Towards Actionable Business Intelligence: Can System Dynamics Help?

Abstract

Abstract. Business intelligence (BI) and data analytics provide modern enterprises with insights about internal operations, performance, as well as environmental trends, and enable them to make data-driven decisions. Insights resulting from these systems often suggest several alternative changes or corrective actions within the enterprise. In this context, to trade-off and find the most proper action(s) is a non-trivial task due to existing dynamics and complexities of the enterprise. This paper proposes a model-based approach to support the analysis and selection of best alternative actions in adaptive enterprise contexts. The proposed approach links and synthesizes two existing modeling frameworks, the Business Intelligence Model (BIM) and System Dynamics, in a systematic step-by-step way to assist decision makers in finding best response action(s) from a given set of alternatives, and hence to make BI more actionable and understandable. The applicability of this approach in illustrated in a scenario adapted from literature.

System dynamics applied in enterprise engineering – a systematic literature review

“…The coding revealed that most of the work in SD-EE is conceptual and focused on the design phase. The SD models being proposed still need to be validated and redefined, with most models only being tested for feasibility on fictitious demonstration case studies (Fayoumi and Loucopoulos, 2016;Golnam et al, 2010;Nalchigar et al, 2014;Roychoudhury et al, 2014a). Although consistency in the content of the research work is observed, there is scope for further development through implementation in the industry.…”

Navigating the acceptance of implementing business intelligence in organizations: A system dynamics approach

“…Nalchiger et al, in a research they conducted in 2014, presented an approach based on systems dynamics modeling to support decisions and choose the best alternative actions for the organization through the outputs of the business intelligence system. These researchers modeled the results of the business intelligence system with the decision-making process in the organization and actually presented a combination of business intelligence and a decision support system [45] .…”