Integrating BI Information into ERP Processes

Describing Enablers

Richard Russman, Lisa F. Seymour and Jean-Paul van Belle

Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Keywords: BI, ERP, Enterprise Systems, Real Time BI.

Abstract: Business Intelligence (BI) systems typically report on transactions executed in enterprise information sys-

tems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Reporting is normally at managerial or executive

level, yet substantial benefits can accrue to organizations that successfully integrate BI information back in-

to ERP processing at an operational level. How this integration is enabled is not well understood or re-

searched. In this paper, a multiple case study considering three organizations, factors enabling this integra-

tion are described and a process framework is presented indicating the importance of these enablers and the

sequence in which these factors need to be considered. New factors not initially considered in the literature

emerged such as including big data, using in memory BI and using the same vendor for ERP and BI. How-

ever, unless integrating BI into ERP processing is appropriate for an organization, benefits will not neces-

sarily accrue.

1 INTRODUCTION

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are

enterprise information systems that integrate all

facets of business by providing functionality for

coordinating and processing planning, manufactur-

ing, sales, accounting, finance and human resources

business functions using shared data and infor-

mation. Business Intelligence (BI) systems can pull

data from ERP and other systems, and provide re-

porting to help users make accurate and timely deci-

sions. Although BI often is reporting on ERP trans-

actional data, BI has been criticized because the

level of reporting is mostly at a strategic level as

opposed to an operational level, and with a consider-

able time lag (Bucher et al., 2009). BI methodolo-

gies and tools are typically not process-aware (van

der Aalst, Zhao, Wang, 2015). Data scientists can

now do new and exciting analytics but should not

forget that this data needs to improve operational

business processes (van der Aalst et al., 2015). Po-

tential solutions to this problem include Real Time

Business Intelligence (RTBI) and Business Perfor-

mance Management (BPM). In RTBI BI reports are

generated in near real time, and are used to help an

organization carry out operations. BPM is an initia-

tive or framework within business process manage-

ment (vom Brocke and Rosemann, 2014) under

which organizations use IT enabled methodologies

to formulate, manage and execute their strategy

through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (Tank,

2015). In all of these scenarios, ERP systems exe-

cute and store transactions, and BI systems report on

those executed transactions. Yet there are also po-

tential benefits for the scenario in which BI infor-

mation is integrated back into ERP processing.

However, there are many obstacles to ERP BI inte-

gration (Nofal and Yusof, 2013). Hence the main

research question posed here is “What factors and

conditions enable BI information to integrate and

impact on ERP transaction processing?”

This paper addresses this through a short litera-

ture review, description of method and findings with

discussion.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

BI integrated with ERP allows organizations to take

advantage of ERP data using BI reporting capabili-

ties. Firstly BI developed on the top of ERP has the

advantage of simplified data acquisition drawn from

a homogenous source (Lupu et al., 2007). Secondly

by executing corporate decision making at both

management and operations levels back in the ERP

system both the BI system and the ERP data are

Russman, R., Seymour, L. and Belle, J-P.

Integrating BI Information into ERP Processes - Describing Enablers.

DOI: 10.5220/0006292302410248

In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2017) - Volume 1, pages 241-248

ISBN: 978-989-758-247-9

241

better utilized to the benefit of the organization

(Chou et al., 2005). While BI provides refined in-

formation, BI reports that do not also include context

have a diminished impact (Bucher, et al., 2009).

Companies that have implemented ERP on a large

scale have a majority of process steps managed,

planned, and executed in the ERP system. In these

cases BI and ERP system integration can be maxim-

ized as follows (Bucher, et al., 2009; Chou et al.,

2005; Gile, Teubner, Moore and Fossner, 2006):

 Operational processes generate transactional data

stored in the ERP system at the operational layer.

 BI sources data from the ERP via extraction,

transformation and loading (ETL) processes and

presents it in the analytics layer in the DW.

 BI consolidates diverse data into meaningful

performance indicators.

 BI performance indicators are used as input to

drive operational processes executed in the ERP.

