Mattias Strand

Analyzing business intelligence maturity

Business intelligence (BI) has fundamentally changed how companies conduct their business. In literature, the focus has been on volume-operation companies that provide services to millions of customers. In contrast, complex-systems companies have fewer customers and pursue customer needs by providing more customised products and services. This paper presents the results of a case study conducted at a complex-systems company, with the overall aim to identify how complex-systems companies may take advantage of BI. A framework was used to measure the BI maturity of the company. In addition, we also explain the current maturity level of the case company, based on critical factors for success adopted from the literature. In doing so, we also contribute important details regarding factors that must be considered by organisations, in order to leverage their analytical capability. Finally, we also propose topics that need to be further investigated, in order to increase current knowledge regarding BI usage and maturity in complex-systems companies.

Syndicate Data Incorporation into Data Warehouses : a Categorization and Verification of Problems

Organizations experience problems when incorporating external data into data warehouses (DWs), e.g. (Adelman, 1998; Damato, 1999; Devlin, 1997; Kimball, 1996; Oglesby, 1999) and therefore, they are not able to fully exploit the potential thereof (Strand & Wangler, 2004). In alignment, the need for developing a support that may assist organizations in better exploiting the potential of the incorporated external data has been emphasized by DW consultants (Strand and Wangler, 2004), as well as banking organizations (Strand et aI., 2004b).

Benefits of relating the Retail Domain and Information Fusion

In this paper a mapping between retail concepts and the JDL model is proposed. More specifically, the benefits of using solutions to military problems as inspiration to retail specific problems are discussed. The somewhat surprising conclusion is that there are several similarities between the military and retail domains, and that these similarities potentially could be exploited. A few examples of retail problems that could benefit from theories and techniques commonly used in the information fusion community are given. All examples are taken from recently started or planned projects within the information fusion research program at the University of Skovde, Sweden

Syndicate Data Incorporation into Data Warehouses: Contrasting Consumer Problems with Supplier Viewpoints

Most organizations are exposed to increasing competition and must be able to orient themselves in their environment. Therefore, they need comprehensive systems that are able to present a holistic view of the organization and its business. A data warehouse (DW) may support such tasks, due to its abilities to integrate and aggregate data from organizationally internal, as well as external sources and present the data in formats that support strategic and tactical decision-makers.Traditionally, DW development projects have focused on data originating from internal systems, whereas the benefits of data acquired external to the organization, i.e. external data, have been neglected. However, as it has become increasingly important to keep track of the competitive forces influencing an organization, external data is gaining more attention. Still, organizations are experiencing problems when incorporating external data and these hinder the organizations from exploiting the potential of external data and prevent them to achieving return on their investments. In addition, current literature fails to assist organizations in avoiding or solving common problems.Therefore, in order to support organizations in their external data incorporation initiatives, a set of guidelines have been developed and contextualized. The guidelines are also complemented with a state of practice description, as a means of taking one step towards a cohesive body of knowledge regarding external data incorporation into DWs. The development of the guidelines, as well as the establishment of a state of practice description, was based upon the material from two literature reviews and four interview studies. The interview studies were conducted with the most important stakeholders when incorporating external data, i.e. the user organizations (2 studies), the DW consultants, and the suppliers of the external data. Additionally, in order to further ground the guidelines, interviews with a second set of DW consultants were conducted.

A Decision Support System for Sustainable Waste Collection

This paper presents a decision support system DSS for making the waste collection process more sustainable. Currently, waste collection schedules and routes are created manually in most waste management organizations. This is both very time consuming and likely to result in poor solutions, as the task is extremely difficult due to the large number of bins combined with the many parameters to be considered simultaneously. With a sophisticated DSS, it becomes possible to address the complexities of optimal waste collection and improve sustainability-not least from the environmental perspective. The DSS proposed here is designed to be used on the operational level in the waste management organization and supports daily operations and activities. System evaluation indicates that it can reduce truck operating time by approximately 25%, corresponding to a saving of approximately 21,300 kg of carbon dioxide and 187 kg of nitrogen oxides per year and truck.

Taking Advantage of Business Intelligence in a Complex-Systems Environment.

Business intelligence has fundamentally changed how many companies conduct their business. The focus of academic literature has however been on volume-operation companies that provide services to millions of customers. Complex-systems companies have fewer customers and pursue customer needs by providing more customized products and services. The knowledge in the research society is limited to volume-operation companies and there a need for more case studies regarding how companies actually use their information systems, specifically complex-systems companies. This work looks at a case of a complex-systems company with the overall aim to see how complex-systems companies may take advantage of business intelligence. A framework was used to measure BI maturity; expressed future needs were compared to future trends in BI literature and BI usage in specific areas was analyzed with the help of a framework from BI literature. The results indicate that the company is somewhere between Aspirational and Experienced with respect to BI maturity. BI is used for reporting a variety of key performance indicators and the main analysis tool for various calculations is Excel. The expressed future needs are mainly strategy-driven and technology-driven and often involve better and faster access to information. The difference in the business models of volume-operations companies and complex-systems companies could influence the BI maturity and help to explain the maturity difference between these two types of companies. Furthermore, the results indicate that there is a difference between the roles of BI tools in complex-systems companies compared to volume-operations.

Managing Knowledge in a Networked Context

The aim of this paper is to describe an information service within a virtual organisation and to provide a set of lessons learned concerning the implementation of information services in virtual organisations. The study was performed within a joint project between a major Swedish industrial research institute, a number of international companies within the electronic industry and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Skovde. A main goal for the project was to provide designers with information about manufacturability. This may be described as knowledge sharing in an inter-organisational network (Franke, 1999). In order for organisations to survive, it is of vital interest to acquire knowledge about the actors in the organisational environment e.g. customers, suppliers, and business partners (Alavi and Leidner, 1999; Hackathorn, 1999). Carlsson (2001) stresses the need for further research on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in network-based knowledge processes. In our view an information system serves as a means for managing knowledge. Hence the terms information system and knowledge management system will be used interchangeably.