EVALUATION OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES

Highlights: Most companies have issues with large volumes of data, lack of information, knowledge, and insufficient reporting. Business Intelligence (BI) allows companies to find patterns and connections between apparently independent and disconnected pieces of data. Evaluating success or effectiveness of information systems is crucial for investment in these technologies. Despite advancements made by evaluation studies, there is still a gap in regard to BI-oriented evaluation models. Objective: Propose and apply a model for BI evaluation in telecommunication companies through IT evaluation attributes. Design/Methodology/Approach: In order to develop the research, an alignment between literature review and field research was made. Multiple case studies of qualitative approach were used as method, using semi-structured interviews as data collection techniques. These were conducted with IT managers and system users. Results: Despite the main advantages, BI's disadvantages and aspects for obtaining success were identified in literature and are aligned with the field research. It was found that motivations and pressures for BI implementation are principally related to the alignment of the organization's strategic planning to BI's benefits. Investigation's limitations: Not all hardware attributes can be applied to software evaluation processes, similar to how some are not appropriate to the service sector. Thus, this work's proposition focuses on software evaluation attributes. Practical implications: From a management perspective, this article contributes with the proposition of a new set of key attributes to the evaluation of BI after its implementation in companies which are not necessarily in the telecommunications sector. Originality/Value: Despite the adoption and growth of BI, there is a gap to be filled regarding models for the technology evaluation. This type of model is crucial for understanding why a tool with a number of advantages is still affected by implementation difficulties and use in the telecommunications sector. Therefore, this work provides a set of evaluation attributes supported by literature which can subsidize the development of new evaluative studies that are not restricted to IT.