The application of a Business Intelligence tool at a higher education
institution.
Author:
Vincent Nyalungu, Mr
School Of Information Technology, University of Pretoria
Tel: +27 12 429 2733
E-mail: vnyalung@unisa.ac.za
IKM Research Paper
Keywords:
Knowledge
Management,
Business
Intelligence
(BI),
Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BIEE), Data Warehouse, Strategic Decision Making,
Strategic Planning, Higher Education Institutions.
Abstract: This paper presents a discussion on the importance of business
intelligence (BI) and the role that a specific BI tool, Business Intelligence Enterprise
Edition, plays in the strategic decision-making processes in a higher education
institution. The University of the Witwatersrand, often referred to as Wits, was used
as a case study. The main objective for the deployment and application of a business
intelligence tool was to enhance the quality and aptness of the input of data to the
organisational decision-making process. The quality of the data, which is an
organisational asset, is therefore of the utmost importance. Approaches for the
identification of business intelligence from corporate information and knowledge
management were also assessed. A questionnaire was administered among key
informants within the university in order to address some of the pertinent issues at
higher education institutions. The paper also presents a proposed framework to be
used in line with the best practices in the implementation of business intelligence
tools or solutions.
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1. Introduction
According to Augier and Knudsen (2004:6), “the rise of the knowledge economy has
shaped and created new challenges for senior managers and this has made
managing intellectual capital an integral part of the organisation strategy”. This has
created a critical need for the development, creation and capturing of value from
knowledge and competencies. For knowledge workers to make sound and informed
business decisions there is a need for a coherent system, which represents a single
version of the truth about organisational performance. Digital networks, such as
student and staff databases, provide access to vast amounts of data and information,
but business intelligence systems are needed to transform data and information in a
momentous way. In this study, the researchers looked at the use of one of the
decision support tools, namely a business intelligence tool. The BI tool is an
instrument or a catalyst used to support strategic decision-making processes by
making sure that quality information is readily available. Moreover, the study
sought to establish whether the tool implemented at the University of the
Witwatersrand had yielded positive results in terms of ensuring that the efficiency
in accessing information had improved.
2. Background to the study
In the rapidly changing higher education environment, it is of the utmost
importance for an institution, such as the University of the Witwatersrand, to take
into account new information and the latest information patterns that are
constantly taking effect. Consequently, if such an institution is to strive
economically, information patterns and trends should be interpreted correctly and
in a timely fashion to align with current trends in order to facilitate sound strategic
decision making. It is therefore crucial for the University of the Witwatersrand,
especially the executive management, to have continuous access to information that
is crucial for management decision making and strategic planning. A greater focus
needs to be placed on the conversion of data to business intelligence. This is very
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important because data alone does not provide insight into an organisation’s
performance. Only after adding value to this data is its meaning realised, especially
when technologies, like business intelligence, are applied to the data. This can be
achieved by prioritising issues such as coherent analyses, uniform data definitions,
standard interpretations of the information and “the availability of up–to-date and
reliable information for all departments” (Guan, Nunez and Welsh, 2002).
3. Overview of the case study organisation: The University of the
Witwatersrand.
At the University of the Witwatersrand, as with any other organisation, users at
different levels are currently overloaded and overwhelmed with mountains of
electronic, structured and unstructured data. From notes taken in point form to
massive documents and reports, this data has accumulated over many years, and is
continuing to accumulate at an startling rate. It was absolutely essential that the
University of the Witwatersrand creates a functional technology with the capability
of managing this data effectively. So far this has been an elusive challenge. Until
now, efforts seem to have focused more on creating jargon to describe data, like
metadata, and on making up ideas, than on developing a core technology that truly,
in practice, enables better management of data and information. A business
intelligence tool was deployed to try and address these issues.
The Strategic Planning Division at the University of the Witwatersrand supports the
university with initiatives regarding all the information management, institutional
research, quality management, institutional planning and policy matters that affect
management decision-making processes. The success of these processes lies in
providing crucial information for the institution in order to facilitate decision
making, much of which relies heavily on the accessibility of data that is usable. Only
data that is accurate, systematic as well as regularly or periodically updated is
usable within this structure. The BI tool that Wits has adopted is the Oracle’s
Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BIEE).
