Degree project

Big Data Analytics

A potential way to Competitive Performance

Author: Cleas Olsén

Author: Gustav Lindskog
Supervisor: Fisnik Dalipi
Examiner: Sadaf Salavati & Patrik Elm
Term: VT21
Subject: Informatics
Level: Bachelor
Course code: 2IK10E
Abstract
Big data analytics (BDA) has become an increasingly popular topic over the years
amongst academics and practitioners alike. Big data, which is an important part of
BDA, was originally defined with three Vs, being volume, velocity and variety. In
later years more Vs have surfaced to better accommodate the current need. The
analytics of BDA consists of different methods of analysing gathered data. Analysing
data can provide insights to organisations which in turn can give organisations
competitive advantage and enhance their businesses.
Looking into the necessary resources needed to build big data analytic capabilities
(BDAC), this thesis sought out to find how Swedish organisations enable and use
BDA in their businesses. This thesis also investigated whether BDA could lead to
performance enhancement and competitive advantage to organisations. A theoretical
framework based on previous studies was adapted and used in order to help answer
the thesis purpose. A qualitative study was deemed the most suitable for this study
using semi-structured interviews.
Previous studies in this field pointed to the fact that organisations may not be aware
of how or why to use or enable BDA. According to current literature, different
resources are needed to work in conjunction with each other in order to create BDAC
and enable BDA to be utilized. Several different studies discuss challenges such as
the culture of the organisation, human skills, and the need for top management to
support BDA initiatives to succeed.
The findings from the interviews in this study indicated that in a Swedish context the
different resources, such as data, technical skills, and data driven culture, amongst
others, are being used to enable BDA. Furthermore, the result showed that business
process improvements are a first staple in organisations use of benefiting from BDA.
This is because of the ease and security in calculating profits and effect from such an
investment. Depending on how far an organisation have come in their transformation
process they may also innovate and/or create products or services from insights made
possible from BDA.
Abstrakt
Big data analytics (BDA) har blivit ett populärt ämne under de senaste åren hos
akademiker och utövare. Big data, som är en viktig del av BDA, var först definierad
med tre Vs, volym, hastighet och varietet. På senare år har flertalet V framkommit för
att bättre uttrycka det nuvarande behovet. Analysdelen i BDA består av olika metoder
av analysering av data. Dataanalysering som görs kan ge insikter till organisationer,
som i sin tur kan ge organisationer konkurrensfördelar och förbättra deras företag.
Genom att definiera de resurser som krävs för att bygga big data analytic capabilities
(BDAC), så försökte denna avhandling att visa hur svenska organisationer möjliggör
och använder BDA i sina företag. Avhandlingen försökte också härleda om BDA kan
leda till prestandaförbättringar och konkurrensfördelar för organisationer. Ett
teoretiskt ramverk, baserat på tidigare studier, anpassades och användes för att hjälpa
till att svara på avhandlingens syfte. En kvalitativ studie utsågs vara den mest
passande ansatsen, tillsammans med semi-strukturerade intervjuer.
Tidigare studier inom området visade på att organisationer kanske inte helt är
medvetna om hur eller varför BDA möjliggörs eller kan användas. Enligt den
nuvarande litteraturen så behöver olika resurser arbeta tillsammans med varandra för
att skapa BDAC och möjliggöra att BDA kan utnyttjas till fullo. Flera olika studier
diskuterade utmaningar såsom kulturen inom organisationen, kompetens hos
anställda och att ledningen behöver stödja BDA initiativ för att lyckas.
Fynden från studiens intervjuer indikerade, i ett svenskt sammanhang, att olika
resurser såsom data, tekniska färdigheter och datadriven kultur bland annat, används
för att möjliggöra BDA. Fortsättningsvis påvisade resultatet att
affärsprocessförbättring är en första stapel i användandet av fördelarna från BDA.
Anledningen till det är för att det är lättare och säkrare med beräkning av förtjänst och
effekt från en sådan investering. Beroende på hur långt en organisation har kommit i
deras transformationsprocess kan de också innovera och/eller skapa produkter eller
tjänster som möjliggjorts av insikter från BDA.

Key words
Big Data Analytics, Big Data Analytics Capabilities, Qualitative Study, Knowledge-
based view, Competitive Advantage.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the organisations that have been with us from the beginning
to the end of our work. Furthermore, we also want to thank the informants who took
their time to respond to our questions and participating in the study. Doing so we
gained valuable information in our endeavour to answer our thesis purpose. We also
want to thank Fisnik Dalipi for being our supervisor, providing feedback as well as
answering any questions that arose during our work.
Växjö, 2021-06-06
Cleas Olsén & Gustav Lindskog
1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background ................................................................................................ 2
1.2 Problem formulation .................................................................................. 4
1.3 Purpose & Research Questions.................................................................. 4
2 Literature review .............................................................................................. 5
2.1 The Origin of Big Data Analytics ............................................................... 5
2.2 Why Big Data Analytics? ........................................................................... 6
2.2.1 Application of BDA (Context) ........................................................... 7
2.2.2 Potential Competitive Advantages ..................................................... 8
3 Theoretical Framework (Theory) ................................................................... 9
3.1 Big Data Analytical Capabilities ............................................................... 9
3.2 Resource-Based View ............................................................................... 10
3.2.1 Tangible resources............................................................................ 10
3.2.2 Intangible resources.......................................................................... 11
3.2.3 Human skills..................................................................................... 11
3.3 Operational Capabilities (Marketing & Technological) .......................... 12
3.4 Dynamic Capabilities ............................................................................... 12
3.5 Notable differences (Dynamic & Operational) ........................................ 13
4 Method ............................................................................................................ 14
4.1 Scientific approach................................................................................... 14
4.2 Data collection ......................................................................................... 14
4.2.1 Sampling........................................................................................... 14
4.2.2 Interviews ......................................................................................... 15
4.3 BDA capabilities framework .................................................................... 15
4.4 Analysis .................................................................................................... 16
4.5 Validity and Reliability............................................................................. 17
4.6 Ethics ........................................................................................................ 17
5 Result ............................................................................................................... 19
5.1 Informants ................................................................................................ 19
5.2 Themes and sub-codes.............................................................................. 20
5.3 Tangible resources ................................................................................... 20
5.3.1 Data .................................................................................................. 20
5.3.2 Technology ....................................................................................... 21
5.3.3 Basic resources ................................................................................. 22
5.4 Human skills ............................................................................................. 23
5.4.1 Technical skills................................................................................. 23
5.4.2 Managerial skills .............................................................................. 24
5.5 Intangible resources ................................................................................. 25
5.5.1 Data-driven culture ........................................................................... 25
5.5.2 Organisational Learning ................................................................... 26
5.6 Performance and Competitive advantage ................................................ 27
5.6.1 Business Process Improvement ........................................................ 27
5.6.2 Products and Services....................................................................... 29
6 Analysis ........................................................................................................... 31
6.1 Tangible Resources .................................................................................. 31
6.2 Human skills ............................................................................................. 31
6.3 Intangible Resources ................................................................................ 32
6.4 Performance and Competitive Advantage................................................ 32
7 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 34
7.1 Tangible Resources .................................................................................. 34
7.2 Human Skills ............................................................................................ 35
7.3 Intangible Resources ................................................................................ 36
7.4 The resources as a whole ......................................................................... 37
7.5 Performance and Competitive Advantage................................................ 37
7.6 Method discussion .................................................................................... 38
8 Conclusion....................................................................................................... 40
8.1 Continued research .................................................................................. 40
References ............................................................................................................... 42

Appendices
Appendix 1 – Consent form
Appendix 2 – Interview guide
1 Introduction
Today we are surrounded by data that can be found practically everywhere. A
manufacturing company gathers data about the product line with sensors, a retailer
has huge amounts of data about its customers and their purchases and the social media
giants have advanced user profiles containing user location, user age and what user
interests are (Chen, Chaing & Storey 2012). Data which has increased in volume over
the years have later been coined and introduced as big data (Diebold 2012) and is
today a well-known term for describing large amounts of data. Even Bocij, Greasley
and Hickie (2019) argue that big data is a well-known term, which constitutes the big
sets of data, that today is being enabled by the sophisticated IT systems available in
this day and age.
Big data analytics (BDA) have during the last decades been a popular topic in the
academic world, as well as the practitioner's world. Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012)
highlight an increase in publishing of articles within big data and business intelligence
from the beginning of the 21st century which started to accelerate at the end of the
decade. Mikalef, Pappas, Krogstie and Pavlou (2020a) describe the same
development but in the current decade. Both studies show how big data, business
intelligence and analytics (BI&A) have been a hot topic because of the value it can
provide to an organisation. As more and more devices are getting connected and
technology moves forward the amount of data becoming available is increasing. More
businesses and organisations have started to realise that the data they collect can be
transformed to opportunities or efficiency to create value.
Challenges exists with big data analytics and the culture of organisations are one of
them. Lacking skills such as technical or managerial are also a challenge for
organisations. McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) mention five challenges to overcome
in order to enable big data analytics in organisations. All of these are somehow
connected to the socio-technical aspect. For example, they mention the need for
company culture to shift into using data instead of their intuition or gut-feeling when
making decisions. This is also brought up by Hume and West (2020) which presents
challenges to overcome, but with focus on not-for-profit organisations. They argue
that organisations have to take action with the data they collect, which is in line with
the study by McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) where they list the need for human
interaction to find these insights and act upon it as well.
Several studies show that several different benefits exist from utilizing BDA. By
doing so, organisations can sense opportunities, make data driven decisions resulting
in competitive advantage. Côrte-Real, Oliveira and Ruivo (2017) discuss the impact
of BDA applications and the influence it brings which allows knowledge management
on internal and external levels. This creates a flexibility within organisations, which
results in realization of threats and opportunities, market penetration and integration
of new technologies that creates competitive advantages. Furthermore, Thirathon,
Wieder, Matolcsy and Ossimitz (2017) draws to conclusion that big data and BDA
can be supportive in the work of gaining advantage over your competitors. McAfee
and Brynjolfsson (2012) emphasize that data-driven decisions, that are enabled by

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BDA, tend to be better decisions than those which are based on intuition and gut-
feelings.
Studies have been made on current literature investigating areas that could be
interesting or deemed needed to be explored. Mikalef et al. (2020a) argue in a
bibliometric study that there are still unexplored areas within the subject of BDA and
business analytics. They found several research questions that were interesting from
several points of view. Concurrently Wamba, Akter, Edwards and Chopin (2015)
express the lack of empirical research and call on to investigate how big data can
enable and provide value within organisations. For these reasons it can be deduced
that there is a need for further research.
There is a lack of knowledge within the subject and that in turn makes it a possibility
that organisations are missing out on advantages they do not know about. Because of
the popularity of BDA in the past years there is an opportunity to investigate how
Swedish organisations are using this phenomenon and if they have the ability to create
value through BDA. Research within a Swedish context in the subject of BDA exist
but to the best of our ability we could not find the same endeavours as this thesis have
undertaken.

