PUZZLE: a concept and prototype for linking business intelligence to business strategy

Business intelligence (BI) is a strategic approach for systematically targeting, tracking, communicating and transforming relevant weak signs 1 into actionable information on which strategic decision-making is based. Despite the increasing importance of BI, there is little underlying theoretical work, which directly can guide the interpretation of ambiguous weak signs. This paper gives an insight into the issue through a new strategic business intelligence system called PUZZLE. We describe this system and validate it by designing a prototype, test the system using in-depth interviews, and hold learning sessions in order to further knowledge about BI. The main results from tests show that: interpreting weak signs is potentially important for senior managers, consultants, and researchers; interpretation can be achieved gradually by bringing the weak signs together using a tracking form based upon the concept of actor/theme/weak signs/enrichment /links; interpreting weak signs is a complex process of establishing links between the weak signs. Final results show that the individual cognitive process appears heuristic when interpreting weak signs. Implications for strategic management practice and research are addressed. q 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. 1 The authors use the concept of weak sign instead of`weak signal' as proposed by Ansoff, 1975 because they feel the word`signal' implies greater quantitative measurability. However, authors continue to use it for the same purpose.