Abstract:
Business Intelligence has become a powerful business tool that describes the business environment, the organisation, its situation in terms of markets, customers, competitors and its financial situation. The objective of BI is to increase the overall performance of the organisation through an informed decision making process. This research study objective is to identify the organisational factors that will increase the likeliness of BI adoption by small-to-medium enterprises (SME’s) in New Zealand. Existing research studies however, focus predominantly on the challenges and benefits of BI technologies adoption. Importantly this study do not define BI as purely a technology but defines it as methods, processes and technology that work together to gain intelligent insight from business information. The organisational factors identified that formed the hypotheses of the research model included data management, organisation culture and organisation motivation. These factors were identified through factor analysis that included technology adoption models and existing research studies specifically related to SME BI and technology adoption. The outcome of the research has identified that only organisation motivation in the context of competitiveness and perception of BI’s value and benefits can significantly influence the likeliness of BI adoption. New Zealand SME’s form the backbone of the country’s economy and also operate in extreme competitive niche markets. The adoption of BI practice and the use of information as a strategic resource will enable SME’s to be more innovative and competitive.