1.1 Background
Actionable knowledge is something that managers should and can use. In order to
create such knowledge culture is important as well as employee’s talents.
Bumblauskas, Nold, Bumblauskas and Igou (2017) state that for organisations to be
successful they need to be able to transform data to information, to knowledge which
leads to actionable knowledge. The Performance Triangle is a method which can be
used to transform big data to actionable knowledge. This is done by developing a
culture in which individuals can focus and use their talents in coalition with their
managers. The managers can then in turn interpret the data and effectively
communicate their findings to who it may concern. Bumblauskas et al. (2017) further
state that these are important pillars in order to maximize BDA usage. They continue
with explaining the usage of dashboards with KPIs to create an easy access of
information for managers and alike. These three, actionable knowledge, Performance
Triangle and dashboards, are what the writers express to be important theoretical
constructs and frameworks in order to utilize big data.
BDA and BI&A is related to each other in some ways. Some recent literature also
uses it as a joint term. Because of the ongoing popularity in BDA, an increase in
published articles have been seen and more academics have started to take an interest.
Most notably was Chen, Chiang and Storey where they investigated how far back in
time, they could find articles about big data. Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012) use
BI&A as a joint term and that big data analytics is a related field which enable new
areas for BI&A. Chen, Chiang and Storey describe BI&A as the mediating methods,
technologies and best-practises in companies when analysing data in order to gain
insight and make better decisions. According to their bibliometric study there is a rise
of articles in big data. This indicates that at the time of the Chen, Chiang and Storey’s
study, big data was a rising subject. They underline this by discussing when they saw
big data appear for the first time in 2001, but it was in 2007 when they started to

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notice its rise (2012). Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012) together with Bumblauskas et
al. (2017), note that the organisations culture is an important part of BI&A.
Furthermore, to help and support such culture, organisations need to transform data
to information. This results in actionable knowledge and is of importance for the
organisation. Integration and communication are also mentioned as an important part.
A more recent research has been conducted and where research questions were
suggested. By doing so it shows that the field of BDA still has several more avenues
to explore. Mikalef et al. (2020a) reveal that an increase has been seen in the last
decade in number of published articles in the subject. In conjunction with increased
connected devices, better performance for computers and the shrunk price of data
storage, growth has been made possible. It has also started to attract academics and
practitioners on how it can be evolved to create value. The authors conduct a study
which consists of mapping current literature and finding unexplored areas and
providing research questions based on their findings. One important question that they
bring to light is which different organisational capabilities through BDA can lead to
value. Mikalef et al. (2020a) continue with more suggestions for possible research
questions which can prove that the subject of BDA is not completely explored.
Mikalef, Krogstie, Pappas and Pavlou (2020b) point out that big data analytics
capabilities (BDAC) are an enabler to BDA. It is noted that past literature focuses
primarily on the tangible resources when investing in BDA initiatives. The authors
argue that there are more than tangible resources, like technology, that play a vital
role in enabling BDA. There is human skill and intangible resources that also have a
need to be accounted for. These three resources, intangible resources, human skills,
and tangible resources are known as the resource-based view. BDAC is linked to
dynamic capabilities which is used to alter or enhance operational capabilities. These
can then lead to competitive performance (2020b). The results of the article showed
that it was several different resources that needed to be used in combination with each
other. It meant that in order for organisations to benefit from BDA it is necessary to
have these resources. Mikalef et al. (2020b) report that the quantitative study they
have undertaken show that organisations need to have a multitude of different
resources working together in order to be able to utilize big data analytics. The authors
note that there are more than investing in technology, collect data and experimentation
with analytics to utilize BDA. It is found that intangible resources, such as data driven
culture, and human skills, such as technical understanding, in conjunction with
tangible resources, create a big data analytic capability. There is also a necessity that
top management is supportive and committed to creating a BDAC. The authors note
that several studies have begun to emphasize of the importance of these factors
(2020b).
In search of evidence that data driven decisions actually improve business
performance, McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) found that there was none. Instead,
they took it to themselves to research and prove that it does. Not everyone uses data-
driven decisions but those who utilize it claim they perform better economically and
productively. McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) continue by describing how
organisations can embrace big data through five areas. One of these areas is the
company culture. The authors emphasize that managers should not base their

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decisions on hunches or intuition, that a step away from such thinking is a way in the
right direction. They end by emphasizing the important cultural changes are big
within the organisations and that integrity is an imperative question to be asked, and
that data driven decisions tend to be better decisions.
Furthermore, McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) provide examples where companies
have used BDA to create value. An airline company in U.S.A did an internal survey
and realized that 10 percent of their flights did not arrive at the given ETA (estimated
time arrival). This resulted in resources being wasted on personnel that waited on the
ground when a flights arrival got delayed and at the same time if a plane arrived too
early the passengers and crew were stuck waiting for assistance. In the old way of
making ETAs, the pilot had to make an analysis of the plane’s position, weather, and
time for it to reach the airport. To solve the issue with delayed flights, the company
created a system that combined weather, radar signals of the flights position and flight
schedules. This system could estimate a more precise ETA, which resulted in a
reliable ETA with better flow of actions on the airport with fewer mishaps (2012).

1.2 Problem formulation

Articles found in the background argue for the need of more studies regarding the use
of BDA, as well as emphasizing around its use to create business value within
organisations around the world. It is argued that firms have excessive focus on
tangible resources regarding BDA initiatives. Therefore, it has been found necessary
to build upon intangible and human skills as well as tangible resources to enable the
initiatives taken for BDA. In the background, benefits have been brought forward of
using BDA in an organisation which makes it possible for businesses to advance in
the digital world that exists today. Several studies have been done, giving a taxonomy
of research areas that should be pursued within the BDA movement. Côrte-real,
Oliveira and Ruivo (2017) believe there is a need for more research within the subject
where the focus lies in European companies in northern and southern Europe.

1.3 Purpose & Research Questions

Investigating organisations in Sweden, this study aims to understand how companies
enable BDA, through utilizing the necessary resources, in order to gain competitive
advantage. The research questions that this thesis aims to investigate is the following:
RQ1: What kind of resources are utilized to enable big data analytics and how are
they being used?
RQ2: RQ2: How does big data analytics lead to performance enhancement and
competitive advantage, and in what context?

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2 Literature review
In this chapter a literature study is conducted to provide insight into big data
analytics. To better understand BDA, we look back into the history of data and
analytics. Included is the Origin of BDA, from business intelligence & analytics, big
data and the development of the term BDA that we know today. Why use BDA and
finally, we bring up the potential competitive advantages of implementing BDA
solutions.

2.1 The Origin of Big Data Analytics

Data has been gathered for a long time, through various streams and stored in data
warehouses all over the world. Bocij, Greasley and Hickie (2019) state that the
accumulated data has now become increasingly larger with the help of networks
consisting of connected electronic devices also known as Internet of Things. Kitchin
and Lauriault (2014) also note that data has increased, due to the rapid growth of new
technologies and infrastructures such as development of new database designs, new
forms of social media and data analysis techniques which aims to handle data
overflow rather than data scarcity. Dremel, Herterich, Wulf and Brocke (2018) also
claim that the technological advancements have enabled mass generation of data. This
immense amount of data has now become known as big data, presumably coined in
1998, by John Mashey during his presentation “Big data and the Next Wave of
InfraStress” (Diebold 2012). Later Bocij, Greasley and Hickie (2019, pp 146) defined
big data as “...the large datasets that are enabled by the IT systems which support,
capture and disseminate these data.”.
Big data is based upon three main characteristics, also mentioned as the three Vs.
Volume portrays the immense amount of data, Velocity, the speed of which data is
being generated and processed and lastly Variety, the different kinds of data and
sources of data contained in big data (Emmanuel & Stanier 2016). Big data has been
described by Kitchin and Lauriault (2014) as huge in volume, existing in tera and
petabytes. A few years later Reinsel, Gantz and Rydning (2018) at IDC projected the
total amount of data in the world to 18 zettabytes, which is a very large quantity of
data. This very large quantity of data is also complex. Chen, Chiang and Storey mean
that this in turn requires advanced and special technologies in terms of storage,
analysis and visualization for it to be managed and used (2012). Gupta and George
(2016) note that big data has over the years been increasingly dimensionalized to
several more Vs such as veracity and value. The authors note that big data is not really
about the actual Vs themselves, but the benefit that big data has to the firm. There is
not a real consensus regarding the definition of big data according to Gupta and
George (2016).
Business intelligence has since the 90’s been an emerging and popular term in the IT-
world. BI&A has an history in the database management field, where it makes use of
different technologies in areas such as data collection, extraction and analysis (Chen,
Chiang and Storey 2012). Furthermore, the authors indicate that these technologies
are today implemented in the industry, handling structured data which primarily is
stored in the previously named relational database management systems. The
analytical techniques used here are based on statistics and data mining (2012). Bocij,

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Greasley and Hickie (2019) together with Frisk and Bannister (2017), mean that these
analytic techniques have been implemented in organisations to enable a more fact-
based decision making for better decisions. Whereas Bocij, Greasley and Hickie
(2019) note that 40 percent of decisions made in businesses today are based on
intuition and gutfeel. Big data analytics is according to Chen, Chiang and Storey
(2012) a related field to BI&A, primarily focusing on data on a bigger scale and
complexity, rather than the traditional analytics which often focus on smaller datasets.
Bocij, Greasley and Hickie (2019) categorize BDA in terms of analytic techniques
into three types. Descriptive analytics, where you try to show what has happened and
what is happening, Predictive analytics, showing what will be happening and
Prescriptive analytics answering what should be happening. Ghasemaghaei and Calic
(2019) mean that companies gather insights in three types; Descriptive insights means
to better understand their current business situation. Predictive insights,
understanding the future and what it brings according to statistical and forecasting
methods. Prescriptive insights meaning to find the best possible way to gain an
advantage.
Rowley (2017) discusses the DIKW-model which portrays a hierarchy between data,
information, knowledge and wisdom. The general understanding of the DIKW-model
is that data can create information, which in turn creates knowledge, which then, in
some cases, can turn into wisdom. Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012) state that new
insights, which you could argue comes close to knowledge and wisdom, can be
acquired through massive amounts of data generated from the web, mobile and
sensors in business and organisation areas. Dremel et al. (2018) state that a
companies’ ability to gain these insights through data analytics, is a competitive
factor, since these insights can lead to potential value for the company.

2.2 Why Big Data Analytics?

According to McKinsey Global Institute (2011) there are five types of business values
that originates from big data. First one of these is creating transparency which is done
by making big data more available to relevant stakeholders in a sufficient amount of
time. This results in shorter search and process time. If a R&D development team
integrates data, it can diminish time to market as well as improve quality. McKinsey
Global Institute (2011) continue with enabling experimentation to discover needs,
expose variability, and improve performance as the second type of business value. By
doing a controlled experiment, more accurate data can be gathered to be analysed in
order to expose variability in performance. This undertaking can expose its cause and
make it possible for management to handle performance at a higher level. Segmenting
populations to customize actions is the third type which concludes in using big data
as a source for tailoring actions according to a highly specific population.
Replacing/supporting human decision making with automated algorithms is a highly
popular and the fourth type of business value that derives from big data. McKinsey
Global Institute (2011) describe that this value comes from sophisticated analytics of
big data, that results in improving decision making, minimizing risks and unearthing
valuable insights. The authors point out the last business value to be innovating new
business models, products, and services. This is facilitated by big data to invent to
new business models, create new products and services, but also enhance existing
ones.