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The University of the Witwatersrand adopted the same architecture and framework
used by Van Dyk and Conradie (2007:122), where the BI tool uses data that is
housed in the data warehouse (Figure 3.1)
Figure 3.1 Business Intelligence Framework, (Van Dyk and Conradie,
2007:122).
As illustrated in Figure 3.1, the data warehouse uses source data from various
transactional source systems, such as the student system, human resources system
and financial system. The business intelligence tool is then deployed to read data
from the data warehouse and makes it available to various users.
The BI tool used by the University of the Witwatersrand is the Oracle BI Interactive
dashboard (Figure 3.2). The data used is housed in a Data warehouse, which is made
up of various data marts from different systems, as mentioned before.
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Figure 3.2: University of the Witwatersrand Dashboard Snapshot (BI Tool),
University of the Witwatersrand (2009).
As illustrated in Figure 3.2, a dashboard is highly interactive with drill-down
functionality. It allows users to have different views of the information contained in
the dashboard and also allows users to look at any of the university’s strategic
objectives and measure their performance based on the set targets. These targets
(e.g. the pass rate) are set by the university senior executive team and are reviewed
from time to time.
According to the researchers, central to most organisation’s profitability is the
identification and exploitation of new business opportunities and challenges. In
today’s hypercompetitive business environments, organisations that do not
continuously develop and exploit new business opportunities will quickly see their
profit margins and long-term growth drop. In contrast, competitors who make use
of new opportunities will flourish. Similarly, organisations that fail to effectively
manage their new business efforts will see their stock price decline or plunge.
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This challenge is particularly crucial for knowledge-based organisations, like the
University of the Witwatersrand, as an increasingly rapid technological change has
become a primary source of excessive competition. The most recent technological
advancement in the higher education sectors are technologies like WebCT (Web
Course Tools) and Student Online registrations. These online technologies enable
students to interact with institutions without actually having to visit their respective
campuses. Students can register, pay for their fees, view and update personal
information, access study materials and get their results with the aid of these
technologies.
The study focused primarily on the strategy used by the University of the
Witwatersrand to provide needed information through the adoption of a BI tool,
BIEE, and the data quality issues raised in the preliminary investigations. In
addition, it was also established whether the deployment of a BI tool at the
University of the Witwatersrand has yielded positive results in terms of improved
efficiency and effective management of information for strategic decision-making
purposes as well as challenges encountered when the tool was implemented. Also a
basic BI framework is proposed. Within this broad aim the ensuing research
questions and sub-questions needed to be answered.
4. Research questions and sub-questions
Based on the discussion in the preceding section, about the implementation of the BI
at University of the Witwatersrand and whether it has effectively improved in
ensuring that users at different levels have access to information used in decision
making, the main research question and the sub-questions that guide the study are
outlined below:
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4.1. Research question

How does the application of the business intelligence tool add value to the
strategic planning process at the University of the Witwatersrand?
4.2. Sub-questions

What value did the Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BIEE) add to
the decision-making processes at the University of the Witwatersrand in
terms of improving efficiency?

What are the business intelligence tools and the benefits for organisations?

What are the challenges encountered when a business intelligence tool is
implemented?

If any, what were the lessons learnt?
5. Methodology
The researcher used the mixed methods approach, which is mainly composed of the
usage of both qualitative and quantitative research methods and triangulation (De
Vos et al., 2005:361). The mixed methods approach in this case suited the research,
in that it could capture the various perceptions of BIEE users at the University of the
Witwatersrand.
A questionnaire using scaled questions of five points, in a Likert scale format was
used for the study. The rationale behind scaled questions is that ‘they are useful for
measuring attitudes as they can capture subtle gradations of opinions or perception’
(Terre Blanche and Durrheim, 2002: 296).
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In addition, the researcher conducted interviews with key informants at the
university. These informants are personnel members who were part of the
implementation team for business intelligence tool
6. Key concepts
6.1.
Business Intelligence (BI)
Business Intelligence can be defined as “a broad category of applications and
technologies used to collect or gather access and analyse large data to be used in
decision-making processes” (Wang and Wang, 2008:623). And according to
Herschel and Jones (2005:46), business intelligence is “concerned with decision
making using technologies such as data warehousing (DW) and online analytical
processing techniques (OLAP)”.
