Research Journal of Recent Sciences _________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502 Vol. 4(6), 116-131, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 116 Evaluating the Business Intelligence in Organizational Decisions using an integrated ANP, DEMATEL and TOPSIS Approach Zahra Khodadadi Dehkordi, Mohammadreza Motadel and Tahmores SohrabiDepartment of Information Technology Management, Electronic Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IRAN Department of Industrial Management, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IRAN Available online at: www.isca.in,www.isca.me Received 5th February 2014, revised 10th April 2014, accepted 16th June 2014Abstract Decision making is critical in any business and always all businesses are involved in decision making. Such decisions influence cost, productivity, quality and performance. Thus, the success key in every organization is selection proper choice and appropriate decision making. Business intelligence is a novel approach in the organizational business and architecture which makes managers prepared for decision making and provides relatively comprehensive and realistic analysis of the institution's condition through rapid data access and analysis. Hence, current research work aims at identifying effective factors of business intelligence in organizational decisions and determining significance degree of the factors and specifying the main factor. It is an applied research work in terms of purpose of study and it is qualitative study in terms of data. Nature of the research method is descriptive survey. Statistical population includes 100 senior, middle and operational managers in Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation (Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled or "MFJ"). Statistical sample was selected non-randomly. This work provides an integrated model taken from Analytic Network Process (ANP), Dematel, and TOPSIS and proposes solution of supporting analytical and intelligent decision making as the best solution for evaluating business intelligence in organizational decisions and makes some recommendations for the future works.Keywords: Organizational decisions, business intelligence, analytic network process (ANP), decision-making, trialand evaluation laboratory (Dematel), technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Introduction Socioeconomic reality of contemporary organizations necessitates them to search for tools for facilitating effective process of data acquisition, analysis and processing from different and scattered sources so that a new foundation is established for new knowledge exploration. Over the years, management information systems supported organizations in performing their tasks/ however, available management information systems so far could not meet expectations of organizational decision makers. Thus, business intelligence was introduced as a way for dealing with inefficiencies of management information systems. Business intelligence systems include a wide set of programs and techniques for data collection, storage, analysis and access which help organizational management in making better tactical and strategic decisions. Business intelligence systems provide practical information in appropriate time when decisions are to be made. Large organizations mainly use business intelligence systems for management, supervision over business activities, reporting, planning, supporting decision making and improving their relationship with the customers. Business intelligence provides capability of data access and analysis, so that scattered data from different sources of large organizations are grouped in a coherent and integrated manner and thus an overall or 360-degreeperspective of the business is provided. Business intelligence can be defined as a wide collection of software platforms, practical programs and technologies which effectively and efficiently help decision makers. At top management levels, business intelligence systems provide input for strategic and tactical decisions. In lower managerial (operational) levels, business intelligence systems help people in performing their daily activities. At strategic level, business intelligence systems provide such information, based on which it is possible to produce future results according to the past results. At tactical level, they provide a basis for decision making for operations so as to optimizing overall company's performance. At operational level, business intelligence systems offer appropriate and timely analysis of the performance of a department or part of the organization (intelligence). One of the important components for success of modern companies is ability of the companies for using the whole available information capacity through online analytical processing (OLAP). It refers to some techniques which perform complex analysis on the data stored in database and turns them into decision making data. Main aim of the current work is providing a model for business intelligence evaluation on organizational decisions with Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach, Decision Making Trial And Evaluation (Dematel), and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The study was carried out as a case study in central staff of Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation. Its minor aim is rating and prioritizing identified factors and suggesting the best solution. According to the model in figure-1 Research Journal of Recent Sciences ______________________________________________________________ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 116-131, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci International Science Congress Association 117 and considering review of related literature, following hypotheses are proposed: The most effective index in business intelligence evaluation at strategic decisions level is index of focus on financial characteristics. The most effective index in business intelligence evaluation at tactical decisions level is consolidated and combined reporting (MRS / Excel). The most effective index in business intelligence evaluation at operational decisions level data collection and storage in private databases. Options of business intelligence evaluation in