The Evaluation of Business Intelligence: A Case Study in a Major Financial Institution

Business intelligence (BI) is the current industry movement that addresses the use of IT to support management decision making. Unlike previous approaches to decision support, BI systems are large-scale information systems. Whereas the development of small-scale personal decision support systems (PDSS) and executive information systems (EIS) may be authorised and funded at an individual executive’s discretion, BI systems require evaluation and approval processes more like those used in large-scale operational IT projects. This paper presents a framework for BI and proposes that Symon’s Context-Content-Process model is useful for understanding BI projects. A pilot case study of BI evaluation in a major bank is described and analysed in terms of the Context-Content-Process model. The findings include the recognition of the importance of nonfinancial intangible factors in BI evaluation, the use of operational justification for strategic BI systems, and the varying perspectives of different stakeholders in BI systems. The framework and case findings provide part of the foundation for a larger project concerning the development of a BI evaluation method.