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Wamba et al. (2015) has done a systematic review and a longitudinal study and these
five dimensions of business value were among their classification framework. In their
study they find that the most published area was decision making. However, most of
these articles touch several points of the mentioned business values. The result of
Wamba et al. (2015) brings forth guidelines for managers in order to harvest the
possible gains from big data.
Actionable knowledge is a way for decision makers to make informative and better
decisions. It is derived from data to information to knowledge which transforms into
actionable knowledge when acted upon. According to Bumblauskus et al. (2017)
many different types of business decisions is impacted by BDA. It is however known
that organisations are behind in utilizing their existent data. The authors note that
actionable knowledge can translate into specific action and communication to others.
Decision makers are to be able to derive this from data or information. Bumblauskus
et al. (2017) report that in order to produce actionable knowledge several factors are
necessary. One crucial factor is having timely and valid information. This is to equal
value that of having the ability to make informed choices. These factors then need
attentive monitoring in order to make sure of the validity of input information as well
as the implementation of decisions. Without these, the decisions based on actionable
knowledge may lead to negative outcomes.
Data-driven decision-making is one of the main benefits researched according to
Wamba et al. (2015). Troisi, Maione, Grimaldi and Loia (2020) explains that data-
driven decision-making (DDDM) requires several conditions in order to be used.
There is a need for the organisation to have an innovative-oriented culture with an
active role of leadership which utilize data as a strategic resource and handles data
management carefully (2020). McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) describe DDDM in
a similar manner. They emphasize on moving away from decisions based on gut-
feeling and intuition for it to be replaced with it being based on data instead For BDA
to be utilized, they identifiy five challenges to overcome (2012). Hume and West
(2020) state that for-profit organisations are utilizing data-driven decision-making
and not-for-profit organisations can follow suit in order to benefit. The authors point
out seven challenges that is needed to overcome in order to utilize DDDM (2020).
Culture is described as one of the challenges needed to overcome in order to
implement and being data-driven within an organisation. It is mentioned that intuition
might be the main thing controlling decisions and noted that the data-driven decisions
need to be the main factor. The amount of skilled workforce using data are mentioned
as few and the need for recruiters to find the right workforce is high. The expectancy
of employees with sufficient abilities to handle techniques and technologies are low
in number as well. Further discussed is the need for human actions and decisions with
the insight made possible by data. Without management realizing opportunities and
acting upon it, data that is gathered and visualized is wasted (Hume & West 2020;
McAfee & Brynjolfsson 2012).

2.2.1 Application of BDA (Context)

Mikalef et al. (2020b) describe application of BDA in an organisational context to
derive from new business opportunities through different data sources. When

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customer and personnel interact, big data analytics can be used to better understand
customer needs. By using insights gained from speech analytics methods, a flight
company could personalize offers and be used to train service personnel. Using
analytics from social media companies can track what their public opinion is, their
competitors and the industry as a whole. By tracking customers in different ways, it
is possible to better capture market needs (2020b).

2.2.2 Potential Competitive Advantages

Côrte-Real, Oliveira and Ruivo (2016) argue that competitive performance is how
you use what you know. The dynamic capability of agility is a possible source of
competitive advantage. The authors also discuss that European firms tend to focus on
improving their business processes and assets (2016). Batistic and Laken (2019)
suggest that correct use of capabilities, as seen by dynamic capabilities perspective,
can lead to competitive advantage. Mikalef et al. (2020b) argue that effective
operational capabilities as well as technological and marketing capabilities of a firm
is a source of competitive advantage for organisations. Operational capabilities’
positive effect is known to increase revenue, reduce cost and improve the
organisations products. This is enhanced and/or enabled by dynamic capabilities. The
marketing and technological capabilities affect the competitive performance by
understanding their customers and transform inputs to the organisations into outputs
in an effective and efficient way. The authors state that insight from data is not enough
for an organisation to gain value from BDA. Here they emphasize that it is also needed
to act upon the insights (2020b). Gupta and George (2016) explain that competitive
performance is gained from big data in several ways. Even though investing in big
data, having data and access to high-level technology to produce competitive
advantage it is also gained by other means. Having access to skill in management as
well as technical skills is part of that. By having a culture that advocates data-driven
decisions as well as organisations intensity of learning, leads to competitive
advantage (2016).

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3 Theoretical Framework (Theory)
In the following section we propose a Theoretical Framework that connects resource-
based view (RBV) and BDA capabilities to competitive performance. First, discussing
BDA capabilities and how they are connected to the RBV (tangible, human skills &
intangible). Lastly, we discuss operational capabilities, together with dynamic
capabilities and their differences in connection to competitive performance.

3.1 Big Data Analytical Capabilities

Figure 1 presents a theoretical framework describing the relationship between a
resource-based view (RBV), big data analytic capabilities, dynamic capabilities, and
competitive performance. This model aims to describe how organisational resources
are connected to BDA, in order to create BDAC. Furthermore, to understand how
BDAC affects dynamic capabilities which in turn affects marketing- and
technological capabilities, which leads to competitive performance (Mikalef et al.
2020b).

Figure 1. Theoretical framework for big data analytics capability (Adapted from
Mikalef et al. 2020b).
Mikalef et al. (2020b) provides this theoretical framework in their study, aiming to
connect BDA capabilities to competitive performance. The model in Figure 1 shows
distinct relationships between the different subjects with arrows.
Mikalef et al. (2020b) agrees with Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012) that big data and
the focus on related analytical technologies are here to stay. However, to realize and
use BDA, Mikalef et al. (2020b) state that firms can not only focus on technical
aspects. They also need to see through the human and intangible resources within the
organisation as well. Gupta and George (2016), together with Mikalef et al. (2020b),
argue that the RBV is a powerful tool for combining different organisational resources
and with them create a competitive advantage. Both research groups agree that
tangible, human and intangible resources, found in RBV, is needed in order to build

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a BDA capability. Furthermore, Mikalef et al. (2020b, pp. 4) defines BDA capabilities
as “...the ability of the firm to capture and analyse data toward the generation of
insights, by effectively deploying its data, technology, and talent through firm-wide
processes, roles and structures.”.

3.2 Resource-Based View

Mikalef et al. (2020b) describe that the resource-based view (RBV) mean that
competitive advantage is a unique combination of different resources that are highly
valuable economically and are hard to mimic. Competitive advantage derives from
these heterogeneously resources that are distributed across firms. The authors
describe that RBV is often used as a theoretical foundation to base different
assumptions and operationalization’s upon the organisation by researchers. The
categories that are used are tangible, human skills and intangible (2020b).

3.2.1 Tangible resources

The tangible resource consists of three different resources. Specifically, Mikalef et al.
(2020b) distinguish these as basic resources, data and technology which can be seen
in Figure 1. The authors mention these as crucial resources to have in order to be able
to utilize big data analytics. These are among the most common to have as well
(2020b).
The basic resource is mainly focused around financials such as investments in big
data (Mikalef et al. 2020b). Gupta and George (2016) describe basic resources as
investing in big data initiatives. It is also noted that most organisations do not have a
set procedure when dealing with initiatives. By doing so organisations need to be
aware that it does not yield immediate desired results. Besides investments as a basic
resource there is also time. Organisations need to be persistent and be willing to
devote time in order achieve their analytical objectives (2016).
Data is considered to be a major part for along with quality of data and its availability
(Mikalef et al. 2020b). Gupta and George (2016) argue that organisations in this day
and age all collect data no matter of the size, structure or speed. The data can be
categorized into internal and external data. The external data is data collected from
the web and mobile phones among other things. It can be used for novel and flexible
perspectives as well as gain insight about their customers. Internal data is focused on
the organisation's operations. It is gained by its internal operations such as inventory
updates, sales and human resource management. In order to take advantage of it fully
internal and external data needs to be merged. (2016).
According to Gupta and George (2016) technology is what organisations use to
handle their structured and unstructured data. Relational database management
systems (RDBMS) are the most common technology to store structured data such as
customer records and such. To gain insights from this a data warehouse is designed
by extraction, transforming and load methods of the organisational data. The data
warehouse is a place which stores enterprise-specific data which is then structured to
a standard. From this is gained key performance indicators (KPI) by extracting the
data using analytical processing and other reporting services. Unstructured data is
80% of an organisations data and to handle that organisations’ have moved beyond

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RDBMS. To analyse unstructured datasets and distribute storage, Hadoop is a
technology that have emerged which can be used for such a case. It uses a NoSQL to
store and retrieve the unstructured data (2016).

3.2.2 Intangible resources

Mikalef et al. (2020b) note that intangible resources are critical when deploying big
data initiatives. It is emphasized that the ability to think with a data-analytics
perspective is important in technical position as well as managerial positions. In order
to capitalize on the evolving technological landscape, organisations need to be
committed to continuous learning. It has also been noted that a data-driven culture is
tied to organisations success regarding big data projects (2020b).
Organisational culture has several definitions according to Gupta and George (2016)
even though research have been thorough in the subject. It is suggested that
organisational culture is the glue that holds the organisation together as well as it
encompasses every area of an organisation. Although it may have several definitions,
there is a consensus regarding its value towards sustained firm performance. Recent
works regarding big data initiatives have laid ground for organisational culture being
of the essence for it to be a success. While the importance of culture has come to light
so has the need for data-driven culture to be part of it. Businesses top executives still
base most decisions on intuition and/or past experience, and this is the reason why
they do not succeed with their BDA initiatives. Therefore, data should be seen as an
asset to the organisation. In order for BDA initiatives to prosper, executives, managers
and lower-level employees need to embrace data-driven culture and use data to base
their decisions (2016).
Gupta and George (2016) discuss how changes in the external environment requires
organisations to have the ability to reconfigure their resources consequently. This is
likely to lead to sustained competitive advantage. There is a need to have
organisational learning and its intensity is what determines the outcome. This is a
process which consists of exploring, storing, sharing and applying knowledge. Even
though organisational knowledge never wears out, it can get outdated by
advancements in technology or new inventions. This in turn can create uncertain
market conditions and in order to counteract, firms need to use existent knowledge
and explore new knowledge. By having a high intensity of organisational learning
firms can stockpile knowledge and with it, knowledge it is likely to create an
advantage when applying it to validate findings from big data (2016).

