Business Intelligence Practices: Adding Evidence from Organizations in the Nordic Countries

Abstract

There is considerate interest in Business Intelligence BI from many perspectives, but little research describing design and use of BI in real companies is available Granlund, 2011; Jourdan, Rainer & Marshall, 2008. The aim of this article is to add empirical evidence to the knowledge of BI practices, addressing calls for research. BI practices are reported from 193 large Nordic organizations with the aim to give a broad perspective. Nordic organizations are seen as early movers in the adoption of technology Beise, 2004 and receptive to adopt innovations Waarts & Van Everdingen, 2005. However, the picture this paper arrives at is that Nordic organizations design and use of BI solutions is fairly traditional, with a major focus on reporting and analysis that contain financial information. There are signs of "beyond traditional use" of BI, but more field based research is needed to better understand BI in practice.