Stefan Bischoff

Cost allocations for business intelligence (BI) costs create cost awareness, enhance cost transparency, and support the management of BI systems. Although BI cost allocation is highly relevant in practice, the field is widely uncharted in current scholarly research. In this article, the state of the art in scientific literature is analyzed. The review is comprised of three iterations. It shows that certain general approaches for information systems cost allocation are suitable candidates if being combined and tailored to BI systems. Based on synthesis, an agenda is derived for future research into cost allocation for BI systems.

Business intelligence (BI) systems play an important role in organizations' decision-making processes. The existing literature has long focused on the continuous use of information systems (IS). However, the specificities of BI systems such as voluntary use, long-term return of investments, heterogeneity of their use cases, and innovative rather than routine use in such systems motivate our investigating continuous use in the specific context of BI systems. To theorize continuous use of BI systems, we investigate the influencing factors and their interactions. By means of an exploratory and confirmatory mixed-methods research design that comprises a literature review, a single-case study, and a survey, we integrate the identified factors and hypothesize their influence on the continuous use of BI systems in a research model. We test the research model following a partial least squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modeling (SEM). The paper makes two primary contributions: 1) it confirms certain well-established constructs and relations in the specific context of BI systems, which are generally theorized for the continuous use of IS, and 2) it introduces either new constructs or new relations through the given investigation in the context of BI systems. Future studies can test these new constructs and relations as potential input for theorizing general IS continuous use.

In addition to using executive information systems (EIS) in a fixed location, executives increasingly want mobile access, even when they are offline. Based on a framework for EIS use situations and on findings from an expert focus group with participants from multiple industries, we have identified the most important EIS use situations for executives. We classify executives as either Consumer (those who primarily consume EIS information) or Analyst (those who primarily work more interactively with EIS information). To evaluate the relevance of our findings, we participated in a project at Continental AG, a large European automotive supplier. We worked with Continental as it rose to the challenge of selecting the right mobile devices and appropriate software components for its executives' online and offline mobile EIS use preferences. Based on our research, we provide five recommendations for EIS design that will help CIOs in other companies to embrace their executives' growing need to access EIS from mobile devices. Some of these recommendations are generally applicable and will ensure executive buy-in. For Consumer executive use, we recommend first focusing on reducing reliance on paper-based reports, and for Analyst executive use, we recommend first focusing on increasing mobile EIS navigation functionality.

Today business intelligence (BI) systems, which provide management with decision-supportive information, are considered to be a prerequisite for organizational success. In contrast to the operation of BI, BI system management is still an emerging topic in information systems (IS) research. Even though the cost management of BI systems is highly relevant for practice, the field is widely unexplored. Cost allocations for BI systems are supposed to enhance transparency, create cost awareness and support the management of resources of the BI system. In our research we have conducted two focus group studies to examine the basis for BI cost allocations. First, we derive management goals and design principles for a BI cost allocation from an exploratory focus group. In a second step, we evaluate the goals and the design principles in a confirmatory focus group. Our research provides valuable insights on the application of BI cost allocations from our focus groups and contributes a basis for the design of BI cost allocation methods.

Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence (DWH/BI) systems play an important role in the decision making process of organizations. DWH/BI systems address a heterogeneous group of users and therefore have to address a broad range of requirements. Only if these requirements and additional prerequisites are met by the DWH/BI systems, potential users will continuously use these systems for their daily work and thus justify the considerable cost of these systems. In this paper we present an exploratory analysis of factors that influence continuous use of DWH/BI systems. In total, we identified nine factors. Three address aspects related to the users and their interaction with the system. Another three focus on the DWH/BI system's characteristics and its development. The remaining three factors incorporate organizational, governance-related and peer influence factors with an effect on the users��� continuous use behavior.

In this paper we explore the role of pressure for the use of enterprise architecture (EA) artifact. Based on a quantitative dataset on EA artifacts and enterprise architecture management (EAM) benefits, we specifically explore the relationships between the use intensity of EA artifacts, pressure to use these artifacts, and EAM benefit realization. Focusing on the role of pressure to use EA artifacts, we conceptualize four different classes of artifacts based on (1) how intensively they are used in practice and (2) to what degree pressure increases the use intensity. Our results suggest that each class (EA shelf-warmers, EA superstars, EA annoyances, EA pressure beneficiaries) requires different approaches to foster its use intensity. We derive pressure-based and pressure-free approaches for each class aiming at increasing the use intensity of EA artifacts. Additionally we identify the EA artifacts that have the highest impact on EAM utility (e.g., map of company goals, target process map, target application landscape, and the principle ease of use). We discuss management implications accordingly. Keywords-enterprise architecture, use, utility, pressure, EA management

Especially in turbulent times, environmental scanning systems are an important instrument for supporting managerial decision making. The 2008/2009 economic crisis provided a sustainable impulse for focusing earlier on emerging threats and opportunities. Although a rich body of knowledge exists, concepts remain unused in practice. Most often they lack applicability. This article provides a list of requirements criteria specifying the applicability of environmental scanning systems. It is based on the principle of economic efficiency, uses findings from the absorptive capacity theory and can be applied to both evaluate existing environmental scanning systems and develop a new, more applicable generation than those we researched. We end with evaluating an environmental scanning system of a large, international company.

While the conceptual architecture of enterprise information logistics has been stable since the late 1980ies, IT hardware has been subject to radical change recently. Since in-memory appliances as a new technology might address many challenges of information logistics, we discuss its potentials first. Based on a case study of a global automotive company, we then compare potentials with actual achievements. We conclude that there are situations where in-memory appliances are a useful extension to existing IT support concepts, while other situations do not require such support. As a consequence, we regard in-memory appliances as an evolution, but not revolution of IT support from an enterprise information logistics perspective.