A mind mapping-based literature review on business intelligence and business intelligence system

A mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) on business intelligence (BI) and business intelligence system (BIS)

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract:  The subject of business intelligence (BI)/ business intelligence system (BIS) has caught much attention of both the academic and business communities. By nature, the BI/BIS field has drawn on ideas from both the information systems and non-information systems disciplines. The paper conducts a mind-mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) on BI/BIS so as to render a picture on the overall intellectual landscape on BI/BIS. A set of BI/BIS themes and ideas are identified and incorporated into a mind map on BI/BIS. The findings serve to inform both the academic and business communities on this topic. The MMBLR experience is that MMBLR is able to foster efficient and stimulating literature review. Finally, the paper illustrates how to carry out an MMBLR. As such, it has also academic value to the subjects  of managerial intellectual learning (MIL) and Research Methods.

Key words: business intelligence (BI), business intelligence system (BIS), managerial intellectual learning (MIL), mind map, mind-mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) steps, literature review

Introduction

The recent management consulting activity of this writer draws his attention to the topic of business intelligence (BI). There appears to be some retailing enterprises in Hong Kong which are interested in business intelligence systems (BIS). For this reason as well as the writer’s ongoing teaching and research works on decision support systems, the writer conducts a literature review on business intelligence and presents its findings in this paper. The study exercise employs mind-mapping to carry out a diagramming-based literature review on business intelligence (BI) and business intelligence system (BIS). The paper begins by introducing the method of mind-mapping-based literature review. Next, a thematic analysis on the BI and BIS literature is conducted. Based on the thematic analysis findings, a mind-mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) is deployed. The last section of the paper offers some concluding remarks.

The basic ideas of mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR)

Mind mapping makes use of radiant thinking to facilitate an individual to explore a chosen topic of study with a mind map in an engaging and creative way. As a technique, a mind map locates the chosen study topic at the centre of a map. Related/sub- themes and perspectives are represented as branches in the map. Only key phrases are written down on the mind map as labels for key concepts and branches; the branches could have labelled sub-branches. Nodes (representing main ideas) with key phrases are attached to the ends of the branches. A mind map so constructed is colourful and enlivened with relevant artworks. By using a mind map, its users are then able to learn a chosen study topic more effectively than simply examining written materials, see Literature on mind mapping Facebook page (re: bibliography) for further information. Mind mapping has been employed in diagramming-based literature review and qualitative data analysis by the writer on a number of topics, chiefly from the managerial intellectual learning perspective. A mind-mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) is made up of four steps:

MMBLR Step 1: conduct an internet search for academic literature relevant to the chosen topic of study;

MMBLR Step 2: take notes to gather points of interest from the study materials found in step 1 as an exploratory interpretive learning endeavour;

MMBLR Step 3: conduct a thematic analysis on the notes made in step 2;

MMBLR Step 4: construct a mind map based on the thematic analysis result of step 3.

With the first two steps done by the writer, the next section presents the BI/BIS findings from MMBLR Step 3.

Main themes and ideas of the business intelligence (BI) and business intelligence system (BIS) literature

Academic articles on business intelligence (BI) and business intelligence system (BIS) can be found in refereed journals such as Decision Support Systems (Elsevier), Business Process Management Journal (Emerald), Journal of Strategic Information Systems (Elsevier), Information Systems Management (ABI/INFORM Global) and International Journal of Information Management (Elsevier). A thematic analysis of the BI/BIS literature by the writer results in the formulation of six main themes and ideas (called points here) on BI and BIS (MMBLR Step 3). They are as follows:

Theme 1: Basic nature of BI and BIS

Point 1.1.                “..…Rooted within the tradition of classical Management Support, BI applications usually revolve around the analysis of “structured data.”…” (Baars and Kemper, 2008);

