A literature review is essential in a research project as Gill and Johnson (2009) indicates that it enables a researcher to have an idea of the current state and limitations on the research topic. To buttress this fact, Wilson (2010), further explained that the work or research being carried out is not done in isolation, rather the researcher should leverage on the thoughts of other people who have carried out research of the same nature. He went further to say that it is required of the researcher to identify and highlight the materials that have been published and present the argument in a unified and logical manner. This chapter presents and discusses the definition and background of Business Intelligence (BI), the key components of BI systems (the BI architecture), the benefits of BI applications, and the analysis of impediments to BI application adoption and usage. This is followed by the review of systems adoption models, such as: Technology Acceptance Method (TAM); Technology Organisation and Environment (TOE); Diffusion of Innovation (DOI); and Unified Technology of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Furthermore, the general overview of the retail industry is presented, and the Nigeria retail industry and its classification are discussed. In addition, the related works are critically evaluated, and finally the chapter’s summary.
Say no to plagiarism.
Get a tailor-made essay on
'The Concept of Business Intelligence'
Business Intelligence (BI)
The principal idea behind BI is to help businesses and managers handle business analytical issues in other to make good business decisions, meeting strategic goals and more importantly to better manage business process improvement.
BI has its origin as far back as 1958 when the then IBM researcher, Hans Peter Luhn used the word BI in a published article. He described BI as the ability to understand all the data that is gathered and analyzed to form a basis for a business to attain the right decision. As years pass by and improvement into business operations and invention continues towards business analytics, BI idea resurfaced and was made popular in 1989 thanks to Howard Dresner who worked then as a Gartner Group analyst. He described BI “as concepts and methods to make business decision making easier and with accuracy by utilising a fact-based support system”. His definition places more emphasis on the value and importance of analysis, reporting, query tools that embodies BI, to provide users the ability to manage and use information in an efficient, accurate and effective manner. As support and need for BI continues to increase, many other authors and scholars have given different definitions to BI. The following is a brief description of how some authors define BI.
Definition of Business Intelligence
Gartner (2010), in its definition characterized BI as applications, infrastructure, instruments, and methods that are bundled together that facilitate the acquisition of data and analysis of information that enables businesses to make an informed decision with precision and accuracy. In view of that definition, BI has become central in today’s business operations and processes.
Similarly, Reinnschmidt and Francouise (2000), define BI as a combination of various tools and technologies that are applied in data collection, analysis and presenting processed data as an information for achieving business decision making.
In addition, Wixom and Watson (2001), define BI as “a broad category of technologies, applications, and processes for access, gathering, storing and analyzing data to help its users make better decisions.” This definition is an acknowledgement that BI does not work in silos rather a combination of tools working together (data gathering into data warehouse, analysis, and presentation with different tools and applications) to present a better information for business decisions.
Keep in mind:
This is only a sample.
Get a custom paper now from our expert writers.
Finally, Foley and Guillemette (2010), define BI as an encapsulation of tools, application, methodologies and standards for data acquisition, extraction, storing, manipulation of data from various sources, to help make an informed business decision. Nevertheless, while there are different BI definitions, their approach and methodology are the same.
