Are Critical Success Factors of BI Systems Really Unique?

Abstract

Business intelligence has been attracting much attention these days. Despite such popularity of BI systems, it is widely known that about a half of BI system projects have failed. To grasp why many BI projects end in failure and what factors would make BI projects less failure-prone, a number of BI studies were made to produce a variety of CSFs. However, there is a paucity of information on whether these CSFs are distinctive from those of typical information systems. By identifying how BI CSFs differ from CSFs of typical information systems, we would be able to explain why most BI projects are more likely to be failure. It is believed that a corrective measure about CSFs will lead to more success in future BI projects. In addition, though there have been a number of similar types of BI systems such as decision support systems and executive information systems in existence, there was no study to determine whether there is ever a discrimination between CSFs of BI systems and the similarly-titled systems. This study is to answer these questions using a literature review analysis. The findings of our study are expected to be helpful in a successful implementation of BI systems.