How does Business intelligence & analytics create business value and facilitate ambidexterity? A case study in the Swedish online retailing industry
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Management and economics of innovation (MPMEI), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Walman, Adam
Thornander, Oscar
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Several tools and methods have arisen in the last decade to leverage data, where
business intelligence and analytics have become commonly used by companies
and significantly in the online retailing industry. The online retailing industry stands
out with its immense growth and access to data on customers, competitors, and
products, making it possible to find and create value from data with a relatively low
initial investment. Business analytics and intelligence is a fast-evolving field in
which earlier studies on value appropriation have primarily been conducted in
Spain and the US, outside the online retailing segment. Thus, the Swedish online
retailing market is previously unexplored and could be especially interesting to
study, as the country is viewed as an IT frontier.
A business is bound to include activities to create value for the present and the
future by innovation and continuous improvement to survive, and these processes
can be reinforced with business intelligence and analytics. However, how value is
appropriated through business intelligence and analytics is sparsely covered and
needs further examination. This paper aims to expand the knowledge on how
value is appropriated through BI&A. Further, the paper aims to investigate whether
and how BI&A can assist continuous improvement and innovation by supporting
ambidexterity and its exploitation and exploration processes by studying the online
retail market in Sweden.
A qualitative methodology was adopted in which 14 different online retailing
companies operating in Sweden have been interviewed, along with two experts in
online retailing. The study identified improvements in operational efficiency,
increasing sales, and competitiveness of the business as three main areas of
value appropriations gained from business intelligence and analytics. The paper
presents vast examples of how value is created and appropriated through
business intelligence and analytics in these three main areas and are highlighted
in the results. Our findings and discussion present how value is created, not only
in the online retailers’ specific functions but gives a holistic view of how business
intelligence and analytics support value creation throughout the organization.
Further, our findings suggest that business analytics and intelligence improve the
ability to achieve ambidexterity by supporting explorative and exploitive activities
with, for example, methods and tools such as designing and aligning KPIs, and
A/B testing, influencing the mediating factors of interconnectedness and crossfunctional
interfaces.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Business intelligence and analytics, online retailing, ambidexterity, competitive advantage, dynamic capabilities