Point 1.2.                “…Business intelligence (BI) has two basic different meanings related to the use of the term intelligence. The primary, less frequently, is the human intelligence capacity applied in business affairs/activities. …... The second relates to the intelligence as information valued for its currency and relevance. It is expert information, knowledge and technologies efficient in the management of organizational and individual business….” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 1.3.                “… Originally coined by Gartner Group as a collective term for data analysis tools …. “Business Intelligence” is now commonly understood to encompass all components of an integrated management support infrastructure…” (Baars and Kemper, 2008);

Point 1.4.                “….BI [business intelligence] as the ability of an organization or business to reason, plan, predict, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend, innovate and learn in ways that increase organizational knowledge, inform decision processes, enable effective actions, and help to establish and achieve business goals..” (Popovič, Hackney, Coelho and Jaklič. 2012);

Point 1.5.                “…The term business intelligence is …. about a company wide recognition that a company’s data is an important strategic asset that can yield valuable management information and implement change so that this information is used to improve decision making…” (CIMA, 2008);

Point 1.6.                 “…BI is “both a process and a product.” The process is composed of methods that organizations use to develop useful information, or intelligence, that can help organizations survive and thrive in the global economy. The product is information that will allow organizations to predict the behavior of their “competitors, suppliers, customers, technologies, acquisitions, markets, products and services, and the general business environment” with a degree of certainty…” (Jourdan, Rainer and Marshall, 2008);

Point 1.7.                “….Business intelligence reveals: The position of the firm as in comparison to its competitors; Changes in customer behavior and spending patterns;  The capabilities of the firm; Market conditions, future trends, demographic and economic information; The social, regulatory, and political environment..” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 1.8.                 “…A specialized field of business intelligence known as competitive intelligence focuses solely on the external competitive environment…” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 1.9.                 “…competitive intelligence as actionable recommendations arising from a systematic process, involving planning, gathering, analyzing and disseminating information on the external environment, for opportunities or developments that have the potential to affect a company or a country’s competitive situation.…” (Du Toit, 2003);

Point 1.10.             “…While the need for process orientation is widely recognized in approaches to operational IS [information systems] development, BIS are still mostly understood as data-oriented systems as managerial tasks are less frequently organized by means of well-defined processes….” (Popovič, Hackney, Coelho and Jaklič. 2012);

Point 1.11.            “….five relatively distinct categories [academic BI themes] emerged. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) category….. The Benefits category ….. The Decision category….. The Implementation category ….The final and most diverse category is Strategies…” (Jourdan, Rainer and Marshall, 2008);

Theme 2: Basic BI tools

Point 2.1.                “…The most salient tools in the current BI discussion are still “reporting,” “data mining,” and “OLAP” tools, which are primarily directed to the presentation and analysis of numerical business data…” (Baars and Kemper, 2008);

Point 2.2.                “…COMPONENTS OF BI…OLAP (On-line analytical processing)…. Advanced Analytics… Corporate Performance Management (Portals, Scorecards, Dashboards)….Real time BI…. Data Warehouse and data marts ….” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 2.3.                 “…BI products….rarely support user selectable data sources and real-time data integration….. There are almost no sets of real-time business performance data available.. …” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 2.4.                 “…BIS [business intelligence system]… as quality information in well-designed data stores, coupled with business-friendly software tools that provide knowledge workers timely access, effective analysis and intuitive presentation of the right information, enabling them to take the right actions or make the right decisions…” (Popovič, Hackney, Coelho and Jaklič. 2012);

Point 2.5.                “…Typical features of BI software include: reporting and visualisation, trend analysis (historical and emerging), customer behaviour analysis,  predictive modelling (analyse most likely future scenarios). BI requires three main categories of technology — data warehouses, analytical tools, and reporting tools…” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 2.6.                 “…As a data-centric approach, BI&A has its roots in the longstanding database management field. It relies heavily on various data collection, extraction, and analysis technologies …” (Chen, Chiang and Storey, 2012);

