2.1. Business Intelligence (BI)
In 1989, Howard Dresner defined BI as an umbrella term to describe concepts and methods to improve business decision making by using fact-based support systems (Power, 2007). There are also other definitions proposed by other researchers which the following appears the most comprehensive comparing to the others:
“BI is a combination of processes, policies, culture, and technologies for gathering, manipulating, storing, and analyzing data collected from internal and external sources, in order to communicate information, create knowledge, and inform decision making. BI helps report business performance, uncover new business opportunities, and make better business decisions regarding competitors, suppliers, customers, financial issues, strategic issues, products and services”. (Foley & Guillemette, 2010)
By looking at the above definition, we could realize that BI is not only a technical IT project like others, instead it is a managerial philosophy and a tool that its value for business and its contribution to organizational decisions and business performance is much more important than its technical aspect (Lonnqvist & Pirttimaki, 2006). Different authors have developed Critical Success Factor frameworks for managing and implementing Business Intelligence in organizations (Harison, 2012; Yeoh, Koronios & Gao, 2008). Also Business Intelligence has been studied in the use phase (post-adoption) in organizations from three dimensions: 1-intensity of use, 2- extent of use, and 3- BI embeddedness (Grublješič, Jaklič, 2014).