Yet, moving process analysis into an integrated BI

environments is still an unanswered research ques-

tion (Baars et al., 2014). While mining ERP systems

to get BI is challenging (Nofal and Yusof, 2013), the

feedback loop of BI back into ERP is more so. The

feedback loop of using BI to manage operational

processes has been termed operational BI (Baars et

al., 2014) and is described through several concepts,

including RTBI, and BPM frameworks. There is

insufficient research on integrating ERP and BI in

general (Nofal and Yusof, 2013) and the authors

could find limited research that identifies the factors

that enable feedback of BI on ERP processing.

Hence success factors in the literature for ERP, BI

and trends in BI were considered and investigated

and are now briefly presented here and summarised

in Table 1.

2.1 BI Enablers

BI processes can enable getting the right information

in the right quantity, in a timely manner and in a

usable format, to impact positively on business op-

erations and tactics (Lupu et al., 2007). Although BI

can run on data in any storage, most typically a data

warehouse (DW) stores transactional data in the

form of structured normalised data or as de-

normalized or unstructured data optimised for re-

trieving and presenting information in queries. The

DW is populated via ETL, after which the data be-

comes static. BI then uses this data to create reports

and analysis (Tank, 2015). Yet BI implementations

can be complex, and projects that deliver the DW

Table 1: BI ERP integration enablers based on the literature.

Category Enabler Description Cite

ERP

Installation

ERP support of operations Operation execution and operational reporting (Hwang and Grant, 2011)

Integrated on many levels

Strategic, Systems, Organizational

and Technical integration

(Hwang and Grant, 2011)

Installation

BI background and uses

Traditional sources, strategic, management

reports

(Bucher, et al., 2009; Lupu et

al., 2007)

Different BI Reports Strategic; Management; Operational

(van der Aalst et al., 2015;

Tank, 2015)

BI Landscape ERP ETL BI structure and landscape

(Gile et al., 2006; Tank,

2015)

Capabilities

Corporate objectives

aligned

Drives change and competitive advantage

(Işık, Jones and Sidorova,

2013)

Data Quality Consistency, comprehensiveness, timely (Parikh and Haddad, 2012)

Integrated on many levels

Data, business process, application, and user

integration.

(White, 2005)

Flexibility Allows changes in requirements (Işık et al., 2013)

Decision tiers

Strategic (data less timely less structured),

planning, management, operational

(structured timely accurate)

(Işık et al., 2013)

BPM

framework

A framework in use

Strategise, plan metrics to achieve goals,

monitor against goals, act and adjust

(Tank, 2015)

KPIs defined and tiered Strategic, Management, Operational (Tank, 2015)

Business context for KPIs In ERP where operations occur (Bogdana et al., 2009)

RTBI

factors

Different report types Strategic; management; operational

(Azvine, Cui, Nauck, and

Majeed, 2006)

Organizational readiness Management; funding; support

(Golfarelli, Rizzi and Cella,

2004)

Technical readiness hardware, software, tools (Golfarelli et al., 2004)

ICEIS 2017 - 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

242

and BI can fail because of the complexity of these

processes over the entire organization (Tank, 2015).

It has often been shown that the root cause of BI

failures is not technology, but organizational, cultur-

al and infrastructural issues (Lupu et al., 2007).

2.2 BI and Business Performance

Management Integration

BPM is an initiative where companies align strategic

and operational objectives with business activities

with the goal of managing performance through

informed and better decision making and actions.

The BPM core processes are strategize; plan; moni-

tor and analyse; and take corrective action (Tank,

2015). BPM focuses on the entire enterprise and

requires access to timely accurate data which pro-

vides support for tactical, operational and strategic

decision making. KPIs established within the correct

business context can allow for real time management

and changes (Tank, 2015). A top down enforcing of

company strategies via a BPM framework into oper-

ational and tactical decisions can be supported using

BI (Bogdana, Felicia and Delia, 2009). Although

KPIs supported by most BI installations, have high

latency and are generated through manual extrac-

tions and allocations (Azvine et al., 2006).