6.2.
Data warehouse (DW)
A data warehouse is a “repository or database used to store transactional source
data and is specifically structured for query and analysis performance. This is made
up of the logical and physical subset of the data warehouse called data marts” (Van
Dyk and Conradie, 2007:125).
6.3.
Knowledge Management (KM)
Knowledge Management is “an integrated, systematic approach to identifying,
managing and sharing all of an organisation’s intangible assets”. These include
among others documents, patents, databases policies, and procedures as well as
experiences held by individual workers (Hicks, Dattero and Galup, 2006:19).
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Table 6.1: List of abbreviations used in the study
Abbreviation
Full name
BI
Business intelligence
BIEE
Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
CNS
Computer Networks Services
DSS
Decision support system
DW
Data warehouse/data warehousing
HEIs
Higher Education Institutions
HEMIS
Higher Education Management Information System
KM
Knowledge Management
KPIs
Key Performance Indicators
MIU
Management Information Unit
7. Literature review
Business intelligence is more concerned with “decision making using technologies
like data warehousing (DW) and online analytical processing techniques (OLAP)”,
(Herschel and Jones, 2005:46).
In today’s digital age, companies have large amounts of data in their multiple
databases, which often leads to confusion and the mismanagement of data
resources. In some cases, there is little correlation between “the practice of
capturing large amounts of data and the ability to access the used data to generate
actionable information” (Hauser, 2007:45). This normally happens when different
systems are used and the data stored in these systems might be of a different format
and trying to access this data might pose a huge challenge.
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According to Skyrme (1997), since knowledge is the end-product of all learning, any
organisation that needs to compete through knowledge must by necessity develop
learning capabilities, namely by becoming a learning organisation. The University of
the Witwatersrand is not an exception, because knowledge is embodied in new
services and has become the most important source of wealth creation for the
university.
Skyrme (1997:34-37) further states that if one has a valuable and useful knowledgebased asset, the advantage lies in limiting its availability to competitors. The
University of the Witwatersrand, like most organisations, restricts their competitors
from gaining access to their knowledge-based intangible assets by getting these
patented. This allows the control of the movement of these assets and also allows
the university to charge for the use of knowledge. Organisations can acquire
knowledge by experience, experimentation or acquisition. In general, most
researchers will normally publish their findings and experiments and these are
normally used to solve problems and issues.
Barnes (2002:17) defines “knowledge management as an integrated, systematic
approach to identifying, managing and sharing all of an organisation’s intangible
assets including: databases, documents, policies, and procedures as well as
previously unarticulated expertise and experiences held by individual workers”.
According to Coulson-Thomas (1997:24-25), “knowledge management initiatives
are unlikely to be successful unless they are integrated with business strategy and
related to the development of the core capabilities of the organisation. Knowledge
management is not a separate management function or a separate process but an
all-encompassing process”.
According to Bhatt (2000) “knowledge management consists of a set of crossdisciplinary and organisational processes that seek to create ongoing and
continuous new knowledge by leveraging the synergy of combined information
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technologies and the creative and innovative capacity of people” ,as illustrated in
Figure 7.1 below.
Figure 7.1: Key components in knowledge management, adopted from Bhatt
(2000)
As shown in Figure 7.1 above, business intelligence together with other analytical
tools, such as decision tools and data mining tools, are components of knowledge
management. Business intelligence (BI) provide access to vast amounts of data and
information and knowledge management is applied to translate information in a
meaningful way as managers need to use this information for decision making. At
the end of the day, knowledge management is about individuals; it’s about people
(70%). Clearly, the goal of knowledge management is maintained and sustained by
individuals and business performances through on-going learning and unlearning
(mainly by getting rid of old ways of doing things). Computing technologies alone
have natural limitations. They normally have difficulty in generating important
insights from data because they cannot query or re-interpret their programmed
logic in the data and the assumptions made by system programmers. Given these
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limitations, the people who use these 'systems' have at least an equally important
role in knowledge management.
The University of the Witwatersrand is a knowledge-based organisation. Academic
institutions are classified as knowledge-based organisations because their primary
business is training, community engagement and research (Rossi, 2010:155-158).
