Business Intelligence or BI can be defined as an umbrella term describing a combination of applications, infrastructures, tools, processes, best practises and methods to gather, prepare, provide and analyse data to support decision making activities in organizations. BI is noted to have ties to preceding research on similar systems, known as MIS, DSS and EIS-systems. BI is noted to have been born after requirement to answer the challenges of data gathering and turning the data into knowledge for decision-making. Early BI-development can be seen to have be affected by the development and lowering in costs of technologies in data gathering, analysis, interactivity and personal computing, as well as the introduction of spreadsheet programs in 1980s. Today, BI is noted to be the top investment-area for IT-organizations. Because of multidimensional nature and several viewpoints, it can be challenging to gain an overall view of the area. It is also noted, that a standardized framework of the different BI-related layers or aspects does not exist. The goal of this thesis is to identify which aspects can be noted central for BI, how the area has developed over time, how technological innovation has affected BI and which industries or aspects are noticed to have influenced the development most.
Systematic Mapping Study is used as the main research methodology in this thesis, together with PRISMA, which is used for a more scrutinized review during the selection process. The methods were used to review a large number of studies, gathered from academic databases using a formalized search string. The process provided with two sets of primary studies with total number of 2020 for studying the trends and central aspects in the area of BI and 1414 for studying the industries.
From the results, BI is noted to have gained popularity early 2000s, peaking in 2012–2013, while fading coming to 2016. The results show the central aspects for BI from high-level to be: strategic aspects, data warehousing methods and BI-infrastructure. From more detail, the central aspects are noted to be strategic aspects, data warehousing, BI-design aspects, real-time functionalities, visualization features, decision support, collaborative support, reporting and cloud infrastructure. The major industries influencing BI-development and research is noted to be finance and banking, healthcare, supply chain, e-commerce, manufacturing and education. Today, most notable interest is noticed in Big Data. In future, Big Data, self-service, collaboration features, visualization, user aspects and mobility are predicted as some of the rising topics. BI is noted shifting more into non-profit organizations and extending the use-context. Major changes in the area are seen to be caused by IT-base innovation, while most changes in BI may be seen to be caused by services-innovation where new industries and methods are found to utilize BI-technology.
BI is noted as a very strategic entity, consisting of data warehousing methods, different decision support methods and technologies. In the future, BI-technology will be spread into more widespread use and the lessons learnt might be valuable for the predicted revolution caused by Big Data analytics and extended data collection and analysis
