Sebastian Olbrich

Shaping the Next Incarnation of Business Intelligence

The body of knowledge generated by Business Intelligence (BI) research is constantly extended by a stream of heterogeneous technological and organizational innovations. This paper shows how these can be bundled to a new vision for BI that is aligned with new requirements coming from socio-technical macro trends. The building blocks of the vision come from five research strings that have been extracted from an extensive literature review: BI and Business Process Management, BI across enterprise borders, new approaches of dealing with unstructured data, agile and user-driven BI, and new concepts for BI governance. The macro trend of the diffusion of cyber-physical systems is used to illustrate the argumentation.The realization of this vision comes with an array of open research questions and requires the coordination of research initiatives from a variety of disciplines. Due to the embedded nature of the addressed topics within general research areas of the Information Systems (IS) discipline and the linking pins that come with the underlying Dynamic Capabilities Approach such research provides a contribution to IS.

Understanding Information System Agility -- The Example of Business Intelligence

To achieve strategic advantage in todays turbulent environments, it is crucial for organizations to draw increasingly faster conclusions out of changing circumstances. As most decisions today are based on data collected by Information Systems (IS), the IS itself must become more adaptable. This is particularly challenging in the domain of Business Intelligence (BI) Systems since the underlying architectural approach of enterprise-wide decision support systems is not build upon agility, but on reliability and robustness over a period of time. In order to determine the agility of BI, a unique understanding of agility and its underlying criteria is required. This paper provides a literature review which aims to summarize the known criteria from IS literature that can be applied to the domain of BI. The results can be interpreted as a framework for understanding the agility of BI systems and form the basis for generating mandatory criteria for assessing agility.

Critical Contextual Success Factors for Business Intelligence: A Delphi Study on Their Relevance, Variability, and Controllability

The present article investigates critical contextual success factors that influence business intelligence (BI) system success and design in organizations with regard to their relevance, variability, and controllability. The initial set of factors is based on an analysis of extant literature and serves as the basis for further research on this topic. In contrast to previous studies, a Delphi Study provides several advantages such as the validation of possible critical factors by domain experts and the multi-dimensional view on these factors. A carefully selected expert panel investigated the factors not only by means of relevance but also assessed each factor in terms of variability and controllability. This multi-dimensional approach allowed us to identify six distinct clusters of factors with similar attributes and, hence, similar implications for practice. This paper contributes to IS research on critical success factors and system design variables in general and gives specific insights into the BI domain. The results are expected to support BI managers addressing their challenges in BI initiatives and they also provide directions for future research.

Forschungsmethodik einer Integrationsdisziplin - Eine Fortführung und Ergänzung zu Lutz Heinrichs "Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wirtschaftsinformatik" aus gestaltungsorientierter Perspektive

Die gestaltungsorientierte Wirtschaftsinformatikforschung sieht sich der Aufgabe einer Profilierung im internationalen Wissenschaftskontext gegenuber. Analysen belegen, dass sich die deutsche Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) durch eine starke Tradition gestaltungsorientierter Forschung auszeichnet. Dies ausert sich insbesondere in Form einer deutlich ausgepragten Forschung zur Modellierung (konzeptionelle Modellierung, Unternehmensmodellierung, Referenzmodellierung etc.) sowie dadurch, die Validitat der Forschungsergebnisse durch eine prototypische Umsetzung zu prufen (Frank 2006; Goeken 2003; Heinrich 2005; Lange 2006).

Increasing the Value of Big Data Projects -- Investigation of Industrial Success Stories

This paper investigates the constituents of Big Data and their contribution to its success. The starting point is the mainstream understanding of Big Data, which defines the volume, variety and velocity (3V) of the underlying data as main properties of the Big Data phenomenon. This definition is challenged through the presented analysis of more than 100 success stories which are offered by vendors of Big Data technology and solutions. By applying elements of the grounded theory method, the paper goes beyond an overview. The property of variety (which seems to be of particular interest) and structures of the outcome of Big Data projects are discussed. A major implication is that there is a crucial difference between Big Data use cases incorporating all 3Vs and those incorporating less. When all three properties are involved, a new phenomenon arises from embracing new data sources that are within and beyond the organizational borders.

Impacts of In-memory Technology on Data Warehouse Architectures – A Prototype Implementation in the Field of Aircraft Maintenance and Service

Given today’s dynamic market situations, organizations need to internalize the capability to react flexibly on external and internal driven changes. Of course this capability must be supported by the IS landscape. This holds particularly true in the field of aircraft maintenance. For a service provider it is critical to know the age and structure of its equipment pool. This information is vital in offering processes to attract potential customers and to meet service level agreements of existing clients. As current Business Intelligence (BI) architectures fall short in supporting these processes in adequate time and flexibility, we introduce a prototype using an in-memory based BI architecture. The presented artifact proves to have the capability to support business critical processes in a new way. This leads to faster analyses supported by the BI system and also indicates enhanced agility for BI in terms of flexibility and adaptation.

