Abstract:
Business Intelligence (BI) is one of the decision
support tools that offer the ability to gather, store, access and
analyze huge amounts of data and support for making effective
decisions. There is a rich body of literature relating to BI
adoption and their related benefits over the Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) in developed countries. But the researcher's
pilot survey depicts that in developing countries, especially in
Sri Lanka, even if larger companies adhere to the new
technologies, it's remaining very low to the SMEs. Therefore,
those companies are still taking a long time to analyze data,
interpret data and present data. The objective of this study was
to address this research gap by examining the factors affecting
BI adoption by SMEs in the North Central Province in Sri
Lanka. North Central Province was selected due to ease of
access to the sample for data collection. By initiating the
deductive approach, a research model was developed using
independent variables of relative advantages, complexity,
organizational resource availability, competitive pressure and
the dependent variable of BI adoption by SMEs. 150 SMEs
considered the sample out of 7461 SMEs of the total population
which the details obtained through the Divisional Secretariat
Offices in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. An administrative
questionnaire was distributed to collect data adhering to the
Stratified Sampling technique. The collected data were
analyzed using SPSS version 21.0 and the results revealed that
relative advantages, complexity, organizational resource
availability and competitive pressure showed a high effect on BI
adoption and the mean value is higher than 3.0. According to
correlation analysis, three factors showed a significant and
positive relationship with the dependent variable except for
complexity with BI adoption. According to that three hypotheses
were accepted and one was rejected. The research findings
elaborate and statistically proved the reasons for minor
adoption of new technologies including Business Intelligence by
SMEs in North Central Province. Further, this study
highlighted the actions that need to be taken by the Sri Lankan
government and IT/IS vendors while providing direction for
future researchers.