The university’s knowledge workers use a number of desperate computer-based
information systems and sources, like study materials, registrations systems, human
resources systems and student tracking systems. These information sources are
integrated and gained through a common, yet personalised, interface in the form of
a portal. Portals and the intranet create a single customised gateway to a wide and
diverse collection of data, information and knowledge.
At the University of the Witwatersrand, the information, which is normally available
on the intranet, is limited to the university community and hence is not for public
consumption. At the same time there is some form of business intelligence present
and various users use the information gathered to support their decisions.
Knowledge about what competitors in the higher education sphere do is something
that Wits cannot survive without. The University of the Witwatersrand needs to
know for instance what its counterparts, like the University of Johannesburg, are
doing to attract students as these institutions are competing for almost the same
cohort of students. The University of the Witwatersrand, just like most
organisations, needs to derive its competitive leverage from knowledge-based
activities (Chase, 1997: 38-45). The ability to capitalise on knowledge lies behind
the success of almost all responsive organisations. One of the important components
of business intelligence is a data warehouse, which is used more as a repository to
house data.
A typical data warehouse will help with the provision of information that will be
used by organisational decision makers. Dobbs, Stone and Abbot (2002:235-236)
point out that the amount of data that is currently collected from various sources is
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increasing rapidly. Therefore, there is a need for businesses to create a tool that will
be used to view and disseminate business information; a data warehouse is then
used for this purpose. Organisations, including the University of the Witwatersrand,
use the data warehousing approach to solve data normalisation problems and to
meet business needs. In the case of University of the Witwatersrand, this is used to
house student data, including profiles that can then be used for decision making.
7.1.
The application of business intelligence at the University of the
Witwatersrand.
The success of a business in a competitive environment lies with the decision
makers’ ability to access relevant, timely and accurate data. This information can be
used to do benchmarking studies and for this to succeed a strong BI presence is a
must. Therefore, the University of the Witwatersrand developed a business
intelligence strategy and framework, which involved the use of data mining tools.
The filtered information was then stored in data marts, which forms part of the data
warehouse. This was to be of great help to the University community and other
stakeholders and formed part of the university’s business intelligence framework;
where management could access timely and relevant information for decision
making. Staff at various departments could also access the Intranet and could look
for a knowledge store and use it productively.
The University of the Witwatersrand, like any organisation, needs a clearly defined
business intelligence strategy and top management buy-in and involvement in order
to realise its goals. This is clearly documented in the University of the
Witwatersrand’s 2022 strategy document, Where an important strategic objective is
to become a top university, recognised as one of the ‘Top 100 universities in the
world’ (Wits Intranet, 2009). Management need information to make decisions and
the role of the BI tool implemented was to make sure that this is realised.
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At the University of the Witwatersrand, the business intelligence (BI) framework as
shown below in Figure 7.2 is intended to make data accessible to all levels of
management and other stakeholders or role players. Data is extracted on a regular
basis from the i-Wits applications (Students Database, Human Resources and
Finance currently) and other applications (e.g. Wits Publications, Excel
Spreadsheets, etc.). This data is then integrated and loaded into the Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BIEE). BIEE is a comprehensive suite of enterprise
Oracle BI products, it is used to deliver a diverse BI capabilities including interactive
dashboards, ad hoc proactive intelligence and alerts, enterprise and financial
reporting, disconnected analytics, real-time predictive intelligence, and much more.
Figure 7.2: The University of the Witwatersrand BI Framework (Wits Intranet,
2009)
As shown in Figure 7.2 above, data is sourced from different applications and is
placed into the data warehouse from where it is extracted and loaded into easy to
understand, easy to use, data marts. Users like the managers, deans and
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administrators can access these data marts through the Presentation Layer using
Business Objects (or the Oracle Discoverer for Students). These reporting tools
allow managers and administrators to build reports by pulling the column headings
they require into a report and restricting the information they will want to view.
Reports that are frequently used are always quality assured by a dedicated business
manager and can be published and shared as Corporate Documents. Ad hoc reports
associated with once-off business cases can also be produced quickly and easily.
8. Findings of the study
This section presents and discusses the main findings of the study. These findings
are composed of the overall perceptions of the users of the Business Intelligence
Enterprise Edition (BIEE) tool and analysis of the data as collected from the selected
users (managers and supervisors) at the University of the Witwatersrand. The
perceptions of the key personnel involved in the implementation of the tool are also
addressed.
