Informations about the article :

Title:

A Systems Theory Of Business Intelligence.

Author: Jerry Kurtyka.

Name of the Review:

DM Review.

Number Of Pages: 4 pages.

Year of publication: 2005.

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Introduction :

Through this article, the author has proposed a systems theory of Business Intelligence (BI) in order to guide the designers on what BI technology can do and what it cannot do in an environment and to detect the risks involved. In a first place, he defined the systems theory as the study of the general principles of systems functioning, so that they can be applied to all types of systems, « by viewing them as systems per se rather than an economy or a business or a machine ». Then, he defined the systems theory of BI, which is « to position the BI in the context of its surrounding system ». Every organization is a cognitive system that has to perform four tasks: 1- Sense and monitor its environment; 2- Relate the information obtained to the operating norms; 3- Detect the deviation from these norms; 4- Initiate corrective actions. Those tasks create an interface between the organization and its environment that is led by the BI. In order to be efficient, the BI system designed has to take into consideration many criteria, especially the environment where the firm evolves. From this, the problematic of this article appears through the following question: “What BI system design approach is right for a given environment?”

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Developement :
A systems theory for BI: The firm can be approached as a Human Systems Model that interacts with these elements: - The larger world system : it includes the global environment in which the firm operates; - The external environment : it regroups all the components acting externally from the firm and on which the organization has a little control (customers, regulators, competitors, etc.); - The resource base : All the inputs over which the firm has control: labor, capital, suppliers, etc;