Point 2.7.                 “….the basic characteristic for BI tool is that it is ability to collect data from heterogeneous source, to possess advance analytical methods, and the ability to support multi users demands…” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 2.8.                “…BI [business intelligence] tools are widely accepted as a new middleware between transactional applications and decision support applications…” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Theme 3: BIS adoptions

Theme 3.1: External BIS adoption drivers

Point 3.1.1.          “….The increased importance of such infrastructures [business intelligence system] reflects three interacting trends: more turbulent, global business environments, additional pressures to unveil valid risk and performance indicators to stakeholders, and aggravated challenges of effectively managing the more and more densely interwoven processes…” (Baars and Kemper, 2008);

Point 3.1.2.          “With ever-increasing competition and rapidly changing customer needs and technologies, enterprise decision makers are no longer satisfied with scheduled analytics reports, pre-configured key performance indicators or fixed dashboards. They demand ad hoc queries to be answered quickly, they demand actionable information from analytic applications using real-time business performance data, and they demand these insights be accessible to the right people exactly when and where they need them…” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 3.1.3.          “….Internal and external competitive pressures require new, time-constrained responses and, as a result, more empowered knowledge workers…” (Du Toit, 2003);

Theme 3.2: BIS impacts and evaluations

Point 3.2.1.           “….BI provides many benefits to companies utilizing it. It ….enhance communication among departments while coordinating activities, and enable companies to respond quickly to changes in financial conditions, customer preferences, and supply chain operations….” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 3.2.2.          “….The perceived value of some intelligence product, for example, is likely to vary depending on the subjective appreciation and the need of the person(s) for whom the question is addressed…” (Lönnqvist and Pirrttimäki, 2006);

Point 3.2.3.          “….since there are too many overlapping data sources with varying qualities, they [enterprise decision makers] want more control over the data used for analysis ……” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 3.2.4.          “…The implementation of BIS [business intelligence system] can contribute to improved IQ [information quality] in many ways, such as: faster access to information, easier querying and analysis, a higher level of interactivity, improved data consistency due to data integration processes and other related data management activities (e.g. data cleansing, unification of definitions of key business terms, master data management)…” (Popovič, Hackney, Coelho and Jaklič. 2012);

Point 3.2.5.           “…..the effectiveness of BI is best measured by evaluating the contribution of BI to a specific decision or action and then looking at the benefit or detriment this specific decision brought to the company….” (Lönnqvist and Pirrttimäki, 2006);

Point 3.2.6.          “…….. The problem in calculating the ROI for BI is that the output of the BI [business intelligence] process is intelligence; in other words, some kind of processed information. The value of information is very difficult to assess…  “(Lönnqvist and Pirrttimäki, 2006);

Point 3.2.7.          “…In the literature, measures for managing the BI [business intelligence] process have not been discussed as much as measuring the effects of BI…” (Lönnqvist and Pirrttimäki, 2006);

Point 3.2.8.          “…the attraction of BI is that it offers organizations quick and powerful tools to store, retrieve, model, and analyze large amounts of information about their operations, and in some cases, information from external sources….” (Herschel and Jones, 2005);

Point 3.2.9.          “….BI [business intelligence] measurements serve two main purposes. The first …is to prove that it is worth the investment…... The second main purpose for the measurement of BI activities is to help manage the BI process..…” (Lönnqvist and Pirrttimäki, 2006);

Theme 4: BIS implementation practices and concerns

Point 4.1.                “…The widespread use of BI requires a data layer which allows dynamic plugging in of new data sources, because enterprises cannot afford to build data warehouses for every BI application…” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 4.2.                 “…When implementing a BI programme one might like to pose a number of questions and take a number of resultant decisions, such as: Goal Alignment queries…  Baseline queries…. Cost and risk queries… Customer and Stakeholder queries… Metrics-related queries ….. Measurement Methodology-related queries….. Results-related queries …” (Ranjan, 2009);

