An exploratory study of business intelligence in knowledge-based South African SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important part in all economies but particularly in developing economies. Non-survivalist or growth SMEs will drive economic growth and international competitiveness whilst survivalist SMEs play an important role to alleviate poverty and provide a source of income. Although resources are particularly scarce for survivalist SMEs growth SMEs also have limited resources that need to be utlised for maximum return. In terms of ICT growth SMEs tend to spend their available resources on operational systems. But these systems, whilst necessary are not sufficient. They are geared toward capturing data but not producing information. Business intelligence (BI) can provide decision makers, who in SMEs, are predominantly the owner-managers, with access to data that enables them to make informed decisions on where to apply their limited resources. BI requires operational systems be in place to gather the data which makes it a logical next step. Given the dearth of literature on the role of BI in SMEs this paper reports on an interpretive qualitative study, the purpose of which was to explore the use of BI in knowledge-based growth SMEs to support strategic, tactical and operational decision-making. The research results suggest that BI plays an important role in SMEs but that support and guidance can ensure that BI is used to fully exploit data for decision-making and concludes with implications and recommendations for future research. The paper may be of business value to SME owner-managers, vendors, policy makers and academic researchers. Ponelis and Britz Exploratory study of BI in knowledge-based South African SMEs 2