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Introduction
To maintain viability in today's volatile business landscape, companies are utilising business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) to strategise, plan, execute, and monitor business operations to improve efficiency and business performance. Several definitions for BI&A have surfaced in the past two decades (Chen et al., 2012; Fink et al., 2017; Williams and Williams, 2010). The latest definition from Gartner (2022) emphasises the interrelated nature of BI&A by coining the term analytic and business intelligence (ABI). Gartner (2022) defines this as “an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance”. Ain et al. (2019) reviewed two decades of research literature on the adoption, utilisation, and success of BI&A systems and found that organisations have yet to capture the full benefits of BI&A systems. One theme that has emerged in the literature is that a focus on the technology itself is not enough for organisations to gain the most value from the implementation of BI&A (Pappas et al., 2018). This paper takes a different approach from previous literature on the role of management support and a champion for technology implementation. The paper firstly develops the key dimensions of BI&A and then highlights how these dimensions relate to BI&A leadership skills an owner/manager can develop to drive BI&A implementation over time.
Hence, there is a need for organisational leaders and managers to not only overcome resistance but to build synergistic relationships between their isolated systems, rather than just investing in tools and skills (Someh et al., 2019). In this regard, the role and task of orchestrating and mobilising people, processes, and technology into a synergistic relationship of a combination of organisational systems become key to developing analytical capabilities in creating value for the organisation (Mikalef et al., 2020).
Such considerations can also apply to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Research shows a very low adoption rate of BI&A amongst SMEs (Agostino et al., 2013; Boonsiritomachai et al., 2016; Llave, 2019). This study seeks to develop an understanding of the role BI&A leadership skills play in SMEs, as decision-making is highly centralised (Salles, 2006) and CEO characteristics (Nguyen, 2009; Thong, 1999) and plays...