Business Analytics and Information Processing Needs - a Case Study

Many organizations implemented business analytics and intelligence solutions. Often such initiatives bring little business value after initial hype. An analysis of factors influencing the continued use of those systems is thus called for. We use organizational information processing theory to argue that while ITenabled business analytics can drastically enhance the information processing capabilities they do not necessarily have the same effect on the information processing needs. Thus a deliberate effort is needed to assure a permanent increase of processing needs in order to assure long-term use of business analytics. We use a case study of a North-American company to analyze how the successful implementation of analytics tools lead to high initial use. However, after decrease in those needs, the use dropped leading eventually to also reduction of processing capabilities.