Informatoin Quality Realization in Business Intelligence

Abstract: The amount of information is increasing with vast numbers every day and organizations are therefore having more and more trouble with controlling their information flow, which limits their ability to be competitive. To solve this problem the use of Business Intelligence systems has swiftly increased recently, becoming a top investment priority. However, there seem to be a problem with people and decision-makers relying more on “gut-feeling” than the information delivered by these BI systems. Information Quality is established as a critical success factor and addresses many of the issues our problem area highlights such as believability. The research field has already developed well-established theories regarding what information quality is and also how it is related to Business Intelligence systems. However we found a lack of research and literature on how information quality is realized in Business Intelligence systems. In order to examine how one can deal with information problems and realize IQ we chose the framework of Strong et al. (1997) as a basis. This thesis then performed interviews with developers, which was combined with a survey with Business Intelligence users. The results of this showed that information quality still is quite poorly realized. It was found that especially two quality dimensions are more significantly realized than others, Access Security and Relevance in the information. 13 variables or ways of realizing information quality was also identified. The discussion and conclusions of this thesis argues for a continued work with the realization of information quality as well as with the 13 variables which were found.