2.3 Real Time Business Intelligence

RTBI can be defined as BI that has zero or small

latency. RTBI will derive performance measures

related to the current situation (as opposed to histor-

ical time) in order to drive a decision at that mo-

ment. The vision behind RTBI is the seamless transi-

tion from data into information into action (Azvine

et al., 2006). Classic BI focuses on reporting only,

while the vision of RTBI is to provide decision mak-

ers at operational levels the information to make

changes to processes in real time (Golfarelli et al.,

2004). Although data in classic DW and BI solutions

is static and may be plagued with data integration

issues (Sahay and Ranjan, 2008) these systems are

real time capable and form the building blocks of

RTBI solutions (Tank, 2015). Thus RTBI can trigger

a process, alter the course of a process, or help a

human decision be made during a process (Bucher,

Gericke and Sigg, 2009) and has been termed real-

time process intelligence (RTPI) (Korotina, Müller,

Debortoli, 2015). For RTBI to be successfully real-

ised in an organization technical and organizational

challenges need to be addressed. Organizational

challenges include having top management and or-

ganizational support, as well as funding in place

(Tank, 2015) and lack of conceptual understanding

by business (Korotina et al., 2015). Technical chal-

lenges include a lack of standards (Korotina et al.,

2015) as well as inadequate hardware, software and

tools (Tank, 2015). An assessment of the return on

investment of RTPI has been called for (Korotina et

al., 2015).

3 METHODOLOGY

This research is qualitative and interpretive using a

multiple case study approach (Yin, 2012). Interpre-

tive studies are well established in IS research and

include second-order constructs of the researcher’s

interpretation of interviewees’ first-order constructs

(Walsham, 2006). The case study approach enables a

real-world inquiry of a contemporary phenomenon

when the boundaries between phenomenon and con-

text are not clearly evident and is particularly useful

for descriptive and explanatory approaches going

well beyond exploratory research (Yin, 2012). Gen-

eralisations from case studies can include theories

(Walsham, 2006). The initial target population for

this research was any organization using an ERP

system to run a majority of its operational transac-

tions, and a BI system to perform the majority of its

business reporting. Three organizations were chosen

that had implemented and been operating ERP and

BI solutions for several years. The organizations and

their main ERP and BI systems are listed in Table 2.

The organizations are all large private for profit

organizations. Ethics approval from the university

was obtained prior to data collection.

Data collection consisted of six interviews and

analysis of one document (EP03). The semi-

structured questions were framed from the literature

and asked about the organisation’s BI, ERP, BPM

and RTBI usage and capabilities. The respondents

are functional experts of BI and ERP use, support

and implementation and were interviewed at their

work locations during 2015. The respondents and

their codes are:

 IT Director or Manager (EP01)

 IT Technology Specialist (EP02)

 IT Director or Manager (OG01)

 IT Technology Specialist (OG02)

 IT Director or Manager (CP01)

 Business Director or Manager (CP02)

Interviews lasted from 30 minutes to one hour

and then the recordings were transcribed. Data was

analysed using a combination of inductive and de-

ductive thematic analysis (Fereday and Muir-

Cochrane, 2008). An initial code book was created

Integrating BI Information into ERP Processes - Describing Enablers

243

Table 2: Organizations where research was conducted.

Code Country

ature of business

ERP and

BI systems

ERP

users

Employees

Annual

Revenue

G South Africa Downstream, refine, Retail Oil and Gas SAP 1500 500 4000 R 65 billion

CP USA

Manufacture, distribution of

branded products

SAP COGNOS 1300 390 3100 $1.6 billion

P USA Media production, distribution SAP + Teradata 3000 1000 8000 $ 12 billion

from the factors identified in the literature and the

document and transcribed interviews were analysed

for these codes. The phrases or text excerpts were

coded and then counted. Then inductive coding was

carried out and further factors were identified.