Developing Theories in Information Systems Research: The Grounded Theory Method Applied

Scientific work depends on a foundation of strong and robust theories to guide the process of scientific discovery. Theories are paramount for the understanding, description, and prediction of phenomena studies in the field. In information systems research (ISR), however, only few domain-specific theories have emerged from that last decades of scientific work. To help researchers answer the call for more IS-specific theoretical work, this chapter introduces the Grounded Theory Method (GTM) as one approach to conceptual, theory generating work that extends our understanding beyond the use of grand theories from adjacent disciplines. Based on a brief historical overview, the chapter shows some particularities of ISR and how GTM can be used to address them. It introduces the general process of GTM-based studies and shows how theories emerge ground observations grounded in the field. Afterwards, the chapter shows some of the often rather small and substantive theories in IS can mature toward grand theories using the GTM approach. The ability to frame our research results in a theoretical way is important to build a cumulative research tradition in IS. This will not only help to gradually extend our understanding of relevant phenomena, but will also allow for advances in the discipline search for domain identity and in our race for credibility with the adjacent disciplines.

Implementing E-Government Locally—An Empirical Survey from the European Metropolitan Area Rhine-Neckar

E-Government can transform and improve the entire scope of administrative actions and political processes. Hence, e-government is both the vision of a future government and the reality we can experience today. E-Government is not an objective per se; it has rather to be seen as measures of organizing public governance for better serving citizens and enterprises. Conversely, e-government services are often developed and implemented by a top-down approach without reflecting the use of the services by involving the potential users. Hence, the chapter advocates implementing services on regional level by defining metropolitan regions and describing them as social context of e-government. The following survey conducted in the European metropolitan area Rhine-Neckar suggests a bottom-up approach of identifying and implementing e-government services. In an empirical study we identified the most requested services by self-employed citizens and categorized them in three application groups that obey similar rules of implementation. Being successful, the results also suggest that e-government programs should move outside the organizational boundaries of known administrative structures.

Gestaltung der nächsten Inkarnation von Business Intelligence

ZusammenfassungDer Wissensfundus der Business-Intelligence-(BI)-Forschung wird durch einen Strom heterogener technologischer und organisatorischer Innovationen kontinuierlich erweitert. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt auf, wie sich diese zu einem Leitbild bündeln lassen. Dieses ist für eine Reaktion auf wesentliche sozio-technische Makro-Trends ausgelegt. Die Komponenten des Leitbildes bilden fünf Forschungsstränge, die aus einer umfangreichen Literaturrecherche extrahiert wurden: BI im Geschäftsprozessmanagement, BI über Unternehmensgrenzen hinweg, neue Ansätze im Umgang mit unstrukturierten Daten, agile und benutzergetriebene BI sowie neue Konzepte für eine BI Governance. Das Beispiel des Makrotrends der Verbreitung cyber-physikalischer Systeme illustriert die Argumentation.Bei der Verfolgung der aufgezeigten Vision ergeben sich diverse offene Forschungsfragen, die eine Koordinierung zahlreicher Forschungsinitiativen aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen erfordern. Durch die Einbettung der diskutierten Problemstellungen in übergreifende Forschungsthemen sowie über das zugrunde liegende Dynamic-Capabilities-Konzept liefert der Ansatz einen Forschungsbeitrag zur Wirtschaftsinformatik.AbstractThe body of knowledge generated by Business Intelligence (BI) research is constantly extended by a stream of heterogeneous technological and organizational innovations. This paper shows how these can be bundled to a new vision for BI that is aligned with new requirements coming from socio-technical macro trends. The building blocks of the vision come from five research strings that have been extracted from an extensive literature review: BI and Business Process Management, BI across enterprise borders, new approaches of dealing with unstructured data, agile and user-driven BI, and new concepts for BI governance. The macro trend of the diffusion of cyber-physical systems is used to illustrate the argumentation.The realization of this vision comes with an array of open research questions and requires the coordination of research initiatives from a variety of disciplines. Due to the embedded nature of the addressed topics within general research areas of the Information Systems (IS) discipline and the linking pins that come with the underlying Dynamic Capabilities Approach such research provides a contribution to IS.

Wie Big Data die Kundenbeziehungen beeinflusst – mit zusätzlichen Informationen vom Segmentierungs- zum Erlebnismanagement

Mit der voranschreitenden Individualisierung der Gesellschaft entsteht eine Vielstimmigkeit der Marktteilnehmer. Zusatzlich revolutioniert die Digitalisierung die Beziehung zwischen Kunden und Unternehmen. Diese beiden Entwicklungen stellen Unternehmen vor die Herausforderung, ihr Produkt- und Serviceportfolio auszudifferenzieren sowie die Kommunikationsaktivitaten verstarkt auf digitale Vertriebskanale auszuweiten. Daraus ergibt sich eine zunehmende Transparenz am Markt, die eine Integration von Kunden und Unternehmen ermoglicht. Die dabei erzeugten Daten bergen fur Unternehmen ein bemerkenswertes Potenzial, ein tieferes Verstandnis uber ihre Kunden zu erlangen. Hierzu bedarf es des Aufbaus und der Weiterentwicklung entsprechender Fahigkeiten im Unternehmen, sodass laufend neue Informationen uber Kunden aus Big Data abgeleitet und anschliesend in kundenbezogenen Aktivitaten umgesetzt werden. Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht die erforderlichen Fahigkeiten und zeigt Muster auf, nach denen die abgeleiteten Aktivitaten beschrieben werden konnen. Dabei wird deutlich, dass die Integration von Big Data hauptsachlich davon abhangt, neue Informationen uber Kunden ins Unternehmen aufzunehmen.