The purposes of performance dashboard use: A case of a procurement performance management SaaS provider.

Objectives of the Study The main objective of this study is to find out how do end-users of the Case Company use performance dashboards to support decisions for measuring and managing procurement performance. Academic background and methodology Performance dashboards are a type of performance management system that brings together key performance metrics of an organisation or an individual on one display. A visual interface of performance dashboards is just a small part of what most users see. However, this information system for decision support is built on business intelligence technology as well as performance management and measurement principles. The relevant theory on performance dashboards, procurement performance management based and instruments of evaluating Information System Use were reviewed. Furthermore, a case study in the form of an online survey and semi-structured interviews was conducted with three client companies of the Case Company that provides its procurement performance management dashboards on software as a service basis. The Doll and Torkzadeh's tool for multidimensional measurement of system-use was applied in an online survey to identify usage purposes. The results from the survey were qualitatively confirmed and enriched with the evidence from the semi-structured interviews conducted with the selected end-users. Findings and conclusions The main finding of the research was that the Case Company's application was most extensively used by strategic level employees, primarily for communication and decision rationalizing purposes. Moreover, the application is most valued by the client companies for enabling a consolidated view on purchasing by integrating data from different sources of an organisation; its ability to tackle an analysis of direct and especially indirect spend; and its function as a convenient communication platform between different business and geographical units of an organisation