3.2.3 Human skills

Mikalef et al. (2020b) point out that to obtain value from big data investments
technical- and managerial-oriented skills are vital for it. Throughout the organisation
it is of importance to have a data-analytical thinking, not only for data scientist but
especially for employees in managerial positions (2020b).
The technical skills refer to the know-how in how to use technologies to extract
intelligence from big data according to Gupta and George (2016). Further they argue
that the competency in these skills include among other in data cleaning and machine
learning. It is believed that skills such as these will be available to learn in the same
way that technical IT skills are, such as programming for example. The authors note

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however, that big data technology is new, and that organisations with employees that
have big data skills have a slight edge over their competition for being ahead of the
curve. In conclusion it is believed that big data-specific technical skills and technical
IT skills may in conjunction make this resource ordinary across firms (2016).
Gupta and George (2016) note that the managerial skills are often taken for granted
for the reason that it is so deeply rooted in the organisational setting. The definition
of managerial skills is highly firm-specific and developed over time by individuals
working in the same organisation. Without sharp managerial skills, insight gained
from data may get overlooked. It is of importance for managers to understand how
and where to apply the insights gained from their technical teams. Managers should
have the ability to understand their customers, business units and alike current need
but also be able to foresee it to utilize the gained insight (2016).

3.3 Operational Capabilities (Marketing & Technological)

Conboy et al. (2020) argues that operational capabilities represent the way of making
and generating income for the organisation. Mikalef et al. (2020b) follow this up by
mentioning operational capabilities as the capabilities that a company has to make a
momentary living. Marketing and technological capabilities are two factors in the way
firms make a living. Marketing capabilities makes up the capabilities that firms use
to address the customer needs, meanwhile technological capabilities reflect the
capabilities needed to manufacture products and services. Furthermore, Mikalef et al.
observes that the current competitive environment is uncertain, volatile and
frequently changing. In order to stay relevant and competitive, companies need to
evaluate the way they do business (2020b).

3.4 Dynamic Capabilities

Previously the uncertain and ever-changing competitive environment was described
as a reality by Mikalef et al. (2020b), affecting the firms on how well operational
capabilities can generate value. When this is the case, the authors suggest that
companies should focus on strengthening dynamic capabilities, as a way to answer to
the threat of losing competitive advantage. Conboy et al. (2020) discuss dynamic
capabilities as they are meant to support and lead operational capabilities in an ever-
changing environment. By organisations being flexible and agile through dynamic
capabilities, the operational capabilities can attain to stay relevant and continue to
create revenue for the company. Dynamic capabilities are therefore necessary for an
organisation to indirectly gain competitive performance (2020).
According to Conboy et al. (2020) dynamic capabilities can be divided into three
types of activities when it comes to strategic change. The first type of activity is
sensing new threats and opportunities. This is done by scanning markets and
technologies with analytical systems in order to capture news, information and
insights. Next, seizing is the activity of evaluating current technologies and
capabilities that are emerging on the market, aiming to capture them for potential
added value to the business. Transforming is the last activity defined by Conboy et
al. (2020) as the ability to transform and change business models and strategies. This
is done by frequently changing and updating the tangible and intangible resources to
adapt to the environmental changes to markets and technologies (2020).

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3.5 Notable differences (Dynamic & Operational)
The most important part is the relation between operational and dynamic capabilities
and its effect on competitive performance. Conboy et al. (2020) discuss operational
capabilities and how it represents the way of making and generating income for the
organisation, meanwhile dynamic capabilities are meant to support and lead
operational capabilities in an ever-changing environment. By organisations being
flexible and agile through dynamic capabilities, the operational capabilities can attain
to stay relevant and continue to create revenue for the company. Dynamic capabilities
are therefore necessary for an organisation to indirectly gain competitive performance
(2020).

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4 Method
This chapter consists of the scientific approach chosen in this thesis. Data collection
and the corresponding method will also be brought up, together with an adapted
version of the Theoretical Framework presented in the method chapter. Validity and
reliability are discussed, together with ethical aspects and lastly, a description of the
thematical analysis later used in the chapter for analysis.

4.1 Scientific approach

This report seeks to answer the question: Does big data analytics lead to better
performance and as a result gain competitive advantage and in what context? And
also: What kind of resources are utilized to enable big data analytics and are they
being used? In search for answers, the researchers used a qualitative approach.
According to Creswell and Creswell (2018) there are mainly three different scientific
approaches to a problem. First one of them are the quantitative approach, second is
qualitative and third a mixed method of both. In this thesis the qualitative method is
used. This approach has focus on individuals’ perception and experience. This study,
grounded in a constructivist worldview, will in a phenomenological research study,
attempt to portray interviewees experiences with the phenomenon displayed in the
literature review. In this study several semi-structured interviews are conducted,
aiming to answer the research questions. Jacobsen (2002) argues that qualitative
methods are appropriate for creating a better understanding and exploring a specific
phenomenon. With semi-structured interviews, which is endorsed by Jacobsen
(2002), it is possible to get a more nuanced and detailed version of the interviewee's
version of the phenomenon. According to Jacobsen there is also a higher flexibility
to interviews where follow up questions can be asked to acquire a more detailed
answer. A majority of the studies mentioned in the problem formulation have used a
quantitative method. Given the opportunity to explore a possible knowledge gap, a
qualitative study was deemed fit for this study.

4.2 Data collection

In this section we will describe and discuss the methods used to acquire and collect
data for the study. We will also discuss the sample of representatives used in our study
and the reasoning behind the choice.

4.2.1 Sampling
According to Jacobsen (2002) the sample of representatives is controlled and decided
by the purpose of the study. The representatives need to fit a certain criterion and have
relevance to the phenomena that is being researched. In this study, the focus was on
the representatives that work in the area of BDA and are well integrated with the
phenomena. They either studied or worked within the area of BDA, having roles such
as Data analysists or IT managers with insights in BDA or big data. Choosing
representatives possessing great amounts of information of the studied subject is what
Jacobsen (2002) describes as the “information” approach.
When searching for companies and participants for the study, brainstorming was first
used with the help of local knowledge of where to find suitable informants. With this

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insight, companies that were active in the IT sector could be tracked down by using
search engines to find the websites of these companies. A few companies that were
not known before were also discovered on random by using this method, through
search engine advertisement. The websites that were found contained information
about where the companies were active, in areas such as big data, analytics and
DDDM. Contact information to these companies and participants could also be found
on these websites. This was then used to make an initial contact between the
interviewees and the interviewee. The companies used in this thesis are Swedish
companies or organisations based in Sweden.

4.2.2 Interviews
To collect data in this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted on several
occasions. This was done with five representatives from five different organisations.
The interviews were approximately one hour long and an interview guide was used,
see appendix 2. According to Jacobsen (2002) the optimal time for an interview is
between forty-five minutes and one and a half hour. This is to make sure the interview
is not too short or too long, resulting in inadequate amounts of data which in turn
could affect the quality of the interview. The author states that an open interview is
best used when there is a small number of units that is studied, when the aim is to
study an individual and when the aim is to examine the individual's interpretation of
a phenomenon. The reason for choosing semi-structured interviews is because fully
open interviews tend to become too complex to analyse. Meanwhile, a fully closed
and structured interview may prevent the interviewee from sharing the individual
truth and experience that the study wants to discover (2002). During the interviews,
follow-up questions were naturally asked when a better understanding of an answer
was needed.
The method of interviewing the participants was digital face-to-face interviews
through different tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The interviews were
recorded through a recording software with the purpose of being able to transcribe
the interviews afterwards. This reduced the time and effort into taking to many notes
during the interviews. However, notes are still an important part of an interview
(Jacobsen 2002).

4.3 BDA capabilities framework

In the process of data analysis, a BDAC framework was used, presented in figure 2.
In this adapted framework, marketing and technological capabilities are replaced with
operational capabilities (Conboy et al. 2020; Mikalef et al. 2020b).

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Figure 2. Theoretical framework used in the study (adapted from Mikalef et al.
2020b)
The reason for this is that both marketing and technological capabilities fall under the
category of operational capabilities. The aim is to present operational capabilities, not
just marketing and technological, as a potential enabler for competitive performance.
By using this theoretical framework, it is possible to identify if organisations have the
necessary resources to enable BDA. It can also be used to connect the essential
resources within companies with the potential enhancements to increase organisations
competitive performance.

4.4 Analysis
By thematically analysing the findings of the conducted interviews it can be easier to
organize and structure the findings. This results in making the information more
viewable and easier to handle in order to analyse it. Creswell and Creswell (2018)
declare that qualitative analysis should be looked at as a process made up of five steps.
The first of these steps according to Creswell and Creswell (2018) is to organize the
data and prepare it for analysis. This was done by transcribing the interviews that have
taken place. The authors continue by describing the second step as the need to read
or look at all the data in order to get a holistic view of the gathered data. After reading
through the transcripts, categorizing the findings is the third step according to
Creswell and Creswell (2018). What this implies is a process of coding in order to
organize the data in such a way that it is plausible to label them with a fitting term.
Jacobsen (2002) also commends such a process as it makes it easier to understand
complicated, detailed, and rich data. The fourth step of Creswell and Creswell (2018)
entails to generate a description and themes. The description contains detailed
information about people, places or events in a setting. The themes display the
interviewees individual perspective. The fifth and last step involves representing the
findings from the qualitative data in the shape of subjects related to the interviews
result (2018). The thematic analysis can be found in the result and the analysis of the
thesis.

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When the thematic analysis was performed the findings was also put into context
using figure 2. By doing so it became possible to better understand and interpret the
gathered findings. It was possible to distinguish which resources it was necessary to
have in order to create a BDAC and if the informants were utilizing those resources.
It was then feasible to correlate and identify competitive enhancements and
improvements using dynamic and operational capabilities of figure 2. It was thereby
easier to identify and compare findings which is presented and discussed in the
analysis and discussion of the thesis.

4.5 Validity and Reliability

Creswell and Creswell (2018) define qualitative validity as setting up procedures to
ensure the findings accuracy. The authors continue, noting that qualitative validity is
an indication that the approach of the researchers it consistent with others. What has
been done to accommodate this is that the interviews have been manually transcribed.
Several controls were made during the work of transcribing it in order to secure its
validity. Jacobsen (2002) mentions similarly that the validity can be compared to
other knowledgeable people in the business. By discussing existing literature in
section 7 with the thesis findings provide a better foundation for the studies result.
To further increase the thesis validity and reliability the interview guide, see appendix
2, that was used in the interviews is provided. The questions were formulated to
provide sufficient information in order to provide answers necessary for this thesis
purpose.
This thesis has conducted interviews with people that work in this field. By having
several interviews and these interviews being with people that has been working in
this field for several years, it can be deduced that the interviewees have good
knowledge about the present subject of this thesis.

