Critical Factors for Successful Implementation of Business Analytics: Exploratory Findings from Select Cases

Abstract

Business analytics has proven itself as a high business performance tool that can be applied to multiple divisions of an enterprise and creates a fact based culture across the organisation. The use of Quantitative analysis, predictive models and statistical tools helps the business managers in gaining a different view of the data, and deriving maximum value out of it, which in turn contributes towards improved decision making and problem solving in an organisation. However, it has been observed that despite the several benefits that are anticipated with Business Analytics adoption, very few have achieved proficiency in its implementations and organizations are facing adoption barriers, most of them being management and culture related rather than being data and technology related. The present study was undertaken to bridge this gap between the highly proclaimed business benefits of Analytics and the problems faced by organizations in successfully implementing this tool. It presents a detailed analysis of success stories of 7 companies from different sectors viz. FMCG, banking, healthcare, transportation and online selling, who have capitalized on this tool. Case studies were developed and critically analysed on the basis of their objectives of implementing Analytics, tools that were adopted, results achieved and success factors leading to their enhanced performance. The results lead to identification of factors that contribute towards successful implementation of Business Analytics for enhancing the performance of companies from various industries and also companies with varied capital structures. This research also helps in critically analyzing various factors that are pulling a company away from implementing the analytical models. Considering the various dimensions of successfully implementing analytics in organizations, as identified through the study, we also propose a road-map for successful implementation of business analytics. The findings from the study will help organizations in proactively finding a solution to counter adoption barriers that are generally faced during use of analytics and learning from the best practices of the industry.

Keywords: Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Success Factors, Big Data

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