CAPABILITIES TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AGILITY – RESEARCH MODEL AND TENTATIVE RESULTS

The class of business intelligence (BI) systems is used as a basis for decision making in most big organizations. Extensive initiatives have been launched to accomplish adequate and timely decision support as an important factor to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. Within turbulent market environments it is challenging to keep up a distinguishable long-term strategy while quickly reacting to changing circumstances. This area of conflicts holds particularly true for BI as it is originally used to retrospectively reflect an organization’s performance and built upon stability and efficiency. Therefore, we investigate how dynamic BI capabilities, i.e. adoption of assets, market understanding and intimacy as well as business operations, impact the agility of BI. We approach our goal from a dynamic capability perspective. Starting from a literature review of dynamic capabilities of information systems (IS) and BI, we propose hypotheses to connect dynamic BI capabilities and BI agility. Derived hypotheses based on existing literature will be tested in our prospective research agenda. A small pre-study showed promising results. In-memory (IM) technology seems to be a technology enabler for agile BI. However, adoption of BI assets and the focus on market orientation and business operations may even intensify the positive effect

Ubiquitous Computing – an Application Domain for Business Intelligence in the Cloud?

A number of IT providers have introduced web-based services for management support that are discussed under the label“Business Intelligence (BI) in the Cloud”. It has been argued that these Cloud products might become valuable complementsto on-premise enterprise BI infrastructures by allowing a flexible addition of sizeable components, tools or – in selected areas– complete solutions. In this publication, it is discussed in how far a Ubiquitous Computing setting based on technologies likeradio frequency identification (RFID) or sensor technology could become a relevant application domain for Cloud-BI”. Themain insights come from a literature review, a series of expert interviews on BI and Cloud Computing, and a case on spareparts logistics. The results indicate that the addressed domain indeed comes with business potential and highlight the need forfurther design oriented research

Ketterän liiketoimintatiedon hallinnan mahdollistajat - Case SAP

One of the key requirements for achieving competitive advantage is to utilize gathered information more effectively than before with the help of emergent technology innovations and enhanced information management. In order to remain competitive and compete with the help of data, organizations and researchers have paid attention to a new wave of business intelligence, referred to as agile business intelligence. Agile business intelligence enables faster decision-making in faster pace than traditional business intelligence due to the emergence of new technology directions. Hence, the technology has evolved in a way that agile business intelligence can bring more value to the organizations simplifying the business intelligence architecture and enhancing data processing by utilizing operational data more effectively. The primary objective of the thesis was to identify the key factors that enable agile business intelligence. The secondary objective was related to the benefits that agile business intelligence provides to the organizations compared with the traditional business intelligence solutions and platforms. The thesis consisted of two different parts: the first part was related to investigate agile business intelligence from the academic point of view using a systematic literature review as a research method. In this part, the definition of agile business intelligence was formalized and the different enablers and benefits were discovered based on the literature. The second part was related to investigate agile BI enablers, which were founded in internal training materials regarding the SAP landscape. Findings from the latter part were reflected on the findings from the first part drawing a synthesis between the enablers and benefit from the different parts. The key findings of agile BI were divided into two main categories: agile methodologies and agile technologies. The first ones were related to the different agile development methods of business intelligence such as Scrum in order to organizations are able to react faster pace to the changing requirements in the business environment. The key enablers of the latter category were in-memory BI, mobile BI, cloud BI, operational BI and self-service BI. The main benefits of these enablers were related to the reduced query processing providing real-time data on decision-making, the increased flexibility of the systems and easier access to the data which facilitate more accurate and punctual decision-making. These benefits reflected on SAP BI landscape which provided the same benefits but also simplification was in a central role in SAP BI landscape which reduces the need for extract and load data from the different source systems

Virtual HR Departments: Getting Out of the Middle

In this chapter, we explore the notion of virtual HR departments: a network-based organization built on partnerships and mediated by information technologies in order to be simultaneously strategic, flexible, cost-efficient, and service-oriented. We draw on experiences and initiatives at Merck Pharmaceuticals in order to show how information technology in establishing an infrastructure for virtual HR. Then, we present a model for mapping the architecture of HR activities that includes both internal and external sourcing options. We conclude by offering some recommendations for management practice as well as future research

Agile Knowledge Management; A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension to Military Applications

The purpose of this research is to explore the conceptual background of agility in knowledge management, re-conceptualize it and extend it to military applications with a special focus on Counterinsurgency (COIN). An initial qualitative exploration of agility in knowledge management was performed. Three different concepts and their interrelationships were analyzed: (1) knowledge management, (2) agility in operations, and (3) military organizations in the COIN environment. Findings from this initial qualitative analysis were used to inductively redefine, re-conceptualize and extend the concept of Agile Knowledge Management (AKM), as well as, to compare and adapt the AKM concept to the military environment of COIN. An additional qualitative analysis was performed to validate the extended concept of AKM. While this study is mainly focused on AKM in dynamic multinational and joint military environment of COIN, conclusions may be applicable in a broader context. The results of this research can be used by engineering managers and knowledge management practitioners and academics with particular focus on the military environment as foundation for (a) further research and development in agile knowledge management (b) developing customized agile knowledge management education programs and (c) extending the concept of AKM and its application to other environments