4 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

During thematic analysis, each text excerpt alluding

to a factor was assessed to be of negative, low, high

or critical importance. The importance of the factor

was then determined across all data sources and the

number of text excerpts counted. The factors and

counts are presented in Table 3 with the four new

factors not referred to in the literature shown in italic

font. Each factor is now discussed.

Table 3: Factors with counts and importance.

Factors

Import

-ance

Count

(negative,

important,

critical)

ERP installation success Critical 19 (1,9,9)

ERP integration success Low 10 (2,5,3)

BI installation success High 22 (0,18,4)

BI reporting success Critical 16 (9,7,7)

BI ETL performance High 18 (1,15,2)

BI alignment with corporate

objectives

Critical 18 (1,8,9)

Quality, timely, comprehensive

BI data

High 12 (0,9,3)

BI data integrated with user tiers High 11 (2,8,1)

BI flexibility Low 0

BI decision tiers Low 6 (1,4,1)

BI big data input High 11 (2,6,3)

BI and ERP from the same vendor Critical 10 (1,3,6)

BPM top-down framework Critical 20 (1,10,9)

BPM KPIs defined, tiered

and in context

Low 18 (2,9,7)

RTBI report drivers High 19 (4,8,7)

RTBI organizational support Critical 22 (5,8,9)

RTBI technical capability High 14 (3,11,0)

In memory BI Critical 31 (3,16,12)

RTBI organization

appropriateness

Negative 9 (3,5,1)

4.1 ERP Installation Factors

ERP installation factors include ERP installation

success and ERP integration success.

The success of the ERP installation includes the

purpose and uses of ERP at the organization, the

levels of use of the ERP system in terms of deliver-

ing operation execution and operational reporting

and which processes are implemented. With the

integration of all organisational departments, more

benefits are gained (Uwizeyemungu and Raymond,

2012). The interviewees considered this factor as

critical: “Supply chain, Procure to pay, build, manu-

facture, inventory, financial analysis for all of those

processes, supply to customer, delivery to customers,

for the most part end to end, using ERP solutions”

(CP02).

With an ERP installation integration across di-

mensions increases company performance and long

term success (Hwang and Grant, 2011). However,

various levels of integration appear to have occurred

in the organizations studied: “Business process are

integrated in SAP in different ways. Different types

of customers, one is end to end, others are not”

(OG01). In many cases ERP integration was not

achieved: “the rest of this company does not lend

itself to ERP” (EP01). Therefore this factor was

interpreted as not important.

4.2 BI Installation Factors

BI installation factors include BI installation suc-

cess, BI reporting success and BI ETL performance.

BI installation success addresses the stability and

value generated by the BI installation. There were

mixed responses to the success of the BI installation.

Many indicated success in reporting data from dis-

parate systems: “The big thing on the DW in our

system is all the disparate source systems, we are

bringing data together” (OG02). There were a few

critical responses to the ERP connection: “Yes, your

BI and ERP should work” (CP01). Most reported

that BI was stable and running but not perfect. It was

therefore interpreted as an important factor.

The BI solution to be successful should address

reporting across strategic, management and opera-

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tional organizational levels and should consider the

content, timing and usefulness of the reports (Gile et

al., 2006; Tank, 2015). Respondents referred to BI

reporting success repeatedly and mostly identified it

as critical. Having BI reporting solutions that ad-

dress strategic, segment or management and opera-

tional reporting solutions was considered important:

“They did all three. I have seen all three with the BI

system” (CP02). “There are different audiences for

different reports” (EP01).

The ETL into the DW and BI landscape can be

complex but a simpler landscape and fewer BI plat-

forms gives a better result, while complex land-

scapes with several BI instances limit flexibility, add

to latencies and don’t allow for a holistic solution

(Gile et al., 2006). A large ERP simplifies this envi-

ronment. The homogenous environment and sources

of data and extraction processes, integration of ob-

jects and technical landscape are all important facets

that need to be successfully implemented. The re-

sponses show that even with ERP and BI there were

still some problems of complexity and latency: “24

hours on average, overnight reporting lag” (OG01).