Point 4.3.                 “….The main key to successful BI system is consolidating data from the many different enterprise operational systems into an enterprise data warehouse. Very few organizations have a full-fledged enterprise data warehouse.…” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Point 4.4.                “…….There is no obvious way to observe what is not known about the competitive environment, or to balance the costs of acquiring that knowledge against potential benefits. This is why the process of creating corporate information resources out of personal knowledge for purposes of competitive intelligence must be planned and controlled…” (Drott, 2001);

Point 4.5.                 “…Especially in areas that reach beyond company borders, like Customer Relationship Management (CRM)…. or Competitive Intelligence (CI)…, it becomes imperative to consider both structured and unstructured data to provide valid insights into current business developments…” (Baars and Kemper, 2008);

Theme 5: BI and related management disciplines

Theme 5.1: Related to knowledge management

Point 5.1.1.           “…Conceptually, it is easy to comprehend how knowledge can be thought of as an integral component of BI and hence decision making.…. KM [knowledge management] and BI [business intelligence], while differing, need to be considered together as necessarily integrated and mutually critical components in the management of intellectual capital…” (Herschel and Jones, 2005);

Point 5.1.2.           “….58% of the useful knowledge of an enterprise is recorded information (documents and databases) and 42% resides in employee brains…. Integrating knowledge management and competitive intelligence encourages the use of these resources, improves their quality and allows an enterprise to respond more rapidly to changing business conditions…” (Du Toit, 2003);

Point 5.1.3.           “…a ‘‘true’’ enterprise-wide KM [knowledge management] solution cannot exist without a BI [business intelligence]-based meta data repository…” (Herschel and Jones, 2005);

Point 5.1.4.           “…..the convergence of the KM [knowledge management] and BI [business intelligence] deepens and broadens the amount of searchable knowledge and information – simultaneously increasing the value, actionability and ROI on the intelligence gained…” (Herschel and Jones, 2005);

Point 5.1.5.           “…….We need a new view of competitive intelligence information, one that looks beyond the computerized database to recognize the many other kinds of personal knowledge to be collected and organized as valued corporate information assets….” (Drott, 2001);

Theme 5.2: Related to other management disciplines

Point 5.2.1.          “…… BI&A [business intelligence and analytics] includes business-centric practices and methodologies that can be applied to various high-impact applications such as e-commerce, market intelligence, e-government, healthcare, and security…” (Chen, Chiang and Storey, 2012);

Point 5.2.2.          “….. BI [business intelligence]….. could enable them [management accountants] to provide a wider range of information in more accessible formats. In addition to reporting and monitoring, they could provide more forward-looking analysis based on a combination of both financial and non-financial information. ….. to take on decision support roles…” (CIMA, 2008);

Point 5.2.3.           “….executives, managers, information workers and staff all expect more information and clearer insights to support decision making. Financial information alone will not suffice…” (CIMA, 2008);

Point 5.2.4.           “…The concept of supply chain analytics promises to extract and generate meaningful information for decision makers in the enterprise from the enormous amounts of data generated and captured by supply chain systems…” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Point 5.2.5.          “supply chain intelligence which reveals opportunities to reduce costs and stimulate revenue growth by enabling companies to understand the entire supply chain from the customer’s perspective….” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Theme 6: Recent BI/BIS trends

Theme 6.1: Real-time BI/BIS

Point 6.1.1.          “…. There are two main reasons that make real-time business intelligence a necessity. Firstly, the conditions and environments in which businesses operate are in a constant state of flux. Sales patterns change from place to place and from time to time…” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 6.1.2.          “….RTBI [real-time business intelligence] … operates on data that is extracted from operational data sources with zero latency, and provides means to propagate actions back into business processes in real time….” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 6.1.3.          “….The meaning of real-time business intelligence mainly depends on understanding what ‘real-time’ means for a business. Not surprisingly there are no agreed definitions here either.…” (Azvine, Cui and Nauck, 2005);