8.1
Respondents profiles (background) and findings
The population for this study was made up of 40 respondents, namely: executives,
managers, supervisors and deans at the University of the Witwatersrand. In terms of
the responses, a total of 21 respondents answered the survey, which signifies a 53%
response rate for the first questionnaire that was administered. This response rate
is considered to be high, even more than the 49% response rate benchmark set by
Rao (2009:165).
These respondents were classified according to certain categories. Figure 8.1 below
illustrates this:
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Responses
10
8
6
4
2
0
User (Non manegerial)
Supervisor
Senior Management
2
10
9
Figure 8.1: Respondent Profile: Job classification
Figure 8.1 above shows that the majority of respondents were mostly supervisory
or managerial staff (10), followed by the senior management (9) and then the users
(2). The senior management category included a high-ranking deputy vicechancellor of the university and a few deans of faculties and heads of departments.
The data reveals that there might not have been any significant differences in the
way the three categories reviewed their experience with the BI system. This is
especially true in terms of efficiency improvement, where after using the tool they
felt that they could perform their function more efficiently than before.
As a theme, the following section looks at the importance of training and
consultation when a system or tool is implemented.
The respondents revealed that there was no wide consultation by the University
among interested parties in the implementation of the BIEE. A total of 14 out of 21
respondents affirmed that no consultation had been put in place; they only became
new consumers when the process had been initiated and could not have a say in it.
Figure 8.2 below shows that there was little consultation during the implementation
process, which is one of the main themes in the study. According to Maguire, Ojiako
and Said (2009:81), any system that is related to implementation needs a full
consultation and transparency commitment with all stakeholders involved.
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Responses
Consulted?
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Frequency
Yes
No
7
14
Figure 8.2: Results for the question: ‘Were you consulted during the
implementation process?’
The absence of prior consultation could have been arguably ‘compensated’ for by
the fact that the same respondents were trained (see Figure 8.3 below) before
making use of the tool.
Received training?
Responses
20
15
10
5
0
Frequency
Yes
No
16
5
Figure 8.3: Results for the question: ‘Did you receive training before using the
tool?’
According to Figure 8.3 above, 16 respondents or 76.2 % of the respondents
received prior training before they used the BIEE tool. This signified the importance
of receiving training before one starts using the tool. The provision of best practices
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on the BIEE tool usage enhances the optimal use of the tool (Ranjan, 2008:471).
Figure 8.4 below gives a graphical representation of this fact.
Figure 8.4: Graphical representation for the question: ‘Did you receive
training before using the tool?’
Ideally though, the remaining 23.8% (5) of the respondents should have been
trained in order to facilitate easier transition in using the new tool. Of those who
had been trained, one respondent felt that the system was ‘not too personalised for
[one’s] needs’. This is because in the privileges that were set in the tool initially only
recognised dedicated faculty, however, this was later rectified. This might be
attributed to the fact that the system did not cater for information to be used for
strategic decision making, as some aspects in the tool were operational in nature.
8.2
The tool efficiency and usability
Figure 8.5 below proved the fact that the tool has overall yielded positive
developments for the University of the Witwatersrand.
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BI implementation yielded results?
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Yes
No
15
6
Frequency
Figure 8.5: Results for the question: ‘Has the BI implementation yielded
results at Wits?’
Figure 8.5 above shows that in totality, the implementation of BI at the University of
the Witwatersrand had been fruitful, according to 15 of the respondents (71.4%).
For example, one respondent, a head of school said: ‘I am able to access data
quickly.’ Another member of senior management said: ‘Managers have real-time
information at hand.’ These responses show the positive perceptions of the users
regarding the system. This real time information is used in strategic decisionmaking processes and thereby supports the university’s strategic planning
aspirations. A smaller portion of respondents (28.6%), did not agree that the BI
implementation yielded positive results. One of the respondent’s reason was that
‘[he does not] know how to use the tool’. Again, this clearly shows that training is
still one of the important aspects.
8.3
Perceptions by the implementers of the tool
The two respondents cited three challenges that were faced in implementing the
new system. The first two are ‘content’ (what data was needed for the warehouse)
and ‘design’. The third is that Tata Consulting Services (one of the top 10
development firms in the world) are not familiar with both the multidimensional
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design techniques for star schemas and the implementation in parallel with
implementing the ERP.
