies is used to gain further insights into approaches for dealing with the related issues. The studies uncover several advantages of a central “BI Competency Centre” (BICC) as well as levers for effectively structuring the interfaces between BICC, IT, and user interface

Service-oriented Cost Allocation for Business Intelligence and Analytics: Who pays for BI&A?

Quantifying and designing the cost pool generated by Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) would improve cost transparency and invoicing processes, allowing a fairer, more exact allocation of costs to service consumers. Yet there is still no method for determining BI&A costs to provide a base for allocation purposes. While literature describes several methods for BI&A cost estimation on an ROI or resource-consumption level, none of these methods considers an overall approach for BI&A. To tackle this problem, we propose a service-oriented cost allocation model which calculates BI&A applications based on defined services, enabling a cost transfer to service consumers. This new approach specifies steps towards deriving a usable pricing scheme for an entire BI&A service portfolio – both for allocation purposes as well as improving cost evaluation of BI&A projects. Moreover, it prevents BI&A departments from being considered as the sole cost driver, increasing customer understanding and cost awareness