Business intelligence as a service - Strategic tool for competitiveness

Abstract

Today, more than ever, organizations face daily environmental changes. The source of change may be a new regulatory law, competitor, business model, hype in technology, new service trend, or the lack of skilled human resources. In order to understand the factors of change and their impacts on business strategies, organizations need to have in place a set of tools, methods and procedures to allow an instantaneous reaction, and foresee proactively the highest number of variables that will have impact in the organization's competitive advantages. One of the central tools that managers have at their disposal to face these challenges come from the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which are entering into a new stage. The maturity of some Internet technologies, business intelligence systems and outsourcing business models allows the availability of new services, based on cloud computing. The rise of new service trends are taking place, and if an organization is able of combining the advantages of those trends, it might gain competitive advantage, throughout Business Intelligence as a Service (BIaaS), and what began as a way to achieve operating savings, will eminently reveal its true disruptive potential throughout the Internet. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.