Having the right information in the right place at the right time is
fundamental although not easy for the making of significant business decisions
and staying competitive. Competitive Intelligence CI allows the scanning of the
environment, the recognition of risks and opportunities in the competitive
arena and a better understanding of today & tomorrow's information requirements
with the support of Business Intelligence BI Software.
Choosing the right BI software is critical to increase productivity and
effectiveness in the organization. At the same time a very elaborating and
complex process due to the fact that numerous vendors exist on the market most
of which are updated very rapidly besides most of BI software selection
criteria already used are vague and not complete. It is also difficult to
evaluate BI effectiveness as a tool in conjunction with supporting the CI cycle
different phases.
The objective of this study is to develop a model and test it on a small sample
of BI vendors to support organizations in selecting the BI Software that best
fits their business needs as well as differentiating between different vendors
in this area while developing a reliable categorization. It is the answer to
the criticism of criteria selected in other BI Software evaluations today. The
major criticism is that software calling themselves BI only cover parts of the
Intelligence Cycle.
A comprehensive review on CI concepts, BI software functions along with
previous BI software evaluations have been conducted in order to fulfill the
first objective of the study (The model). Moreover, qualitative empirical study
using the model developed was carried out to fulfill the other objectives by
evaluating a chosen sample of BI software vendors.
The study was able to develop what has been called the Solberg Søilen Amara
Vriens Model for evaluating BI software after its authors, that consists of
technological variables that covers the BI function along with the variables
for measuring the level of CI Cycle phases support on a (5) point Likert scale.
Subsequently, it tested the model on a limited sample of BI Software vendors.
Moreover, the findings of the study also revealed that it is difficult to
declare the most competitive BI software as what is good for one user might not
be good for the other depending on their varied business needs. Furthermore,
the study initiated a new classification of BI Software vendors depending on
their support of the CI cycle phases and divided them into five categories
includ...
