Management of analytics-as-a-service - results from an action design research project

ABSTRACT The ability to generate business-relevant information from data and to exploit it to improve business processes, decision-making, products, and services (business analytics) is a key success factor for businesses today. Answering the call for further research on success-relevant practices and instruments for managing business analytics, we report on the results of a three-year action design research (ADR) project at a global car manufacturer. Drawing on the socio-technical systems theory, we identify seven meta-requirements and specify four principles for the design of an instrument to manage Analytics-as-a-Service (AaaS) portfolios. Our results reinforce the importance of coordinating different socio-technical components in business analytics initiatives and demonstrate how concrete management instruments, such as a proposed portfolio management tool, contribute to socio-technical alignment. For practitioners, the documented design components provide guidance on how to design and implement similar instruments that support the systematic management of AaaS portfolios.