A Review of Literature on Critical Factors that Drive the Selection of Business Intelligence Tools

Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) has gained importance across many companies, from small-medium sized to well-established organizations. While there is extensive literature studying the adoption, implementation, and critical success factors (CSFs) of BIS, research focusing on factors influencing the selection of business intelligence (BI) software tools has been limited. The main objective of this paper is to discover and explore literature addressing the issue and concerns of software selection experienced by organizations. Furthermore, constructs and factors influencing business intelligence tools selection will be discovered and explored. The study also seeks to determine and examine important variables of interest relating to technical and non-technical factors in order to improve the selection of appropriate software tools that will assist in meeting the organization needs and objectives so as to successfully implement BIS. A narrative literature review was employed and a total of 32 studies was found significant; these studies are divided into three categories 1) selection methodology, 2) evaluation criteria, and 3) evaluation technique. Moreover, factors relating to a software tool, vendor and opinion emerged as influential in the BI tool's selection process. Lastly, the business intelligence conceptual model has emerged from the reviewed literature.