8.4
Summary of the findings
The totality of the research findings is based on the variety of perceptions and views
from the users of the system, namely: supervisors, managers and senior managers.
It is also based on the views expressed by the implementers of the system, as is
shown below:

The users’ opinions concerning BIEE or the dashboard were that it had
overall improved efficiency and access to information to be used in support
of the decision-making processes.

The implementers also felt that the new system provided a better level of
operational efficiency despite a number of challenges faced in implementing
it, on top of the various lessons that were learnt in terms of improving the
methodology adopted when the data warehouse was designed.
9. Recommendations and Conclusions
This study focussed on the perceptions of the users of the BIEE system as well as
various analyses of data collected from the management staff at Wits, that relate to
issues about: the way in which BIEE can be made to add more value to strategic
planning at the University of the Witwatersrand; or how BIEE can be used efficiently
and effectively in facilitating decision-making processes in the context of University
of the Witwatersrand. After analysing the data the following recommendations were
made in an attempt to improve access to information used in decision making at the
University of the Witwatersrand .
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9.1. Proposed business intelligence framework
In principle the tool is not an issue, rather the framework under which it was
implemented is the issue. More often than not a student’s historical records cannot
be deleted and for older universities this is a serious challenge as students will
request this information and data from time to time. That’s why a BI framework in
Figure 9.1 is proposed, especially for a higher education institution to make sure
that there is a coherent structure followed when implementing a BI tool. The
framework by Ranjan (2008:246) provides a best fit for an organisation like the
University of the Witwatersrand.
Web Analytics, Students Portal, Finance and HR Dashboard (In-memory BI)
Figure 9.1: The BI Framework, adopted from Ranjan (2008:466)
In order to provide some concrete indications of how the BI framework might be
implemented or reviewed at University of the Witwatersrand, the following BI
domains have been identified:
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
Students: biographical information and academic information;

Programmes and courses: information relating to the academic structure,
enrolments, success and throughput rates;

Human resources: biographical information, information relating to conditions
of service (remuneration and benefits), workload, research outputs, etc; and

Finance: income and expenditure, assets and liabilities, procurement, estates
etc;
In the proposed framework (Figure 9.1) for the University of the Witwatersrand, the
student web portal is integrated with the human resources (HR) and financial
components and this will be visible through a fully functional dashboard. The reason
for this is that there should be consistency in the reporting framework at the
university as there are always relationships in the mentioned systems, the student
system, HR and finance. A student’s account information is always housed in
different systems just like the student and HR systems. The link between student
and HR systems is normally information about lecturers and information about
students in their respective classes. Thus decision makers will have information at
their fingertips to make decisions in support of the strategic priorities of the
organisation thus contributing to the strategic planning of the organisation.
9.2 Consultation and buy-in
Over and above the aforementioned the following section looks at other
recommendations: Firstly, it is of outmost importance to start a business
intelligence implementation process with a unambiguous know-how of the
operational development access to this information at disposal this will provide. By
simply knowing how the data will be applied or used, the problems it can help
eliminate and the decision-making processes it can support, it is possible to develop
a return on investment (ROI) calculation that allows organisations’ top-executives
to estimate the benefits of the tool implemented (Hedgebeth, 2007: 415-416). The
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importance of management buy-in cannot be overemphasised, and according to
Hedgebeth (2007:414) a typical BI “implementation effort touches almost every
aspect of an organisation.
10. Conclusion of the study
According to the findings of the study, it is apparent that the business intelligence
tool implemented at the University of the Witwatersrand has yielded positive
developments in making sure that efficiency is improved and users at different
levels have access to information that they can use in support of decision-making
processes. Though this was not a smooth an easy feat in terms of the challenges
encountered when the tool was implemented and users feel that there is still a lot to
be done to make it complete. The lessons learnt during implementation will be used
when enhancements are done to the current system and the proposed framework
will go a long way in ensuring that all aspects of the data requirement are also
addressed.
11. Future research
Future research that stems out of this study will be to implement the proposed
framework and then to test whether it has been able to improve efficiency in
accessing information at University of the Witwatersrand.
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