4.6 Ethics
Ethical dilemmas can arise when conducting interviews. It is intrusive to a
interviewees privacy to conduct an interview according to Jacobsen (2002). In order
to prevent ethical dilemmas, the writers of this study strove to fulfil the three
prerequisites to hinder its possibility to arise. The three are informed consent, privacy
requirements and requirement for information given to be reproduced correctly.
Jacobsen (2002) notes that the participant need to be able to make the decision freely
for themselves in order to fulfil the requirement of informed consent. The interviewee
needs to be able to grasp the advantages and disadvantages of being part of the study.
Jacobsen (2002) emphasizes of the importance on interviewees free will regarding
participating in the study. The author also notes that in order for it to be of free will
they also need to be aware of the purpose of the study, how the data will be used and
pros and cons of the outcome. It is however of significance to make sure that the data
the participant is giving is not angled by have been given too much information. That
is the reason why Jacobsen (2002) argues to walk the middle way regarding giving
enough information. He also emphasizes that the interviewee also needs to understand
the information given to them. These four parts of informed consent is of utmost
importance to go through according to Jacobsen (2002). This is the reason why it was

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chosen to disclaim the purpose of the study and only reveal some of the studies
interview questions before doing the interview. They have been informed of the
purpose and area of the study. The interviews started by asking if they allowed to
record audio and picture. In order for them to have informed consent they also have
the possibility in any given moment of the interview to say that they do not want to
be part of the research anymore. All the informants were also required to sign a
consent form, see appendix 1.
An interviewee has a right to privacy and that right is just as equal as participating in
the interview of free will according to Jacobsen (2002). As interviewers it is of
importance to know how sensitive the data gathered is to an interviewee. As well as
how private the information that is gathered is. One more factor in privacy is what the
likelihood of being identified with the information the interviewee gives away. The
actions taken to negate this is having the interviews be confidential. This has been
done in not naming the participants as well as their organisation and/or leaving
information out that could potentially lead to them. The information about the
interviewees has been saved locally on a computer and is being kept until the thesis
has received a passing grade. After a passing grade, the information associated with
the informants will be deleted. The recorded interviews and the transcription of the
interviews have also been stored locally on a computer and will be done so until a
passing grade has been received. It will also be deleted after given such notice.
Jacobsen (2002) declares that interviewers have a responsibility to correctly
reproduce the interviewees given data completely and in the right context. It is
mentioned that it is not possible to completely reproduce the result in its complete
context, but studies should strive for it (2002). As the interviews were conducted in
Swedish the quotes in 5.0 and forward in the section of result was translated. It was
translated as close to the original Swedish quote as possible. Sometimes it was
required to interpret the core message of the quote in order to correctly translate it.
Implications of this can be read in section 7.6 method discussion.
It was translated as close to the core message of the quote as possible. Sometimes it
required interpretation of what the informant meant
That is why this thesis strives to do so and is also the reason why interviewees will
get notified when the thesis is available to them. As mentioned, if an informant does
not feel correctly portrayed or wants to be excluded

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5 Result
This chapter present the results given from the study, that was found in correlation to
the interviews that were conducted. The first sub chapter presents the informants in
alphabetical order. The second sub chapter gives a definition to the themes and sub-
codes using in the thematic analysis. This sub chapter is followed by a compilation of
answers and thoughts from the informants based on all the sub-codes presented in
the previous one.

5.1 Informants
Informant A is employed at a large company in the role as head of data science. This
informant has been with the company for fifteen years and has been in the field of IT
since joining the company with different roles. The companies’ journey with analytics
began two years ago. It was after informant A held a talk about what the possibilities
of analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), amongst others, can bring
forth. The informant felt that the company have economic muscles that can aid the
transition but that the company lack the quality of data as well as the people-skill.
Informant A feels that their journey is in its early stages and the benefits from
becoming more data-driven can be seen but is yet to be fully achieved.
Informant B works at a group of companies where he is the head of digital innovation
and data. The informant has been working in the field of digitalisation for over twenty
years with experience in several fields, among those being e-commerce. The
corporate group and the informant's role are to help their groups companies transform
to be more data-driven and gain insights from their customers to produce value.
Informant B feels that the companies are transforming their businesses and have taken
a step in the right direction but that there is still a big challenge that needs continuous
attention.
Informant C is the head of shared data and IT in a very large company that have been
long established in their area of manufacturing. The informant is head of a couple of
hundred people in several different departments. Informant C has been working in the
field of IT for over twenty years, over ten of those in the same company where the
informants' position has been in management for the last several years and head of
their IT strategy. The company have the capability for skills, technical aspects but
feel that commitment with being data driven needs to be higher in order to peak.
Informant D is the director of big data and advanced analytics in a group of companies
and have over fifteen years of experience in analytics. The last ten years the informant
has been in an architect or management position and is currently responsible for their
advanced analytics journey. The informant has expressed that the company have
undergone different hypes, such as business intelligence, big data, AI and Machine
Learning. With this they have learned what can be achieved and how as well as
achieve some of it, but still feel like there is more to learn.
Informant E is head of Data Science on a fast-growing large company. The informant
has been in the field of AI for twenty years and is currently helping the organisation
to become more data driven as well as educating different teams and developers what
data analytics and AI are and what it can be used for.

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5.2 Themes and sub-codes
The following sections will be structured according to table 1 found below.
Table 1. Themes and sub-codes

Theme Sub-code

− Data
Tangible resource − Technology
− Basic Resources

− Technical skills
Human skills
− Managerial skills

− Data driven culture

Intangible resource
− Organisational learning

Performance & Competitive − Business process improvement

Advantage − Products and services

The themes found and the sub-codes were the first part of the analysis. In the figure
the themes and sub-codes are presented in an orderly fashion.

5.3 Tangible resources

Tangible resources such data, technology and basic resource are of importance for
organisations. The information collected points to it being common for them to
possess all of these. One of the more important factors was the quality of data
collected according to interviewees.

5.3.1 Data
Every informant feel that they have more than enough data in order to work with
analytics in their respective companies or group of companies. This is common for
all of the informants. An informant exemplifies this by talking about structured and
unstructured data:

“[…] we have both structured data, mostly in the shape of transactional

data, but we also have a large amount of, of course, unstructured data”

(Informant B)
The amount of structured and unstructured data differs between the informants.
Internal and external data is something that the informants also talked about, as well
as the integration between them. They all integrate them to some extent. The majority
of the data by the informants is internal but external data is also gathered. An informant
spoke of it like so:

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 “The majority is internal data that is created, generated somewhere on
[company] or our business processes, then we also collect external data
to some extent, such as, these open data sources, such as weather,
forecasts and so on”

(Informant D)
The quality of the data is something all informants feel strongly about. They feel that
depending on the quality of the data, the decisions made on it will reflect the quality.
An informant pointed out the importance when discussing how a department started
being more data driven:

“It’s just that the quality of the data is too bad, it flips it to become wrong
and then it becomes a question of maturity about...well.”

(Informant C)
One thing most of the informants have in common is the feeling regarding GDPR. It
is regarded as a necessary force, where a minority of the informants feel that there is
unused data to be found and explored. An informant spoke of it as such:

“Because of GDPR and that we handle very sensitive information,

financial information that is very sensitive, we also don’t want the data
to leave the company, to a third party, and most of all not leave the
country's borders”

(Informant E)
Some of the informants felt the need to express that big data is no longer a talking
point and that they treat big data as just data.

“We have made the journey with big data, and in present I would say we
only talk about data, we make much less difference between that which
was called big data before and that which is called data, now we really
just work with data”

(Informant D)

5.3.2 Technology
All of the informants have the technology to store and utilize data, using either or
both server halls and the cloud to do so. Technology such as Hadoop clusters are also
mentioned. Four out of five explicitly expresses that data warehouse and data lakes is
being used to store and/or analyse data. One of the informants spoke of it like so:

“Then we have like, we actually have like three main places we store
data, for analytical needs and, but also kinda machine learning and stuff.
Partly, we have a number of data warehouses around the company. […].
We work with data lake, on a fairly large scale, and the last thing we’re
doing is that we are also establishing a cloud eco system”

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 (Informant D)
Several of the informants speaks of the tools used to handle data as ever-changing.
New tools are developed and updated which requires companies to adapt out of a need
to use it according to an informant:

“But, but one can only ascertain that the need to question existing
technological solutions, it has never been higher in this, this sphere you
know. New tools are developed, constantly. And you need to, you are in
need to work with the latest really.”

(Informant B)

5.3.3 Basic resources

The majority of informants work with the initiatives in a similar in fashion where they
present proof-of-concept or experiments to validate a hypothesis. One informant note
that the reason for this is to motivate investment and time into a project:

“[…] it kinda becomes, like really, starting to experiment, then you often
search for funding or financing to validate a hypothesis. And it is often
smaller experiment. Maybe 6-8 weeks of experiments to validate that,
the hypothesis, and that yes, there is a value and then you have found the
value.”

(Informant B)
When asked about what resources are needed for a project to succeed most informants
answered in a similar fashion. They talk about needing people with business domain
knowledge, technical skills, data and an infrastructure to support it.

“But then you also need to have a domain expert that actually
understands what we are trying to solve.”

(Informant E)

“[...] then there are the business people to understand the process. To
understand the data, you often need IT personnel to do that, consider
that.”

(Informant C)
When asked about funding for projects one informant expressed that in the beginning
there were no issues with resources for projects. However, now a few years later when
the organisation have peaked in interest for such project's, resources have started to
become scarce. Majority of the informants, however, have no or very few issues with
funding though. One informant expressed themselves regarding it:

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 “Moreover, then there exists, given that it is going well for the company.
Well, then there is quite a lot of financial muscles and you get a lot of
chances to test and try with great freedom.”

(Informant A)

5.4 Human skills

It is evident that human skills in the form of technical and managerial competence is
highly valued within companies as a resource and for companies to be able to create
value through big data analytics. The general conception is that with the right people
working with analytics and data, a company can find value for their business, together
with competent leaders being data driven.

5.4.1 Technical skills

When it comes down to technical skills as a resource, all of the companies seem to be
aware of their current situation revolving their employees' technical skills and
knowledge of BDA. It has become evident that there is a gap to be filled when it
comes to acquiring new talents and staff renewal. All companies show distress about
the current market situation for new staff. Some of the informants also spoke of re-
skilling and/or up-skilling their employees. Since the work roles of BDA are fairly
new it is difficult to find fitting personnel. When asked about assuring the right
technical skills within the company one informant said in regard to the different
technical roles:

“[…] there are a lot of these roles, it’s a narrow labor market. […] I
would say somewhat, we have a lot of the skills, but it’s not...it is a scarce
commodity.”

(Informant D)
A majority admit that there is a journey for the companies to be had when it comes to
adapting their business towards data analytics, especially when acquiring and
maintaining the technical skills. Two of the five informants say that they have the
technical skills, but that they lack the experience. One informant put it this way:

“What is missing is not really, I mean, the theoretical knowledge, but

instead, the practical, the experience.”

(Informant A)
Three out of five informants also mention that they have the technical skills to handle
BDA. The three informants all use or have the ability to implement cross-functional
teams with both business domain knowledge and technical knowledge. Here one
informant expresses themselves:

“So, there is very often a demand of having, cross-functional teams. You

need a cross-functional team that includes both IT, and infrastructure,

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 you need people that like, has the business knowledge and is able to add
business logic...”

(Informant B)
Another included informant describes their view upon a cross-functional team and
emphasizes shortly:

“That’s the dream, that’s what you want.”

