Towards a Classification Framework of Business Intelligence Value Research

Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) and the topic of ‘big data’ have sparked renewed interest in the discipline of Business Intelligence (BI) and the challenges associated with the implementation thereof. Although the benefits of the powerful analytical capability of BI&A are obvious, not all organisations have reached the maturity of dealing with big data. For some organisations, the focus remains on implementing ‘traditional’ BI capabilities based on structured data (also known as BI&A 1.0) such as data warehousing. For this reason, the value of such implementations remains a burning issue, especially in tough economic times. As a result, the authors embarked on a journey of investigating the current published academic material focusing on the value added by BI projects to organisations. Various focus areas have been identified and presented in a conceptual classification framework. This provisional framework makes an important academic contribution as it provides the reader with various approaches to identify, evaluate and justify the value of such projects either prior to, during or after projects; monitor the potential value in the course of the project; identify gaps in current research and identify future research opportunities.