Why Business Intelligence System Needs Metadata?

The ultimate goal of Business Intelligence (BI) initiative is to deliver data in the most appropriate way for making informed business decisions. To attain this goal, metadata for end users plays a critical role in understanding the data provided by a BI system. However, there has been little empirical research about the metadata issues impacting the implementation of BI systems. In particular, such critical questions as 'why does BI need metadata?' and 'What metadata does BI need?' have not been investigated in depth. Answers to these questions are explored in this paper as part of an action research undertaken in a large university in Australia. The findings of semi-structured interviews show that success of a BI system relies more on the metadata for business users than on technical metadata. As a result, a business-users-oriented metadata model on object and element level has been developed to improve the users' satisfaction. The research findings in conjunction with the conclusion of the study may help BI stakeholders in identifying the critical metadata needs required for a more optimised BI deployment. It also may assist BI vendors in improving the business-side metadata which are crucial for a successful BI endeavour.