The Impact of Business Analytics: A Process-Level Perspective

Organizations invest heavily in Business Analytics (BA), but many fail to realize the expected benefits. Although emerging empirical findings suggest a positive impact of BA on firm performance, explanations of BA value creation remain superficial. Extant firm-level theory cannot cope with the complexity of increasingly powerful BA applications across diverse business processes. We take a process-level perspective to organize BA value creation along the Information Value Chain (IVC). Based on a qualitative literature review in IS, Operations Research, and General Management, we (I) construct a comprehensive and consistent overview of potential outcomes, (II) propose a refined process model of value creation, and (III) identify the major inhibitors of value realization from BA. We summarize major research gaps and promising research directions. Our findings contribute to extant research by refining and extending the IVC. They also guide practitioners in realizing value from BA