organizational decisions (organizational level and strategic, tactical and operational management levels) in Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation include respectively: i. Options of supporting intelligent analytical decision making, ii. options providing relevant experience and integration with environmental data, iii. Options of optimizationand model suggestion, iv. Options of reasoning capability, v. Options of advanced decision making tools, vi. Options of shareholders satisfaction. Options of supporting intelligent analytical decision making are the most effective options of business intelligence evaluation at decisions level (strategic, tactical, operational). Integrated model proposed with ANP, Dematel and TOPSIS approaches is a reliable model for business intelligence evaluation at managerial decisions levels (strategic, tactical, operational). Although business intelligence systems are widely used in business, there are rare research works on them. Understanding value of business intelligence systems for business is crucial since such systems support decision making at all management levels including strategic, tactical, and operational through data analysis and delivery. Aim of the current work is evaluating business intelligence at three management levels. In the proposed model, criteria are strategic, tactical and operation criteria at management levels and indexes are effect of business intelligence which is investigated in these levels. Options include tools which are used for implementing intelligence business at organizational decisions levels. In fact, aim of the current research study is proposing the best solution for facilitating and supporting managers' decision making process at three managerial decisions levels, and investigating effects of business intelligence on management decisions at management decisions levels. Following analysis of business intelligence advantages based on Analytic Network Process (ANP), Decision Making Trial And Evaluation (Dematel) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), current research study attempts to answer this question: how it can propose an appropriate model for business intelligence evaluation and its effect on organizational decisions with ANP, Dematel, and TOPSIS approach at management decisions levels. Review of Literature Value of business intelligence systems in the business mainly denote the fact that such systems provide information which may be used as basis for essential changes in a particular company. Business intelligence systems are different from traditional management information system in various ways. Frist, they cover a wide range of topics. Second, they provide multivariate analysis and structured data from various sources and offer multidimensional data. In addition, it is assumed business intelligence systems, regardless of level of their creators, support decision making at all management levels. business intelligence systems refers to a managerial philosophy and tool which helps organizations in management and refining business data in order to take effective decisions. Business intelligence aims at helping to control business data resources and flow within and around the organization. Business intelligence in the information century helps considerably to organization's management knowledge and intelligence by identifying and processing abundant and different data. Business intelligence provides business information in due time in appropriate way and offers ability of reasoning and understanding implicit meanings in information. According to reviewed literature, the main application of business intelligence is helping decision making in organization. Thus using structured and non-structured data of organizational systems is the basis for business intelligence in the organization10. Business intelligence systems can be used for directing and improving decision making in all strategic and tactical and operational levels11. At operational level, decisions are related to current operations of the organization. These decisions are generally related to daily financial information, dealing information and cooperation with suppliers and customers. At this level, business intelligence takes scattered data in the organization’s current operations and transform them to information form and provides them to decision makers of the organization12. Business intelligence systems provides information at operational level which leads to: Identifying problems and bottlenecks. Providing the best and worst analysis. Product analysis, 4.Providing staff analysis. Presentation of local analysis (using measurable criteria such as sales, expenses or measurable results). Interim analysis platform and answering questions related to current and daily operations of finance and sales departments. Operational level decisions are those decisions which allow the organization to perform its daily activities13. Thus, a summary of data and information provided by business intelligence systems are analyzed at operational level and combined with external information so that strategic planning direction and path is provided for the organization14. At tactical level, decisions are related to planning and rely upon timely data and prediction for directing future measures of marketing, sale, financial affairs and capital management. Tactical level decisions are often made for supporting strategic decisions. Details of the activities related to tactical decisions which are supported by business intelligence systems include: Analysis of the deviation from the realization of special programs of organizational units, individuals or indexes. Decisions related to direct marketing, sales, finance and asset management. Forecasting demand for a certain product or service. Information provided from these activities allows Research Journal of Recent Sciences ______________________________________________________________ISSN 2277-2502Vol. 4(6), 116-131, June (2015) Res.J.Recent Sci International Science Congress Association 118 optimization of the actions which are going to be performed in the future and organizational dimensions of the company’s performance are improved14. At strategic level, decisions are related to a set of goals which it should be ensured they are well