Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big Impact

Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) has emerged as an important area of study for both practitioners and researchers , reflecting the magnitude and impact of data-related problems to be solved in contemporary business organizations. This introduction to the MIS Quarterly Special Issue on Business Intelligence Research first provides a framework that identifies the evolution, applications , and emerging research areas of BI&A. BI&A 1.0 , BI&A 2.0, and BI&A 3.0 are defined and described in terms of their key characteristics and capabilities. Current research in BI&A is analyzed and challenges and opportunities associated with BI&A research and education are identified. We also report a bibliometric study of critical BI&A publications, researchers, and research topics based on more than a decade of related academic and industry publications. Finally, the six articles that comprise this special issue are introduced and characterized in terms of the proposed BI&A research framework. Keywords: Business intelligence and analytics, big data analytics, Web 2.0 business analytics by Bloomberg Businessweek (2011), 97 percent of companies with revenues exceeding $100 million were found to use some form of business analytics. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute (Manyika et al. 201 1) predicted that by 2018, the United States alone will face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills, as well as a shortfall of 1 .5 million data-sawy managers with the know-how to analyze big data to make effective decisions.