“The system is flooded with lot of background pro-

cessors when extractors are running and virtually

most of the time, due to the resource intensive con-

sumption of the system” (EP03). ETL performance

was therefore considered an important factor.

4.3 BI Capability Factors

Seven BI capability factors include BI alignment

with corporate objectives; quality, timely and com-

prehensive BI date; BI Data Integrated with User

Tiers; BI flexibility; BI decision tiers; BI big data

input; and BI and ERP from the same vendor.

Alignment of BI solutions to organizational stra-

tegic directives is recommended (Işık et al., 2013).

The responses showed that corporate direction and

BI strategic alignment is overwhelmingly a critical

factor: “Management must put their foot down to

ensure that strategy is followed to prevent things

getting out of alignment” (OG02). “Yes this should

be totally a top down approach, where the corporate

strategy is driving the BI system” (EP02).

BI systems with good data lead to satisfied users,

and greater organizational success (Parikh and Had-

dad, 2012). Quality, timely, comprehensive BI data

in an organizations was confirmed as important with

numerous responses: “There is a BI hierarchy of

needs. You cannot worry about the higher levels

until the basic reports at the lower level are correct”

(CP01).

BI involves linking systems, data or functions

together, depending on what is appropriate for each

organization (White, 2005). How BI is integrated

with other systems including ERP and how BI inte-

grates users in the organization through executive,

management and operation tiers was commented on

by a few respondents and so was classified as im-

portant: “yes, they built specific reports for each of

the three levels” (CP02).

Research emphasises that BI should be flexible

and adapable to maximise an organization’s success

(Işık et al., 2013). There were no responses to the BI

flexibility factor so it was seen to not be significant.

BI decision tiers addresses the capability of BI

solutions to differentiate the timing of the required

information that may be required to make decisions

at different levels. Operational decisions require fast

structured information, while strategic decisions

involve a longer time period, and a wider source of

information (Işık et al., 2013). There were few re-

sponses for this factor, in only one case was an oper-

ational report delivered to a low level supervisor

mentioned “and supervisors were using this report

to fix issues real time” (CG02). This factor was

therefore considered not important.

Insights from “big data” can help organizations

to improve their customer experience, improve their

products, add value and produce a bigger return on

investment (van der Aalst et al., 2015). Big data was

not initially considered in the literature reviewed but

was commented on several times, and was therefore

included as an important factor: “What we don’t

have is any consumer insights into our data… we

would like to know what impacts the weather has on

our sales” (CP01). It was also commented on as

required and useful: “The customer’s moods are

important” (OG02). For one of the cases it was seen

as not necessary: “You don’t need to have every

single store to know how you doing in total, or to

know how you doing in specific locations” (EP01).

However, it was not clear that these organization’s

BI or ERP solutions will ever contain this infor-

mation: “social media and emails which will be

difficult to store in an operational ERP system”

(OG02).

Having BI and ERP from the same vendor was

not in the literature but was added and classified as

critical because of responses: “SAP BW was primar-

ily built to connect to SAP ERP system and for every

50,000 SAP ERP customers there were at least

13,000 SAP BW customers who bought and imple-

mented SAP BW solution” (EP03). “Usually it does

matter especially with SAP because the BI was built

for that ERP system” (OG02).

Integrating BI Information into ERP Processes - Describing Enablers

245

4.4 BPM Framework Factors

Two BPM framework factors emerged. Firstly hav-

ing a BPM framework and secondly having BPM

KPIs defined, tiered and in context

The BPM framework is an initiative where com-

panies align strategic and operational objectives with

business activities (Tank, 2015). The factor explores

what frameworks each organization had in place and

how relevant such a framework is. This factor had

many comments both important and critical: “The

framework for these KPIs was developed. What the

board would say is you need to measure perfor-

mance. And they sign off on it. Each business unit

had their own metrics. The board would then sign

off on these measures” (CP02). BPM KPIs and the

tracking of them was commented on as a good tool

not specifically to be set up and tracked in ERP or in

BI: “The KPIs are strategic, management and opera-

tions. You need ways to measure that are not finan-

cial. The success should be measured by the appro-

priate strategy. Not by a tool or any tool” (EP02).