Point 6.1.4.          “….The real time BI can be pushed to enhance supply chains. BI analysis will be in line to a business process such as identifying unusual supplier activity that might require a change in pricing or manufacturing schedules or noting higher than expected sales activity of lower margin products that may indicate a problem in sales or distribution….” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Point 6.1.5.           “…BI’s real-time capabilities can make it easier for companies to work directly with customers. A customer might be on the phone or an e-commerce web site for only a few minutes..….” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Point 6.1.6.          “….an approach to real time BI based on service-oriented architecture…... These service-oriented architecture tools provide various interfaces to various heterogeneous types of data in any organization and integrate various data sources ..…” (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008);

Theme 6.2: Cloud-based BIS

Point 6.2.1.          “…….Cloud Computing offers companies a way to avoid the significant upfront investment that an internal BI framework traditionally requires..” (Gash, Ariyachandra and Frolick, 2011);

Point 6.2.2.           “…the hardware and software that make up these pieces can quickly add up to millions of dollars. Hosting this environment in a cloud, however, can reduce both the hardware and software footprint that a company needs to purchase…” (Gash, Ariyachandra and Frolick, 2011);

Point 6.2.3.          “…Additional hardware expansions are usually required as BI becomes adopted throughout a company, to account for increased usage. With Cloud Computing, however, the sky is the limit in terms of expanded capacity…” (Gash, Ariyachandra and Frolick, 2011);

Point 6.2.4.           “…Setting up dedicated disaster recovery failover environments and backup procedures can quickly add up to a significant part of a company’s overall BI budget. Cloud Computing takes the burden off of a company by managing this fully within the Cloud…” (Gash, Ariyachandra and Frolick, 2011);

Theme 6.3: Other BI/BIS trends

Point 6.3.1.          “…Business intelligence became a popular term in the business and IT communities only in the 1990s. In the late 2000s, business analytics was introduced to represent the key analytical component in BI….. More recently big data and big data analytics have been used to describe the data sets and analytical techniques in applications that are so large … and complex …that they require advanced and unique data storage, management, analysis, and visualization technologies…” (Chen, Chiang and Storey, 2012);

Point 6.3.2.            “…With an overwhelming amount of web-based, mobile, and sensor-generated data arriving at a terabyte and even exabyte scale …., new science, discovery, and insights can be obtained from the highly detailed, contextualized, and rich contents of relevance to any business or organization…” (Chen, Chiang and Storey, 2012);

Point 6.3.3.           “….Text mining would seem to be a logical extension to the capabilities of current BI products. However, its seamless integration into BI software is not quite so obvious…” (Herschel and Jones, 2005);

The literature review by the writer has identified quite a large number of illustrative points, which are grouped into six major themes. The referencing on the points provided lets readers to be able to trace the ideas to the original sources, thus informing their own study and literature review exercises, if they intend to do so. It should also be noted that: (i) theme 3 (BIS adoptions) has two sub-themes, namely, theme 3.1 (External BIS adoption drivers) and theme 3.2 (BIS impacts and evaluations), (ii) theme 5 (BI and related management disciplines) comprises three sub-themes, i.e., theme 5.1 (Related to knowledge management), theme 5.2 (Related to other management disciplines), and (iii) theme 6 (Recent BI/BIS trends) is composed of three sub-themes, which are theme 6.1 (Real-time BI/BIS), theme 6.2 (Cloud-based BIS) and theme 6.3 (Other BI/BIS trends). Overall, the BI/BIS literature is substantial and growing, see also Literature on business intelligence Facebook page (re: bibliography). To further examine the BI/BIS literature review findings, a mind map is constructed (MMBLR step 4) and presented in the next section

A mind map on business intelligence (BI) and business intelligence system (BIS)

Based on the thematic analysis findings (MMBLR step 3), the writer took up MMBLR step 4 and came up with a mind map on BI and BIS. This is shown as Figure 1.