(Informant C)

5.4.2 Managerial skills

When asked about the managerial skills and competence, the informants were not on
the same level of agreement. When talking about the leadership role and if the
informants felt like the managers had the competency to be data driven, they provided
with a mixture of answers. One informant put it this way:

“Leadership, I would definitely say that we have that, like on the most
difficult role, the CEO position”

(Informant A)
Another informant filled in with a little bit of worry:

“We definitely have the right people. However, you can always ask
yourselves the question whether everyone has the competence when it
comes to being data-driven.”

(Informant D)
According to every informant there is a general awareness and acceptance, in the
higher up positions, that data can bring value to a business in different ways.
However, between the informants there are mixed feelings on how well this
awareness and acceptance is being reflected into decisions being made out of data.
When asked if managers use insights from data in their decision making one
informant put it this way:

“Naah, but there I think it is rather bad actually. If I’m completely

honest, I think that you, I think that I hear this in my surroundings that
you very much act on gutfeel. It’s like very, you have facts on the table,
but yet you choose to do your own interpretation […]”

(Informant A)
Disagreeing with the previous informant, one informant expresses after being asked
if managers and leaders use insights from BDA that:

“I think that, today there is an awareness about the need of becoming

more data-driven. I believe that we have a, worked with this rather

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 actively the last 3,5 years and we have like, validated the hypothesis that,
yes there is a business value.”

(Informant B)
Working in the manufacturing industry, one informant mentions that when BDA
initiatives/concepts are proven to work, they often get stuck in the concept state and
not implemented into the business. In order to continue to develop processes and
create more value for the company the informant argues:

“[…] the leadership that is needed is that someone that dares to say,
“No this is wrong. There is way too much manual work here. And within
a year it should look differently, then we will have a digital process”
[…] That type of leadership is what’s missing.”

(Informant C)
And to finalize the statement on how to overcome this the informant said:

“It requires a little courage from higher up in the organisation”

(Informant C)

5.5 Intangible resources

These resources are vital in an organisation in order to utilize big data analytics.
Several informants speak of how they feel that it is a transformation process and it is
a long process to make. All of the informants feel that they have the organisations top
management behind them to support them.

5.5.1 Data-driven culture

All of the informants speak of the management as pushing towards being data-driven
and/or already basing their decisions on data. They see a need to transform their
business to better adapt themselves to being more data driven. One informant speaks
of the interest in being data-driven as such:

“In many places there is a very, very big interest from the top of the
organisation that we are to work in a data-driven fashion and that we,
kind of, are not to shoot from the hip but actually use our data to what it
is supposed to be used for”

(Informant E)
One informant spoke of how they use data, but the data has been worked on and
interpreted to create insights. This is then used in combination with experience to base
decisions. It was spoken of like so:

“[…] we collect a perception and then we take an experienced-based

decision”

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 (Informant D)
Most of the informants speak of some form of commitment issues when wanting to
become data driven. They speak of people in the business not wanting to embrace
being data driven due to the feeling of data not being as good as someone who has
worked there for a very long time and/or have domain expertise. An informant speak
of it:

“It is enough if a person we have trusted for fifteen years say “No, this
seems like a bad idea”. Well, that is an obstacle for us”

(Informant C)
A few of the informants share that there is also a problem with departments being
territorial and not sharing insights and data. An informant takes it up when discussing
whether or not their decisions are based on data:

“So, they’re not really open to embrace new ways. Then it’s also a little,
a little about being territorial, if, if I wanted to learn more about this
thing, I would need to make a request to this department and I don’t like
them very much because we compete for the same thing.”

(Informant E)
There is an overall feeling of being on the path to being data-driven and each
organisation have travelled different lengths of that path. Some of them are in the
beginning of their journey while some have been data-driven for years. What is
common in all of them is that they express a need to continue working towards it. One
informant expressed a need for a culture-shift and it being a question about people in
order for it to work:

“That means that everyone needs to become more data-driven and that
is a culture issue which needs a shift. But I believe, that it’s not going to
be about, like, money, funding, investment on it, that’s going to resolve
itself. I don’t think it’s going to be about technology or infrastructure,
that’s going to be available, or it is available. In the end it’s going to be
about people, it’s a people-question, to one hundred percent. Whether
one succeeds or not.”

(Informant B)

5.5.2 Organisational Learning

For every informant that was interviewed, there was a general idea about BDA and
the related technologies being described as a constant and continues journey in trying
to develop the firm. The informants however, express themselves as being on
different stages of this journey. When talking about the overall competence in the
firm and the risk of having people falling behind in the development one informant
declared a critical view upon organisational learning:

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 “[…] you have to be conscious that it’s very favourable for 90% of all
employee’s but there are a few that might not want or able to adapt like,
you need to take care of that too.”

(Informant B)
Another informant brought up their understanding of how competence and
performance is connected:

“Ah yes, there it is, if you look at the performance, the performance part
of the organisation, here we prioritize very highly that we keep up with
technology, the competences and the tools that we have.”

(Informant D)
Many informants touch the subject of having an educational process within the firm,
with the goal of continuously improving their employee's competence in regard to
BDA. One informant references a course called Elements of AI, originating from a
Finnish university that takes a few days to go through and gives a basic view into
what AI is. When asked if the informant would like to see an implementation of a
course like this the response was:

“Yes, make an adapted variant, like this one with AI, for non-
technicians.”

(Informant E)
When talking about education one informant brought up an example of learning
within the organisation. On this occasion they gathered all the executives and board
members and held an informative and educational seminar about AI, different
technologies used in a specific project and the outcome. This was meant to showcase
the importance of the technology and what it can bring to the business. When talking
about it, the informant declared the importance of education:

“It is a pretty important part, with this, yeah well, yeah with a little
missionary work actually, to learn.”

(Informant A)

5.6 Performance and Competitive advantage

The informants have focused primarily on improving their business processes with
analytics. The reason for this is because it is easier to calculate costs and profit.
Some of the informants have also created new products and/or services. Why some
informants are yet to do so is because they are in the start of the process with (Big)
Data Analytics.

5.6.1 Business Process Improvement

For most the of the informants the main improvement has been in enhancing their
business processes. For one informant in the start of the process of using data analytics

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in their business was using it on their production process. The reason for this is
because of the ease of calculating profit and efficiency with improving the process:

“It’s so much easier if you motivate a production process because then

you would calculate on, then we get this and this much more flow in this
factory.”

(Informant A)
The informant also gave an example where they presented a case company-wide to
provide more insight in what they are doing:

“[…] it was about, earlier you had a pretty clumsy guiding of a process.
And thanks to us working with machine learning we could remove the
clumsy steering and replace it with a much, much faster and easier
guiding process, so to speak.”

(Informant A)
When asked about where they have seen the value of big data analytics one informant
speaks of working with improving their pricing for their products. As well as how
they work with recommendation engines, increasing automation in Airhouse or in
parts of their supply chain, also pricing for their products:

“[…] if you were to say data analytics were an enabler.”

(Informant B)
A different informant speaks of how they are trying to improve their marketing by
pinpointing individual people who have use of a product they are doing a campaign
on. This is common amongst the informants. When asked about what they have
changed, one informant spoke of it like this:

“We have also changed our way which was mentioned earlier to launch
campaigns for different products, instead of shooting wide you try to pin
point down and find the right offer to the right customer and the right
time […].”

(Informant E)
One thing that is mutual among the informant is the feeling of being in the early stage
of analytics. Changes have been made but there is still more to bring out. When asked
if they have had opportunities and taken advantage of the opportunities brought up by
analytics, with focus on big data, one informant answered:

“Yes, god yes, but then, there is also, there is also new things you could
need to do and that we haven’t reached all the way with.”

(Informant C)

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Another informant said this when asked a similar question:

“I would definitely say we have been positively affected by it, we see it

as a big competitive advantage which, and really in the end, we see as a
survival factor, I would say.”

(Informant D)

5.6.2 Products and Services

When talking about the impact of BDA and the changes within the company, different
responses arose between the informants. Some have developed their internal business
processes and made changes to organisational structures. For some informants
however, new products and services has been the result. They pointed out that with
the help of data and the work, consisting of analysing it, has also helped them improve
their products and services. An informant working in a manufacturing industry
mentions that they have gathered and collected data through their sold products for
over 8 years. The informant argues:

“So, there we have a very high amount of data, we've worked a long time
with this, made services based on that.”

(Informant C)
Furthermore, the same informant enhances this by stating:

“Yeah, well so far, there are a bunch of services related to our connected
[products] that wasn't there before, so we sell things now, that we didn't
sell before.”

(Informant C)
However, for some informants, value has not been identified in products or services
explicitly. Informant A believes that they are a little too early on their BDA journey
before they can realize any products for the customers:

“No, I wouldn't say that we have, the things we have done has not
resulted in new products or services [...].”

(Informant A)
But there are work in progress for the firm hoping to deliver value to their customers:

“[...] I mean, I have worked in projects, in one project for two years
now, that I someday hope will become a product or service for our
members.”

(Informant A)

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All informants feel that big data and analytics can help their business in some way.
When talking to one informant, they felt like making a statement about data usage
and how important it was for them:

“So, data usage is very very important for us. And it enables us to
improve our products, understand our products, improve them, offer the
right things to the right customers at the right time.”

(Informant E)

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6 Analysis
In this chapter an analysis of the result is presented. Here, the result is interpretated
and explained further and put into correlation to the theoretical framework and
literature that has been used earlier in the thesis.

6.1 Tangible Resources

The result of the interviews reveals that the informants have access to data and is
plenty in amount. There is a concern with the quality of data and the need to make
sure it is rich with correct data. Mikalef et al. (2020b) mention that the data quality is
of importance for it to be utilized at a good level. By this, it can be understood that
the informants feel a need for the quality to be as good as it can get. Their unrest and
uneasiness for data quality is not without reason according to current literature. Gupta
and George (2016) believe there is a need for internal and external data to be
integrated with each other to make the most of it. Here it is possible to see that the
informants do that to some extent meaning they take advantage of it.
Basic resources are something all the informants feel like they have. There is one
informant who express that they have had plenty of resources but over the years it has
been tightened and now somewhat lacking. Basic resources are mainly focused on
financials and investments in big data (Mikalef et al. 2020b; Gupta & George 2016).
When speaking with the informants they do not speak of it as an issue. Gupta and
George (2016) note that organisations lack a procedure on how to handle such
projects. When asking informants if they have such a procedure, they answered that
such a procedure does exists. The procedures described somewhat differs between the
organisations however.
Regarding how organisations use technology on how to handle their data, they are on
a similar level. They have the technology to store and analyse data with data
warehouse and data lake being some of the technologies being used. According to
Gupta and George (2016) this specific technology is often used. The informants do
note that new software is constantly being developed and current technology is being
updated regularly meaning there are more technologies being used than those
mentioned explicitly.
The three mentioned resources are essential when it comes to the success of big data
according to Mikalef et al. (2020b). The informants in this study answered to have
sufficient tangible resources for this success.

