Suboptimal business intelligence implementations: understanding and addressing the problems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the failures of business intelligence (BI) implementations and to understand why they fail as well as what action can be taken to ensure implementation success. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a literature review of academic journals and case studies relating to BI, and the success and failure of the implementation of such projects. It focuses on four areas of BI projects to measure success: return on investment, non-concrete measures, project management measures and user satisfaction. The literature provides insights into what factors contribute to the success of a BI implementation and what factors contribute to the failure. Once the failures can be ascertained, a strategic approach to remedying the failure is discussed. Findings – Implementation failure specifically relating to BI is a rarely discussed topic. This paper provides an understanding of why BI implementations fail and how organisations can ensure, prior to implementing such a solution, the considerations that need to be made to ensure that success is achieved from a technological, organisational and process perspective. Originality/value – The paper uses empirical evidence from the literature to provide an understanding of why BI implementations fail. The factors contributing to BI failure are examined along with insights into how to succeed with a BI implementation.