Business Intelligence & Analytics Cost Accounting: An Action Design Research Approach

In order to sustain their competitive advantage, data driven organizations must continue investing in business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) while mitigating inherent cost increases. Research shows that examining outlays by individual BI&A artifact (e.g. reports, analytics) is necessary, but introduction in practice is cumbersome and adoption is slow. BI&A service-oriented cost allocation (BIASOCA) represents an improvement to this situation. This approach enables to render the BI&A cost pool accountable and improves cost transparency, which leads to a higher BI&A penetration of economically viable applications in organizations. Against this background, this paper aims at designing and implementing BIASOCA in a medium-sized company. To record organizational impact and increase customer acceptance, this study is carried out as action design research (ADR). Our findings indicate improvements in BI&A management from working with consumers to locate cost savings and drivers. After invoicing, consumers’ BI&A awareness increased, releasing resources while also making a better understanding of BIASOCA necessary. We detail how to implement BIASOCA in a real-life setting and the challenges attendant in so doing. Our research contributes to theory and practice with a set of design principles highlighting, besides the accuracy of cost accounting, the importance of collaboration, model comprehensibility and strategic alignment.