Challenges with BI adoption in SMEs

Abstract

Business intelligence (BI) has become a well-known umbrella term both amongst academics and practitioners. Researchers have studied how companies can take advantage of BI and what challenges companies are facing when working with BI. However, research is mostly focused on large companies, despite the importance of small- and medium sized companies (SMEs) in both society and economically. This paper presents results of an in-depth qualitative case study on challenges faced by SMEs when adopting BI. The challenges are categorized according to a BI maturity model adopted as unit of assessment. The contribution of the results presented is two-folded; 1) It increases current literature regarding challenges when adopting BI in SMEs, and 2) It serves as guidance for SMEs on common pitfalls that ought to be avoided.