Tackling Lack of Motivation in Aspirational Analytics Companies

Abstract

Establishing business intelligence analytics (BIA) in small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises is a pervasive problem. SME's - the majority of businesses - play an important role in creating jobs, but research is primarily focused on large corporations. The authors worked with small manufacturing companies at the aspirational capability level but found that their motivation to introduce BIA was low. They had many business challenges but perceived the obstacles (primarily cost and effort) as too great, and their priorities were with operational issues. A two-phase approach based on a well-known analytics maturity model was devised to help raise company motivation. The article describes three studies in different companies using variations of the approach. Comparative analysis of the cases shows that demonstrating a clear path to improved functional efficiency is key to improving motivation, and that simple, easy to learn tools can provide these insights at little cost.

The role of leadership skills in the adoption of business intelligence and analytics by SMEs

“…In particular, the director of C5 admitted that they do not use the data but fall back on conventional management ideas, citing that managing the childcare business is their second job. This finding is supported by Gudfinnsson et al. (2019), who found a limited motivation for SMEs to invest in any BI&A efforts.…”

“…In particular, the director of C5 admitted that they do not use the data but fall back on conventional management ideas, citing that managing the childcare business is their second job. This finding is supported by Gudfinnsson et al (2019), who found a limited motivation for SMEs to invest in any BI&A efforts. In summary, the primary obstacles to novice BI&A leadership skills are the lack of knowledge and motivation in using available data for analysis and instead relying on heuristics and networking.…”

Understanding the Processes of how Small and Medium Enterprises derive Value from Business Intelligence and Analytics

“…In addition, both owners/managers (of SME2 and SME4) showed a preference for personal networks. This finding is supported by Gudfinnsson et al (2019), who found limited motivation for SMEs to invest in BI&A efforts. The owners/managers do not perceive value from the use of BI&A, although they have the TPS that generates data for BI&A.…”