6.2 Human skills

Throughout the interviews, interviewees express a need for both technical and
managerial competence and skills in order to work with big data analytics (BDA)
today, as well as producing value to their companies, something that Mikalef et al.
(2020b) also emphasize.
The technical competence and skill seem to be a highly valuable resource within the
firms where the interviewees work. Gupta and George (2016) mention that technical
skills are needed in order to handle and use the big data technology to extract
intelligence from data. They also note that this technology is new, indicating that that

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the technical skills can be hard to find (2016). The interviews have generated different
views upon this. All informants say that there is a scarce market when trying to find
educated and experienced people with the ability to extract the intelligence from big
data. There is a difference amongst the informants however, where some already have
the sufficient number of educated and skilled employees while some do not.
Looking on the managerial competence inside of the firms, many informants feel that
they have the adequate people on the executive level, but less so on the middle level.
The top management have a general and/or advanced understanding of what BDA
can contribute with, meanwhile the middle management is lacking the same level of
understanding. Gupta and George (2016) mean that without good managerial skills,
there is a tendency to overlook possible value gained from insights based on data.
With the informants feeling that they have the right leaders, some of them were
sceptical whether or not they make the most of the insights gathered from data.
Meanwhile, some feel like they have found the right path having experienced leaders
who have seen the value of BDA and are actively working with turning insights to
value.

6.3 Intangible Resources

Gupta and George (2016) note that business top management does not base their
decisions on data in most cases. Many of the informants feel like they have support
from top management. They also express that the top management do base their
decisions on data but on different scales. The informants express how they work
towards being data driven. This correlates with Gupta and George (2016) expressing
that all layers of an organisation need to embrace being data driven. Some informants
express that they are having difficulties with the transformation due to employees are
not being willing to share data. There are also those who oppose decisions based on
data and halters BDA initiatives by turning down these decisions. That is because
their domain expertise and experience is held in a higher regard by the organisation
even though similar decisions have shown value in the past.
Mikalef et al. (2020b) express that organisations’ needs to be committed to continuous
learning regarding the technological landscape. Informants claim to have a
continuous educational process regarding BDA competency. Gupta and George
(2016) mention knowledge being outdated by technological advancements. This then
leads to uncertain market conditions which can be counteracted by existent and new
knowledge (2016). The informants emphasize on prioritizing learning new
technology because of new tools being developed in continuous rate.
The informants are having difficulties with some aspects of intangible resources but
work towards improving their ability to handle such hardships. They are data driven
to a certain extent and have top management support to enhance the transformation.
The informants have expressed that organisational learning is something that they
work actively on.

6.4 Performance and Competitive Advantage

The research findings show that the organisations have focused on improving their
current business processes. European firms tend to focus on improving this area

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according to Côrte-Real, Oliveira and Ruivo (2017) which correlates with the thesis
findings. Mikalef et al. (2020b) explains that one operational capability is about
manufacturing products and services. What the majority of informants have done is
improving their current processes, mainly because it makes it easier to calculate
profits and effect. By doing so they also open the way for future investments in BDA
initiatives in the organisations, by showing that it has value. The informants also state
that new marketing strategies are being produced. It is something that Mikalef et al.
(2020b) note as being an operational capability, addressing customer needs. The
authors also mention that transforming these as such is noted as a dynamic capability
(2020b).
Some informants have started or are already creating new products and services based
on the analytics from data that has been gathered. Not many of the informants have
come as far as to creating such possibilities for their organisation. The reason being
that they are in the beginning of utilizing big data analytics and are in need to prove
that it works. These findings from the informants correlates with current literature, as
BDA projects may not yield immediate results and organisations should be aware of
this according to Mikalef et al. (2020b).
The informants mention finding possible areas where to either optimize an existent
internal process or create an improved process. This mean that the informants
organisations are finding areas where they can improve by utilizing the data they
have. It correlates with existing literature where dynamic capability is described as
sensing, seizing, and transforming as according to Conboy et al. 2020.

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7 Discussion
This chapter will discuss the empirical result that was gathered through the
qualitative study together with existent research work and analysis. This chapter will
also contain a method discussion which brings up different aspects from conducting
this thesis.

7.1 Tangible Resources

After talking with the informants, it is clear that they value their data as assets of the
company. When talking about data, the companies does not show fear for the sheer
size of data, but more the nature of the data or rather the complexity of the data. Big
data can be described by Volume, Variety and Velocity among other characteristics
according to Emmanuel and Stanier (2016). A majority of these characteristics are
mentioned as obstacles by the informants, alas showing the importance of many of
the other resources discussed in this thesis. However, volume is not mentioned as an
obstacle per se. Many of the companies deal with large amount of data volumes, but
do not recognize the sheer volume as a major problem. This might be a result of the
development and implementation of advanced technologies that Chen, Chiang and
Storey (2012) argue is needed to handle big data.
Big data is a term that some informants do not use nowadays, or at least do not want
to use. The reason for this is that they do not really look at data as “big data”.
Informants express that they have been through a firmwide journey when it comes to
data and BDA over the years. All companies in this study collect, store and use data,
which Gupta and George (2016) believe all companies naturally do, they are just on
different levels of doing so. Informants feel that data in big volume are bringing fewer
problems and implications nowadays with the help of advanced technology. This has
then led up to the minimizing of the term big data, simply calling it data. This is the
result of companies being far onto what is previously called their firmwide journey
with using BDA. It is important to note that this is not the same for all informants.
Differences in data, also known as Variety (Emmanuel & Stainer 2016), has also
become a topic of interest throughout the interviews. Companies has these large data
sets of structured data, but also unstructured data, varying in quality. This sort of data,
as any data, requires work to organize and handle in order for it to be manageable and
usable. A majority of the informants have answered to this by using advanced
technologies such as data lakes which can store massive amounts of data in a raw
format. Other technologies are cloud eco systems, and traditional data warehouses.
This also coincides with Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012) take on technology
development and implementation to tackle the different Vs in big data. The
informants do not see the technology as an obstacle, but more of a necessary process
in developing the companies BDA capability.
When talking to the informants it is clear that they have an understanding of what
they need in order to work with BDA investments and initiatives. When asked rather
openly, the responses focus mainly on having the right people with the right skills but
also the previously discussed data. The technical skills and knowledge are for them a
basic resource when laying a foundation for a new initiative regarding BDA. Mikalef
et al. (2020b) emphasize that basic resource should be more directed towards financial
resources rather than technical skills. To specify this in this study, informants were

34(43)
asked in a more closed question on how they value money and time. Here they also
mention that both money and time is a necessary and a fundamental part in BDA
investments. However, many of the informants does not put that much pressure into
this aspect. A majority of the informants have had successful initiatives and proven
that there is value in working with BDA. This has resulted in firms adding financial
support to buy data or hire competence for example, to support BDA within the
companies.

7.2 Human Skills

The majority of the organisations speak of having the technological competence
needed to handle and analyse the data they are provided. However, all of the
informants claim having some issues with finding competent employees. This is
important to note because current literature discuss how it is hard to find the correct
people (Gupta & George 2016). This holds true according to the findings in this thesis,
which makes a negative impact on the informants when wanting to utilize big data
analytics. Since data analytics and alike is fairly new, few educational possibilities
exist which could be the reason that makes recruitment difficult for organisations
(Gupta & George 2016). The informants do feel that they have the competence to
handle it though, because they are up-skilling/re-skilling employees. The need for the
employee's skill development is because of the low number of potential recruitments.
It is also about the potential of it being cheaper than hiring a new employee according
to the informants. Some informants are further ahead with having knowledgeable
technical staff than others and that means that they have a slight edge over their
competition according to current literature.
The informants are on different levels with having managerial skills that matches the
requirement for effective decision making. There is however a general awareness and
acceptance from the top management, also that decisions are being based on data
according to several informants. According to current literature if the people in
managerial positions does not have knowledge about and using insights gained from
analytics they can miss out (Gupta & George 2016). Some of the informants also
report that decision makers in their organisations are dissident to using data to base
their decision upon. They feel that data is not better than their domain expertise and
experience. One informant argues that the analytical insights made from past projects
have proven enough to dissuade such claims but there is still a journey to be had here.
If organisations decision makers do not embrace and learn about analytics, insights
and alike, they can fall behind according to current literature.
The findings from informants show that the organisations in question are on different
lengths regarding technical and managerial skills. It can be deduced that the
informants' organisations value their employees' technical skills as well as the
managerial skills. As human skills are considered valuable in existing literature they
are inclined to do so. The informants speak of having necessary resources, but they
differ between informants to a certain extent. The results show that organisations are
aware of that they need certain skills to utilize what they want to do with BDA.
What can be concluded from current literature is that there is a gap in current
education for such technical skills needed for BDA (Gupta & George 2016). This
correlates with our findings when informants claim how hard it can be to find suitable

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employees with the wanted technical skills. One of the informants mention how
potential candidates lack practical experience and some others have a hard time even
finding suitable employees. The results point to a need in increase of education and
training regarding technical skills surrounding BDA. One could also question if it is
about education not being available or if there are too few interested parties in the
education.

7.3 Intangible Resources

The results show that there is some sort of a data driven culture within the informant's
organisation. In order for an organisation to utilize BDA a data driven culture is a
staple in making it possible (Mikalef et al. 2020b; Gupta & George 2016). It is also
something McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) mention as a core pillar. It can be said
that the reason for informants varying in being data driven is potentially how far they
have come in transforming their business to use insights gained from data. What the
results show is that they have top management support to increase analytics in
organisations but there is also an aspect that it is needed to provide some sort of value.
This correlates with what the informants express themselves, how they do not want
to be data driven for the sake of it, but that it should provide something of value as
well.
There is a notable difference between the informants when asked if decisions are
based on data. As stated, the reason for it is that they have used BDA in different
lengths, the companywide transformation process is at different lengths. As Mikalef
et al. (2020b) has concluded a data driven culture plays a core role in adapting an
organisation for BDA. One informant expresses how it is a question about people
whether or not the organisation succeeds which corresponds with current literature.
As the results show there is also hesitance in the organisations regarding working with
analytics, some departments are even hesitant to share their data with others in the
same organisation. The informants mention employees that does not agree that BDA
can enhance their workplace due to them having domain expertise and/or work
experience. There are some informants that mention how they want to use domain
expertise to improve the analytics and decision making from it. This shows that just
as the informants feel, they have not completed the journey of utilizing BDA to its
full extent. It also demonstrates that for an organisation’s employees to embrace being
data driven it also needs to trust it. The existent literature emphasizes on culture being
an important part of BDA capabilities and supports the result obtained in this thesis.
The findings show that there is an educational aspect existing in the organisations
varying in degree depending on the informant. Some of them express having or
holding a presentation regarding BDA for higher management as well as for anyone
wanting to know more about it. One thing to note about this is that they have just
started their transformation. Some of the others mention re-skilling/up-skilling
employees to be able to work with data which shows that there is education in that
aspect as well. As discussed earlier, in order to enable BDA, the organisation need
knowledge regarding what BDA means and by having lectures and in-house training
knowledge is being created and gained. Many of the informants emphasize having an
eye on the technological landscape due to it being ever-changing, which correlates
with current literature. This would mean that the organisations are aware of the

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constant development of different techniques and technologies and what they mean
for them, which is of great importance because it affects how they work. If the
organisation learns of new techniques it might lead to improvements otherwise
unknown, although it could also be a technique that could be redundant. Which in
turn means they need to be cautious how they navigate the technological landscape.