This factor has been recorded as critical when a

BPM with KPIs is implemented using a top down

approach. The fact that the framework was in place

was a critical indication of aligned business and

executive goals.

BI management systems with KPIs should sup-

port strategic, tactical and operational levels (Azvine

et al., 2006). However, context with KPIs often im-

plies information from several diverse sources for

example the industry KPI is often needed to give a

KPI full meaning and to better understand the global

competition (Gile et al., 2006). We explored the

importance of the types of KPIs that organizations

have in place, the nature of those KPIs as well as the

levels at which they are tracked. The responses in-

cluded the types of KPIs that organizations have in

place: “There are 5 strategic objectives, Finance,

Business Process, HSEQ (Health, Safety, Environ-

ment, and Quality), Other, and Talent Manage-

ment.” (OG02). KPIs are also tracked outside of

formal tools or ERP and BI: “They put a lot of in-

formation into Excel” (OG02) and “they are being

tracked, but not centralised” (CP02). The KPIs look

back at past performance: “In the KPIs there are

laggards and leaders. These are all laggards, not

leaders” (OG02). KPIs were in place in all the cases

and were seen as critical in many cases but were not

formalised or built into the ERP or BI systems con-

sistently. This lack of adoption into BI and ERP

meant this combination of factors was classified as

not important.

4.5 RTBI Factors

Five RTBI factors emerged: RTBI report drivers;

RTBI organizational support; RTBI technical capa-

bility; in memory BI; and RTBI organizational ap-

propriateness.

Global and market forces could drive RTBI re-

quirements or BPM (Azvine et al., 2006) and a top

level strategy in the organization could be driving

the push towards a RTBI solution (Golfarelli et al.,

2004). There were many responses to the drivers for

RTBI: “It was just the production order and inven-

tory movements. This was something special that

they built, so that they could see the performance

metrics on a real time basis” (CP02). This factor

was also described as level specific: “Roadmap says

BI is only for info strategic reports… management

and strategic will be moved onto more real time”

(OG01). The factor also had negative responses

“Most decisions we make do not require real time

decisions” (EP01). However, the wide variety of

responses and the high counts make this factor im-

portant overall.

Organizational support indicates organization

preparedness for RTBI and support from an execu-

tive level for RTBI. For successful RTBI companies

require process orientation, technically preparation

and management driving the demand (Golfarelli et

al., 2004). This includes readiness in terms of man-

agement direction, support, and funding. This factor

had many critical responses: “The first thing is to get

the conceptualization in place before the tools are in

place… they need to ask for it, otherwise you end up

with many fast reports that nobody asked for. Execu-

tives need to ask for a top down view” (EP02).

However, respondents indicated that their organiza-

tions may not be ready yet: “The problem is I do not

know if they know that they have a need for it. It

depends on the business unit” (CP02). “The strate-

gic people are focusing on operational, because they

are still trying to right the ship” (CP01). The ma-

jority of mapped responses make this factor a critical

influence.

RTBI technical challenges require the appropri-

ate hardware, software and tools available for the

organization (Tank, 2015). The responses around

this factor indicated that technology was still chal-

lenging: “We should have around the network plan-

ning and transports, but this is still on Excel and

after the fact” (OG02). Technology was not neces-

sarily a constraint: “This gave potential to tune the

existing SAP BW systems integrating SAP ERP”

(EP03). However, this factor also implies that organ-

izations need to have tools and processes in place to

ICEIS 2017 - 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

246

allow RTBI to be implemented: “We had a very

structured approach and they used the consultants to

bring in tools, taught us how to use the tools and

gave us a structure to work with” (CG02). With

many comments, this factor was coded as important.

In memory BI was not a factor in the literature

but was overwhelmingly supported in most cases

across all the interviews. Main memory databases or

real time databases such as the SAP HANA product

are expected to provide high performance and relia-

bility solutions to BI reporting constraints, and are a

major phase in business intelligence development

(Golfarelli et al., 2004). The factor is an important

part of how RTBI can impact operations and report-

ing, and also in the simplification of the ERP and BI

landscape: “They want to reduce the ETL as much

as possible, and pull the ETL into HANA” (EP02).

