A Study of Usage & Prospects of Business Intelligence (BI) Tools in SMEs and Large Organization in Ahmedabad Region

Abstract

The fluctuating economic conditions and the pressures of competition force business owners and managers to try out many different performance improvement concepts and tools, often with mixed results. Business Intelligence (BI) is one such concept and tool which combines operational data with analytical tools to present complex and competitive information to planners and decision makers by improving the timeliness and quality of inputs to the decision process. Organizations adopt BI tools and information systems to learn from the past, control the present and predict the future. BI is used to understand the capabilities available in the firm; the state of the art trends, and future directions in the markets; the technologies, and the regulatory environment in which the firm competes; and the actions of competitors and the implications of these actions. The emergence of data warehouse as a repository, advancements in data cleansing, increased capabilities of hardware and software, and the emergence of analytics all combine to create a richer business intelligence environment. Performance-driven organizations leverage their processes, resources and workforces with enterprise data and analytics to realize a higher return on investment, increased productivity, decreased operational costs, improved customer and employee retention, faster turnaround times and a host of other benefits. By employing key assets and resources, and adopting appropriate process management and database administration practices, companies are able to reach a higher level of performance that leads to increased profitability and business success). The SME sector of India is considered as the backbone of economy contributing to approx. 45% of the industrial output, 40% of India’s exports, employing 60 million people, creating 1.3 million jobs every year and producing more than 8000 quality products for the Indian and international markets1. The people of Ahmedabad (Gujarat) are known for their enterprising nature and Ahmedabad region not only has many SMEs but also a fair number of large corporates. While large organizations are known to use BI, not much data is available about SMEs using BI for business benefits. This research studied the extent of usage, benefits realized and prospects of usage of BI in SMEs and Large Organizations in Ahmedabad region. The sample size was 55 organizations comprising of 27 Large Organizations and 28 SMEs. The industry wise breakup was 29 Manufacturing units and 26 Service organizations. The study revealed that there was a significant difference in the extent of usage of BI tools amongst Large organizations and SMEs in Ahmedabad region while there was no significant difference in the extent of usage between Manufacturing and Service organizations. Also, the benefits realised was dependent on the size and sector of the organization. The prospects for BI implementation amongst the organizations surveyed looks bright which is a very encouraging sign.