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Top1. Introduction
In the twenty-first century, organizations are dealing with a fast changing environment. The changing environment is mainly caused by globalization, where geography and time boundaries no longer limit organizational processes. To react on this globalization, technology vendors develop more and more advanced technologies to accommodate organizations and give them competitive opportunities in this changing environment (Kakihara & Sorenson, 2002). One essential component in organizational success and increasing their competitive position is Business Intelligence (BI) (Wixom, Watson, 2010). But also with BI, globalization is changing the way organizations use BI. Market researchers predict a steady shift in the way organizations use BI and it is driven by the upcoming Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions (Gartner, 2013). This shift results in BIaaS solutions, Business Intelligence offered as a service on the internet (e.g. BI that is geographically and time independent).
More and more BI vendors are exploring the BIaaS solution hype by improving their BI products with SaaS abilities and thereby developing BIaaS-like solutions. BI (in some form) already exists for decades and extensive knowledge is available from different studies, and also SaaS as we know it now, already exists for some years and researchers have followed this trend by doing research on SaaS and cloud computing. However, in contrast to BI and SaaS, combining these two together and offering BI as a Service (BIaaS) on the Internet is a quite young field of research, and therefore there is not a specific BIaaS model available that elaborates on what BIaaS solutions should entail or a best practice for BIaaS solution development. Taking this lack of clarity about BIaaS and the missing guideline for BIaaS solution development into account, this research focusses on defining BIaaS and its contents and the creation of a roadmap for BIaaS solution development.
Thomson and van der Walt (2010) outlined the essence for companies to invest in BI in the cloud. Their research conclusion stated that BIaaS solutions (i.e. BI solutions offered as services on the internet) will allow companies to reduce the cost of having a BI solution and also having access to the latest software which will give the business an edge on their competition. This opposed edge on the competition by having access to the latest software has long been supported by earlier research done for instance by Porter and Millar (1980), and somewhat more recently by Clemmons and Row (1991).
De Marco et al (2010) support the conclusion of Thomson and van der Walt (2010) on BIaaS solutions that reduce company costs, but they also seek to establish a conceptualization of the enabling factors in Business Intelligence as a Service solution adoption. Their main research objective was to propose a model containing enabling factors for the adoption of BIaaS solutions. They seek to expand on the Benlian, Hess and Buxmann (2009) model which is based on a theoretical framework including axioms from Transaction Cost Theory, Resource Based View and Theory of Planned Behavior.
Having outlined the benefits for companies to market BIaaS solutions, it is clear why analysts foresee a growth of investments companies will do in BIaaS solutions and therefore the importance for BI solution vendors to offer BIaaS solutions for their customers (Gartner (2013)).