A data management and analytic model for business intelligence applications

Most organisations use several data management and business intelligence solutions which are on-premise and, or cloud-based to manage and analyse their constantly growing business data. Challenges faced by organisations nowadays include, but are not limited to growth limitations, big data, inadequate analytics, computing, and data storage capabilities. Although these organisations are able to generate reports and dashboards for decision-making in most cases, effective use of their business data and an appropriate business intelligence solution could achieve and retain informed decision-making and allow competitive reaction to the dynamic external environment. A data management and analytic model has been proposed on which organisations could rely for decisive guidance when planning to procure and implement a unified business intelligence solution. To achieve a sound model, literature was reviewed by extensively studying business intelligence in general, and exploring and developing various deployment models and architectures consisting of naïve, on-premise, and cloud-based which revealed their benefits and challenges. The outcome of the literature review was the development of a hybrid business intelligence model and the accompanying architecture as the main contribution to the study.In order to assess the state of business intelligence utilisation, and to validate and improve the proposed architecture, two case studies targeting users and experts were conducted using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The case studies found and established that a decision to procure and implement a successful business intelligence solution is based on a number of crucial elements, such as, applications, devices, tools, business intelligence services, data management and infrastructure. The findings further recognised that the proposed hybrid architecture is the solution for managing complex organisations with serious data challenges.ComputingM. Sc. (Computing

Business Agility and Information Technology in Service Organizations

Service organizations have to deal with highly uncertain events, both in the internal and external environment. In the academic literature and in practice there is not much knowledge about how to deal with this uncertainty. This PhD dissertation investigates the role and impact of information technologies (IT) on business agility in service organizations. Business agility is a relatively new term defined as the capability of organizations to swiftly change businesses and business processes beyond the normal level of flexibility to effectively manage highly uncertain and unexpected, but potentially consequential internal and external events. Empirical research was carried out via surveys and interviews among managers from 35 organizations in four industries and in three governmental sectors. Four in-depth case studies were carried out within one service organization. The dissertation has six key findings: 1) In many large service organizations business agility is hampered by a lack of IT agility. 2) Organization and alignment of processes and information systems via the cycle of sensing, responding and learning along with the alignment of business and IT are important conditions for improving business agility performance of service organizations. 3) Standardization of IT capabilities and higher levels of data quality support higher levels of business agility of service organizations. 4) Two knowledge management strategies – codification and personalization -- are identified that can be used to respond to events with different degrees of uncertainty. A codification knowledge management strategy supports the response to events with low levels of uncertainty by exploiting explicit knowledge from organizational memory. A personalization knowledge management strategy drives the response to events with high levels of uncertainty by exploitation of tacit knowledge and social capital. 5) Social capital is an important moderating variable in the relation between IT capabilities and business agility. Social capital can mitigate the lack of IT agility that exists in many service organizations by overcoming information system boundaries and rigidities via human relationships. 6) The combination of sensing, responding and learning capabilities is required to increase all dimensions of business agility performance. Overall, this research introduces a new approach to analyze and measure business agility. This thesis takes the first steps to develop theoretical knowledge on the conditions under which IT supports higher levels of business agility and business agility performance

Collaborative and adaptive supply chain planning

Dans le contexte industriel d'aujourd'hui, la compétitivité est fortement liée à la performance de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. En d'autres termes, il est essentiel que les unités d'affaires de la chaîne collaborent pour coordonner efficacement leurs activités de production, de façon a produire et livrer les produits à temps, à un coût raisonnable. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous croyons qu'il est nécessaire que les entreprises adaptent leurs stratégies de planification, que nous appelons comportements, aux différentes situations auxquelles elles font face. En ayant une connaissance de l'impact de leurs comportements de planification sur la performance de la chaîne d'approvisionnement, les entreprises peuvent alors adapter leur comportement plutôt que d'utiliser toujours le même. Cette thèse de doctorat porte sur l'adaptation des comportements de planification des membres d'une même chaîne d'approvisionnement. Chaque membre pouvant choisir un comportement différent et toutes les combinaisons de ces comportements ayant potentiellement un impact sur la performance globale, il est difficile de connaître à l'avance l'ensemble des comportements à adopter pour améliorer cette performance. Il devient alors intéressant de simuler les différentes combinaisons de comportements dans différentes situations et d'évaluer les performances de chacun. Pour permettre l'utilisation de plusieurs comportements dans différentes situations, en utilisant la technologie à base d'agents, nous avons conçu un modèle d'agent à comportements multiples qui a la capacité d'adapter son comportement de planification selon la situation. Les agents planificateurs ont alors la possibilité de se coordonner de façon collaborative pour améliorer leur performance collective. En modélisant les unités d'affaires par des agents, nous avons simulé avec la plateforme de planification à base d'agents de FORAC des agents utilisant différents comportements de planification dits de réaction et de négociation. Cette plateforme, développée par le consortium de recherche FORAC de l'Université Laval, permet de simuler des décisions de planification et de planifier les opérations de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. Ces comportements de planification sont des métaheurisciques organisationnelles qui permettent aux agents de générer des plans de production différents. La simulation est basée sur un cas illustrant la chaîne d'approvisionnement de l'industrie du bois d'œuvre. Les résultats obtenus par l'utilisation de multiples comportements de réaction et de négociation montrent que les systèmes de planification avancée peuvent tirer avantage de disposer de plusieurs comportements de planification, en raIson du contexte dynamique des chaînes d'approvisionnement. La pertinence des résultats de cette thèse dépend de la prémisse que les entreprises qui adapteront leurs comportements de planification aux autres et à leur environnement auront un avantage concurrentiel important sur leurs adversaires