realized. Business intelligence systems at strategic level provide information which supports strategic decisions related to extending future results based the past results, profitability, and effectiveness of the distribution channels. Negash maintains that based on previous data and information, strategic decisions make some predictions using business information systems and integrate them with current performance of the company and then it is used for estimating future conditions of the organization. According to the reviewed literature, data provided by business intelligence systems for decisions taken at strategic level are used for: Setting the entry into new markets. Changing from a product- focused to customer-focused orientation. Launching a new product15. Determining objectives and their realization. Business intelligence system term is used in this work as a general term covering most concepts such as information systems architecture and it is taken from information and business. Such systems are used for transforming data to information, information to decisions, and decisions to successful measures. Lloyd14 provided a research work entitled Identifying key elements in business intelligence systems and their role in management decision making and business intelligence systems are defined. Then their role is investigated in enabling business through knowledge creation. This study identifies four elements of the most common business intelligence tools including ETL tools, database, OLAP techniques and data mining. Finally it investigates use of business intelligence tools in facilitating management decisions at three levels of the organization (strategic, tactical, and operational). His work is used in the current study in order to examine use of business intelligence and its effect at management decisions level and extract indexes. It has been also widely used in literature on business intelligence14. Ghazanfari et al.16 provided a research paper entitled A tool for business intelligence evaluation in organizational systems. It argues that most organizations yet experience lack of business intelligence (BI) in their decision making processes at organizational systems. Thus, models and techniques of intelligent evaluation and investigation at organizational systems level can be effective in improving supporting decision making. This research paper proposes a specialized tool for investigation competency of business intelligence in the systems using a combination of statistical methods and factor analysis. Factor analysis identifies six factors for evaluation model, which include: Analytical and Intelligent decision support. Providing related experiment and integration with environment. Optimization and recommending models. Reasoning. Enhanced decision tools. Shareholder’s Satisfaction. Intelligence of business systems can be measured using extracted indexes and show them in six dashboards. Organizations can have better support for decisions at their organizational environments with this evaluation approach, which enables them to use it for achieving higher competitive advantage. In fact ns or solutions of business intelligence in the current research study. In the current study, the starting point is identifying all key elements which are usually present in all business intelligence systems. Solutions of business intelligence used in the organization under study (Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation) are classified into 6 classes considering reviewed literature and findings of similar works. Of course, each class also includes some tools which are ranked at the end of study16. All research variables are shown in a conceptual model in figure-1. Methodology Considering the main aim of this work is proposing an integrated model for business intelligence evaluation on organizational decisions with ANP, Dematel, and TOPSIS approach, it can said it is an applied study. Considering library and field study methods were used, it is a descriptive survey in terms of nature and methodology. Statistical population includes 100 managers at 8 departments of Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation including 8 strategic managers, 40 tactical managers, and 52 operational managers and supervisors. Following methods were utilized in this work: Delphi method to determine the validity of questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha to determine reliability of the questionnaire. Friedman Test for nonparametric inferential statistical analysis of the data and testing research hypotheses and. Model recommendation using mixed approaches of ANP, Dematel and TOPSIS. Analytic Network Process (ANP) technique is developed form of AHP which is able to model correlations and feedbacks between effective elements in one decision, and it is able to consider and enter all internal effects of effective elements in decision in the calculations. Thus, it is a distinct and the most perfect technique of multivariate-decision making methods. Dematel technique transforms causal relationships between elements in complex decisions to a tangible structural model17. It is comprehensive method for preparing and analyzing a structural model which includes cause and effect relations between complex factors18. This method acts based on directed graph theory. Result of Dematel method is division of present factors in two groups of causes and effects. Dematel is also used for structuring a set of assumed information, so that it examines strength of relationships as scoring form, it explores feedbacks along with their significance and accepts inalienable relations. In order to easy application, weighting method used by Gabus and Fontela19 can be summarized in four steps: Developing direct relations matrix. Normalization of direct relations matrix. Formation of general relations. Developing causal diagram. TOPSIS technique is one of the best MADM models and it is widely used. In this method, ideal solution (also known as positive ideal) is solution which maximizes benefit of criteria / attributes and minimizes the cost of criteria / attributes, while negative ideal solution (which is also known as non-ideal solution) is the solution which maximizes cost of criteria / attributes and minimizes the benefit of criteria / attributes. The