Developing Strategic Capability Through Business Intelligence Applications: A Case Study From the German Healthcare Insurance Industry

Abstract

Wynn, M. and Brinkmann, D., (2018), in Yeoh, W. and Miah, S. (eds) Business Intelligence in Organisational Settings, IGI-Global. \nCompany performance can be measured at all levels across an organisation, and in the German healthcare industry, Business Intelligence systems play a crucial role in achieving this. For one major health insurance company (discussed here as an alias - AK Healthcare), the deployment of Business Intelligence applications has supported sustained growth in turnover and market share in the past five years. In this article, these tools are classified within an appropriate conceptual framework which encompasses the organisation’s information infrastructure and associated processes. Different components of the framework are identified and examples are given - systems infrastructure, data provision/access control, the BI tools and technologies, report generation, and information users. The use and integration of Business Intelligence tools in the strategy development process is then analyzed, and the key functions and features of these tools for strategic capability development are discussed. Research findings encompass system access, report characteristics, and end-users capabilities.