The inclusion of in memory BI showed a simplified

ETL landscape in EG03. It was commented that real

time reporting from a RTBI solution is more appro-

priate for operational and management type report-

ing, rather than strategic or executive type reporting:

“Roadmap says BI is only for info strategic re-

ports… we can use HANA for line item level report-

ing on COPA” (OG01). Therefore the RTBI in

memory is a critical factor. The driver for this is to

simplify landscapes, improve processing times, and

delivery existing reports faster at the management

and operational levels in an organization.

Organizational appropriateness was not found

specifically in the literature but was added as a fac-

tor because of the numerous comments and respons-

es around the suitability of RTBI to a business pro-

cess or to an organization. This factor is shown to be

important in that not every company or department

needs to know information in real time: “the studio

CFO does not need know every piece of information

in the world to close the books each month” (EP01).

“If you are in a top down culture organization

where your reports are sent out, then maybe RTBI is

not such a big deal. The reports can come out once a

day or once a week” (CP01). These responses indi-

cate that the factor is relevant in a negative way

because RTBI may not be appropriate.

4.6 Framework of Factors Impacting

BI ERP Integration

From a theoretical perspective a process model or

theory (Pentland, 1999) showing the significant

factors and the sequence of factors is presented in

Figure 1. This theory shows the time sequence an

organisation needs to follow to integrate BI into

ERP processing. Firstly ERP installation and BI

installation are required, followed by BI capabilities,

BPM framework and then RTBI. In Figure 1, the

factors that are seen to be critical are displayed in

italic font. The implication is that these should be

given a higher priority as they have a greater impact

on outcomes. These include ERP installation suc-

cess, BI reporting success, and BI alignment with

corporate objectives. Having ERP and BI from the

same vendor is also a critical factor. A top down

BPM Framework should also be in place to further

push out and drive corporate strategies. When con-

sidering RTBI, organizational appropriateness must

be addressed through the consideration of the organ-

ization and related processes as being appropriate for

RTBI. The organizational demand or support for real

time reporting and processing should be sought be-

fore embarking. In addition, demand for in memory

BI processing as a way to simplify RTBI should be

considered.

ETL processes BI Installation Factors

BI installation success

BI reporting success

BI Capability Factors BI ETL performance RTBI Factors

BI alignment with corporate ob-

jectives

RTBI technical capability

Quality, timely, comprehensive

BI data

BPM Framework Factors RTBI organizational support

BI data integrated with user tiers BPM framework RTBI report drivers

BI big data input In memory BI

BI and ERP from the same vendor ERP Installation Factors RTBI organization

appropriateness

ERP installation success Integrate and impact

Figure 1: Framework of factors impacting BI ERP integration.

Integrating BI Information into ERP Processes - Describing Enablers

247

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper describes factors and conditions enabling

BI information to integrate and impact real-time on

ERP processing. From a theoretical perspective a

process model showing the sequence of factors is

presented which includes a successful BI and ERP

installation followed by developing relevant BI ca-

pabilities and a BPM framework and finally RTBI.

Fifteen sub-factors enabling these factors were iden-

tified and eight of these were evaluated as critical

and hence should be considered and addressed in the

organization.

From a practical perspective the factors provided

in the framework can assist organizations in better

understanding how to get BI and ERP more closely

integrated and enable process intelligence to impact

real time on ERP processing. A limitation of this

research is that only three organisations were found

integrating BI into ERP. This is a new area of re-

search that needs more investigation especially the

combined impact of unstructured web data and in

memory reporting on enterprise information systems

and the resultant infrastructure and organizational

impacts as well as gaining a deeper understanding of

the cost benefit analysis. Design science or action

research studies working with practitioners to re-

solve these challenges is required and as these tech-

nologies mature future research could look to vali-

dating these factors more broadly.

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