7.4 The resources as a whole

The findings indicate that the organisations have and use the resources necessary to
build big data analytics capabilities according to current literature and can therefore
utilize BDA and make use of its potential benefits. By using such resources, it shows
that the organisations at hand have come to some sort of understanding regarding how
to enable and utilize BDA. All of the informants’ organisations have these resources
in common and they value these resources somewhat equally. The findings show that
depending on where they are in the organisation’s progression with BDA, they might
value resources differently. Even though each resource is needed for big data analytic
capabilities (BDAC) it takes time to develop such resources and that could mean
organisations go through different stages when developing BDAC. Such findings
have not been found or presented before, according to the research in this thesis.

7.5 Performance and Competitive Advantage

A correlation can be seen from the findings of this thesis where the informants express
improving their existent business processes. All of them state starting with their
business processes because it is easier to calculate the potential profits from it.
Mikalef et al. (2020b) mention dynamic capabilities and operational capabilities to be
a source for competitive advantage. Operational capabilities make it possible to create
products and services while dynamic capabilities enhance and transform them
(2020b). Why most organisations feel like starting with easier calculatable goals is
most likely for reassurance. What they do does bring value for the organisation and
that they are benefiting from it. It is something that was brought up in the last chapter
where a discussion was being held regarding BDA initiatives needing to have some
sort of value. Which according to the informants the initiatives and projects do have.
Most of the leverage gained from BDA according to the findings are business process
improvements or innovations. Some informants mention improving their internal
manufacturing process which enhanced the production speed. Some of the informants
also express improving their marketing strategies/processes to better launch
campaigns and alike.
There are also those informants that have come further and started creating new
services and/or products based on what BDA can provide. One of the informants
mentioned they create new services for their products stemming from insights gained
by BDA. This was made in order to improve the customers experience with the
product and also aid in their use of the product which would be enhanced. Mikalef et
al. (2020b) state that gaining insights from data is not what provides the value of it. It
is about acting upon what is brought forward in order to seize value from it (2020b).
The result from the thesis supports this claim by the informants when they express
how they feel regarding how they act on what is made possible. One of the informants
felt that in some parts of the organisation, they are sometimes prohibited to act with

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what could be a potential value. However, when given the chance the informant feel
that they perform and provide value through their initiatives. Bumblauskus et al.
(2017) note that actionable knowledge is a way for decision makers to make
informative and better decisions. The authors also state that several factors need
attentive monitoring such as the validity of input information and implementation of
decisions is needed. Otherwise, the decisions based on the actionable knowledge may
lead to negative outcomes (2017). This could be one of the reasons why the
management are cautious when it comes to deploying initiatives.
McKinsey Global Institute (2011) states that five different types of business values
exist and this thesis findings correlate with most of them in some way. Using
experiments to discover needs and expose possible improvements is something that
most of the informants have done or is doing. The informants also improve their
marketing with BDA and have or trying to narrow down their users to better provide
marketing services which correlates with the thesis findings.
The findings indicate that there are benefits to using BDA and some of the informants
feel that it is a survival factor to utilize BDA. One of the informants even claim how
companies these days are needed to be sort of a tech-company because without using
analytics you fall behind in the competition. It can be seen that the value, and the
context of the value, differs between informants due to how far they have come in
transforming their organisation to use BDA.

7.6 Method discussion

A scientific study was performed based on the principles of a qualitative study. The
study allowed to gain insights from informants on a deeper level. This made the thesis
not available to generalise the findings though. That is also due to the number of
informants. The focus has been on the informants’ views, experience, and opinions
regarding BDA. By choosing informants working in the field of BDA the findings are
motivated to be reliable. However, using more informants could be a possibility in
order to further increase the finding’s reliability and thus also making it more likely
to be able to generalise the result.
The five interviews conducted was one hour long, something that Jacobsen (2002)
states to be a good timeframe for an interview. With the aid of an interview guide, see
appendix 2, it was possible to stick to the timeframe of the meetings. If a clarification
or more information was needed by an informant to a certain question or topic, a
question was phrased on the current subject to better understand the interviewee. An
advantage with semi-structured interviews is that the interviewers can control the
direction of the conversation. Since there were two interviewers present it also meant
that one could focus on leading the conversation and the other focus on what the
informant were saying. One advantage of this was that the one focusing on listening
have a better possibility pick up on different things and might ask a question about it.
Since the other interviewer is more focused on leading the conversation, it could be
harder to notice such things.
An implication with presenting the result of the interviews were to translate the quotes
which were in Swedish to English. This meant that it sometimes was required to

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interpret what the informant were saying in order to correctly translate the quote. In
some cases, it was difficult to do so without interfering with the core message.

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8 Conclusion
As mentioned in the chapter for purpose and research questions, the purpose of this
study was to examine how companies in Sweden enable big data analytics utilizing
different resources in order to gain competitive advantage. To answer this, two
research question were established:
• RQ1: What kind of resources are utilized to enable big data analytics and how
are they being used?
What kind of resources companies utilize was found in various studies and used in
this work. To answer the first RQ it was found that data, technical skills, and data
driven culture, amongst other resources, were being utilized. The organisations in this
study were using them in order to create BDAC and enable BDA within their
business.
• RQ2: How does big data analytics lead to performance enhancement and
competitive advantage, and in what context?
By utilizing the different resources mentioned above, creating BDAC, organisations
have used insights gained from BDA to enhance their organisation. Organisations in
the study improved their business processes by doing so as well as creating new
products and services resulting in competitive advantage.
Different resources play a different part in the organisations. It can be seen that
depending how long the organisations have worked with BDA, different resources
are valued more than others. It is clear that all the different resources are needed to
work in conjunction to benefit from BDA.
The findings show that there are benefits associated to BDA according to the
informants. BDA is a vital part of organisations today in order to stay competitive.
The Swedish companies in this study are starting to or have already realized the value
that comes from utilizing BDA. What the companies have in common, is their
expression that the end result of the BDA movement is yet to be seen.

8.1 Continued research

Big data analytics is a large and popular field for practitioner and academics alike.
What can be deduced from this thesis is that more areas can be explored within the
field. Since this thesis focused on a country in northern Europe, the findings showed
that GDPR is a matter of concern among the informants. A suggestion for future
research would be to investigate how security and ethics are handled within
organisation that use BDA.
Because the focus has been on one country, Sweden, it could be useful to do a similar
research in different countries in order to evaluate how the different resources are
used in a different context and if they bring the same or similar competitive advantage.
One more suggestion for future research would be to investigate if organisations value
mentioned resources differently and how it impacts the employees and organisation

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by doing so. It would also be of importance to realise why and what that could mean
in the organisations continued endeavours with BDA.
With the study being of a qualitative approach, generalisation is a challenge. Within
this study there were five informants present, which is not a plausible amount to
achieve this. Therefore, conducting a mixed method or quantitative approach could
be beneficial in order to establish a higher level of generalisation.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 – Consent form

Samtyckesblankett för att delta i Big Data Analytics; A Potential Way to
Competitive Performance.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur företag möjliggör big data analytics för
att få konkurrensfördelar.

Genom att skriva under den här samtyckesblanketten godkänner du att dina
personuppgifter behandlas inom ramen för uppsatsen/studien som beskrivs ovan.
Du kan när som helst dra tillbaka ditt samtycke genom att kontakta någon av
studiens kontaktpersoner enligt uppgifter i informationsbrevet. Dina
personuppgifter kommer därefter inte längre att bevaras eller behandlas vidare
utan annan laglig grund.

De personuppgifter som kommer samlas in från dig är e-postadress, namn,

företagsnamn och telefonnummer. Dina personuppgifter kommer behandlas från
den tid du godkänner hanteringen till dess att examensarbetet blivit godkänt då
det kommer förstöras.

Du eller ditt företag kommer aldrig att benämnas vid namn i själva rapporten, utan
åsyftas nämnas i termer som ej kan kopplas till dig/er. I studien utlovas
konfidentialitet.

Du har alltid möjlighet att få information om vad som registrerats om dig eller ha
synpunkter på behandlingen eller de uppgifter som samlats in genom att kontakta
någon av kontaktpersonerna nedan eller lärosätets dataskyddsombud på
dataskyddsombud@lnu.se. Klagomål som inte kan lösas med Linnéuniversitetet
kan lämnas till Datainspektionen.

……………………………… ………………………………
Underskrift Ort och datum

………………………………
Namnförtydligande

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Appendix 2 – Interview guide

9 Presentation av studiens författare

• Kort beskrivning om vilka vi är och vad vi studerar.
• Undersökningen mål och syfte.
• Informerat samtycke.
• Informera om inspelning och godkännande.

10 Inledning
• Berätta lite kort om dig själv och vilken bakgrund du har.
• Vad har du för roll i företaget?
• Hur länge har du jobbat i det här området?

11 Tangible resources
• Vad är det för data som ni har och arbetar med idag?
• Är den data som ni har idag extern respektive intern?
• Integreras de två på något sätt?
• Varifrån kommer denna data?
• Finns det någon data som ni känner att ni inte utnyttjar idag?
• Hur ser ni på rollen som data har för er verksamhet?
• Hur hanterar ni er data rent tekniskt sätt?
• Hur lagrar ni den?
• Skulle du säga att ni har en förutsatt procedur gällande initiativ för investering
i projekt för BDA?
• Hur ser du på de resurser som krävs för att kunna lyckas och vilka skulle du
säga att det är?
• Upplever du att ni har de tekniska förmågor och ledarskap som behövs i
samband med big data analytics?

12 Human skills
• Skulle ni säga att ni har tillgång till den tekniska kompetensen som behövs
för att hantera big data?
• Hur stor betydelse är det för er att anställda har rätt teknisk kompetens för
hantering av data?
o Hur säkerställer ni att era anställda har rätt kompetens?
• Upplever du att chefer eller beslutstagare inom organisationen, gör val utifrån
de insikter som kommer fram genom BDA i företaget?
• Hur väl tycker du att chefer använder den insikt som kommer från datan?

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13 Intangible resources
• Vad upplever du att ni baserar era beslut på inom företaget?
• Hur var engagemanget inom företag när/om ni investerat i data analysering?
• Används insikter av data på flera nivåer inom företaget på något sätt
• Hur upplever du att organisationen prioriterar kring en fortsatt utveckling och
utbildning kring ny teknologi och tekniker inom företaget?
• Hur skulle du säga att ni hanterar den konstanta teknikutvecklingen?

14 Operational and Dynamic capabilities

• Tycker du att ni har påverkats som företag av analytics, med fokus på big
data?
• Hur upplever du att ni hittat och tagit till vara på nya möjligheter, som skapats
genom BDA?
• Hur viktigt tror du att big data analytics kommer vara framöver för ett företag
som ert?

15 Avslutning
• Tycker du vi har missat något viktigt i relation till big data analytics?
• Tack!

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Department of Informatics

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