Towards chain wide business intelligence - Business intelligence in the Dutch retail sector

摘要

In sectors like the Retail, where margins are small and the turnover rate is high, information is necessary in order to have competitive advantage. Business Intelligence can deliver such information in time. This research focuses on the use of Business Intelligence in the Dutch Retail sector. The main research question is:How is Business Intelligence used in the Dutch retail sector and how will it be used in the future?From theory on steering of processes it comes true that information is necessary in order to steer effectively. Therefore Business Intelligence can play a role in this steering. A good model to determine the Business Intelligence maturity of an organisation is the Business Intelligence Maturity Matrix, which distinguishes four levels of maturity (local, coordinated, integral and intelligent) at the dimensions BI-ambition, BI-organisation and BI-architecture.The retail sector is very extensive. A distinction can be made between food and fashion retail. The processes of retail organisations can be divided in primary and secondary processes, but the most important process in retail organisations is the integration of these processes. Therefore integral information is needed, which can be delivered by Enterprise wide Business Intelligence.Trends in the retail sector are: ongoing innovation, supply chain integration and increasing complexity. These influence the use of Business Intelligence. Because of the trend supply chain integration, retail organisations need chain wide Business Intelligence in order to get information about the whole chain. When this is realised the whole chain from suppliers to customers can be optimised. This will lead to cost reductions and increased sales.In order to see if Business Intelligence is used this way in the Dutch Retail sector, empirical research towards the usage and maturity of Business Intelligence is done in ten Dutch retail organisations. These organisations are both from the food and fashion retail sectors. The results of this research are as follows. The average Business Intelligence maturity level of these ten organisations is coordinated. There is a correlation between the three factors of the Business Intelligence Maturity Matrix and also between the maturity and usage level of Business Intelligence. There is no significant difference between food and fashion retailers in the usage and maturity of Business Intelligence. The use of Business Intelligence is higher in primary processes than the secondary processes. Only two organisations use Business Intelligence in the integration of processes. Business Intelligence is mostly used for reporting and OLAP.The maturity and usage of Business Intelligence at the Dutch Retail sector is not sufficient to fulfil the trends in the retail sector. In order to be ready for chain wide Business Intelligence, it is necessary to have an integral Business Intelligence system. Therefore the Dutch Retail organisations have to evolve their Business Intelligence to an integral system. Also the usage of the system has to be stimulated. And in the last place the relation with the other parties has to be strengthened. When they can realise this, the organisation is ready for chain wide Business Intelligence. Cost reductions, competitive advantage and increasing sales will be the result.