Referring to Figure 1, the chosen topic of study is located at the centre of the mind map as “Business Intelligence & Business Intelligence System” blob.  There are six main branches attached to the core blob. They correspond to the six themes arrived at in MMBLR step 3 as presented in the previous section. Likewise, three main branches (representing six key themes) have sub-branches (representing sub-themes). The various nodes with key phrases are associated to the points identified in the previous section. For examples, (i) “Meanings of BI” (node) with the main branch of “Basic nature” is related to point 1.2 and (ii) “Perceived value” (node) with the sub-branch of “BIS impacts and evaluations” is associated with point 3.2.2. Despite the relatively complex knowledge structure of BI and BIS as revealed in MMBLR step 3 (i.e., numerous points and a number of main themes and sub-themes), its knowledge structure image can now be depicted in a single and colourful mind map. As such, the mind map (re: Figure 1) allows a reader to quickly grasp the overall intellectual landscape of BI/ BIS in the form of a colourful diagram. Finally, it should also be pointed out that it is entertaining, intellectually stimulating and not time-consuming to produce such a mind map.

Concluding remarks

Similar to previous experience on using mind maps to conduct literature review, the MMBLR, for a preliminary literature review, is efficient and effective for managerial intellectual learning (MIL) purpose.  The findings on BI/BIS should be of academic and practical values to readers who study BI/BIS. They could be academics or managers involved in their enterprise BIS projects.  These findings point to the original academic sources for further learning on BI/BIS. Lastly, the paper provides an illustration on how to conduct an MMBLR. This illustration is of use for those who are interested in the literature review topic in Research Methods (see also Literature on literature review Facebook page) as well as those who want to master managerial intellectual learning (MIL) (refer to Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page).

Bibliography

1.      Azvine, B., Z. Cui and D.D. Nauck. 2005. “Towards real-time business intelligence” BT Technology Journal 23(3) July: 214-225.

2.      Baars, H. and H.G. Kemper. 2008. “Management Support with Structured and Unstructured Data – An Integrated Business Intelligence Framework” Information Systems Management 25(20): 132-148.

3.      Chen, H., R.H.L. Chiang and V.C. Storey. 2012. “Business intelligence and analytics: from big data to big impact” MIS Quarterly 36(4) December: 1165-1188.

4.      CIMA. 2008. “Improving decision making in organisations: Unlocking business intelligence” Report (978-1-85971) September, The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, U.K.

5.      Drott, M.C. 2001. “Personal Knowledge, Corporate Information: The Challenges for Competitive Intelligence” Business Horizons March-April: 31-37.

6.      Du Toit, A.S.A. 2003. “Competitive intelligence in the knowledge: what is in it for South African manufacturing enterprises” International Journal of Information Management 23, Pergamon: 111-120.

7.      Gash, D., T.A. Ariyachandra and M. Frolick. 2011. “Looking to the Clouds for Business Intelligence” Journal of Internet Commerce 10, Routledge: 261-269.

8.      Herschel, R.T. and N.E. Jones. 2005. “Knowledge management and business intelligence: the importance of integration” Journal of Knowledge Management 9(4), Emerald: 45-55.

9.      Jourdan, Z., R.K. Rainer and T.E. Marshall. 2008. “Business Intelligence: An Analysis of the Literature 1” IEEE Engineering Management Review 25(2): 121-131.

10.  Literature on business intelligence Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-business-intelligence-640086626166940/).

11.  Literature on literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).

12.  Literature on mind mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.mind.mapping/).

13.  Lönnqvist, A. and V. Pirrttimäki. 2006. “The measurement of business intelligence” Information Systems Management Winter 23(1): 32-40.

14.  Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).

15.  Popovič, A., R. Hackney, P.S. Coelho and J. Jaklič. 2012. “Towards business intelligence systems success: Effects of maturity and culture on analytical decision making” Decision Support Systems 54: 729-739.

16.  Ranjan, J. (2009). Business Intelligence: Concepts, Components,Techniques and Benefits.Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, 60-70. 

17.  Sahay, B.S. and J. Ranjan. 2008. “Real time business intelligence in supply chain analytics” Information Management & Computer Security 16(1), Emerald: 28-48.