How does data-driven business analytics generate value?

The researchers in the project want to deepen and improve our knowledge of data-driven business analytics. This is a relatively new phenomenon, so as yet there is a lack of guiding methods and models for its application.

A growing number of organizations are directing their attention to data-driven business analytics as a toolbox for collection, analysis, visualization and sharing of data, as they strive to translate digitization into greater competitiveness.

According to the researchers, far too few organizational initiatives of this kind have yielded the desired results, and business analytics rarely generates added value. For universities and colleges, which are expected to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge, the lack of best practice is a problem.

The situation is also problematic for consultants and practitioners, whose reputation depends on being able to deliver data-driven IT solutions that actually benefit businesses. This in turn creates difficulties for established organizations, which are increasingly being challenged by digital companies that deliberately and systematically undermine and change existing business models in different sectors.

The project has two specific goals. The researchers in the project will be identifying and conceptualizing an array of mechanisms that describe how business analytics of this kind generates value for organizations. They will also be developing a methodology and accompanying tools for conceptual modeling that represents and visualizes the complex dynamic that arises between a data-driven IT solution and new and emerging working practices, valuation schedules and management structures.

To achieve these goals, the research is based on a theoretical perspective on types of regimes of organizing. That perspective conceptualizes technological interventions as dynamic and multidimensional change processes.

The researchers’ empirical context for the project is the Swedish insurance company Länsförsäkringar, which in recent years has adopted a strategic approach to value creating data-driven business analytics.