Interview groups and profiles

The researcher decided to avoid a process mapping approach in favour of a more informal process involving those employees who are engaged in BI business or strategy development processes. This can be viewed as a subjective choice based on the professional experience of the researcher. However, these employees all have a certain responsibility and depend on BI applications. Therefore, this Section specifies the target audience that will serve as participants in the data collection process via one-to-one interviews. It is important to describe the professional backgrounds of the interviewees and to understand their contribution and expectations of information systems and BI practice. The job descriptions are made analogue the current AOKN job characteristics in 2013.

Concerning the selection of the AOKN employees as interviewees, nine employee types are of primary interest with regard to answering the research questions. Those employees were selected by the researcher; they act as BI end users or have access to certain BI solutions such as reports or analysis platforms.

1. Authorized agent to CEO and manager of corporate development division

The authorized agent to CEO is the business manager of corporate development division, which includes the management accounting department. This individual brings to distinct advantages to the interview process. He has direct contact with the CEO and can give recommendations and information about relevant developments from management accounting and other departments. Thus, through this interview he can actively create ideas and meanings and these statements will come directly from AOKN’s top management. Those statements can be evaluated as prioritized recommendations and potential requirements for the corporate strategic process. Therefore, this person is appropriate for such an interview.

2. Marketing director

The marketing director from the AOKN region “Mittelweser” near the city of Bremen is responsible for the regional acquisition marketing of private and business clients. The objectives of this position are characterized by goal- oriented planning and the control of distribution and marketing, which is intended to achieve the acquisition and cancellation objectives. The mentoring of the current client base is also an operational objective. The professional tasks of the marketing director are the implementation and development of marketing strategies, the planning, control and supervision of marketing activities, the selection of target customer groups for certain activities, and the analysis and evaluation of marketing results.

3. BI consultant (from novem business applications GmbH)

The BI consultant from novem is the team leader of the BI developer for the entire management accounting division. The BI developers are responsible for data processing in the DWH. This means that they extract, prepare, and provide defined data structures and contents from relevant tables for reporting and analyzing activities that will be developed by management accounting. After consulting management accounting employees, the

developers create professional requirements and implement these requirements as a data processing concept. In short, the BI consultant is the leader of the BI developers as Cognos software engineers of the management accounting employees for certain fields.

4. Management accounting employee

This employee follows strategic and operational alignments. The strategic alignment includes the support of the strategic corporate planning and the self- dependent implementation of strategic plans in the operational target and planning process. Here specific analyses and reports for top management and goal-oriented executive managers and other organizational units will be required. The operational direction speaks to the development and maintenance of the reporting system and valid reporting ratios and forecasts. This information system with its ratios will be enhanced and evaluated by the management accounting employee who will make recommendations for management for enhancing the operational processes.

5. Director of the management accounting department

The director of the management accounting department is responsible for the implementation and development of a controlling/ management accounting system for improved control of the business management divisions market, ambulant and stationary in the context of the strategic target system to guarantee a long-term corporate survival. This target system must be improved with due consideration of an efficient receipts and expenditures optimization and innovative healthcare management approaches. The director coordinates the consolidation program of the company, and supports and advises the CEO in matters of company control, target systematics, and consolidation. The director also creates specific analyses for the CEO. He further supports the business manager and regional directors in terms of division control of the certain target and activity fields.

6. Performance analyst

The performance analyst works directly for the marketing business manager and prepares data, analyses, and evaluations for him. This analyst has access to the majority of reports and analyses from the management accounting division and can also create his own reports. He also supports the business manager market strategy in terms of the control of the business divisions by preparing and moderating target achievement conversations, action plans, developing measures for counteractions, and monitors of results. He also makes specific analyses and preparations that have not been executed by the management accounting department. He lends additional support to internal projects and manages those. Therefore, this employee has strategic and operational tasks.

7. Director of management accounting for health care

The director of management accounting healthcare is responsible for the field of healthcare management, which includes: the activity fields hospital management, DMP, outpatient care, dental prosthesis, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare management for integrated health care. He develops and enhances standardized perspectives for corporate reporting and analysis activities. In 2011, he coordinated the BI implementation project for several fields. Thus, the director is an ideal subject for the topic and can provide valuable recommendations and viewpoints.

8. Director of the health care management department

The director is responsible for the enhancement of the AOKN sustainability of healthcare management implementation. Healthcare management targets specific healthcare forms that address cost effectiveness. He conducts and instructs the observation of the market and the competition observation in order to identify specific healthcare needs.

9. Director of physical therapy department

The director of physical therapy department is responsible for the cost- efficient approval and accounting of different types of physical therapy such as massages or speech therapies.

In reviewing the nine interview groups and twelve participants from those groups, the overall homogeneity diverges from only providing or analyzing data or information through BI applications. The activities and potential understanding of their analysis profession can be seen as higher for management accounting employees and regional professional quality manager more than other groups. Table 4.6 shows the use, objectives, and typical activities associated with BI, and is a subjective evaluation and observation of the researcher.

Table 4.6: Current use, objectives and activities for different interview groups

interview groups: BI gateway (using BI components, f.i. dashboards) installation and further development DWH and data bases report creating (Cognos Report Studio) ad-hoc analysis (Cognos Analysis Studio, Panoratio) top management (authorized agent to CEO)     business management (directors of departments management accounting, health care management and physical therapy)

   / management accounting employees  /   regional business division (marketing director)     BI developer team

leader (BI consultant)   / 

business division (director of management accounting health care)   /  performance analyst      = regularly use

 = intensive regularly use  = no need or access

The green check marks and red crosses represent the current activities or demands and requirements for BI and can be seen as significant for the interview and for the entire company as well. This inventory must be critically evaluated by questioning the participants about current functions and opportunities to optimize the BI applications and to generate values from big data. Therefore, the potential responses from the participants must be examined against the background of their current position and degree of BI use.

The BI user group and their requirements for technical and professional knowledge can be presented on the basis of the following matrix in Figure 4.4. Objectives of the BI user group are the dissemination and advancement of BI development know-how in AOKN. Additional objectives are the creation of a particular network and the development of best-practice solutions.

Figure 4.4: BI user group and requirements (according to AOK Systems GmbH, 2013)

Thus, the interview participants have different professional backgrounds and also different responsibilities. For example, the authorized agent to CEO is required to have a higher degree of strategic thinking as opposed to employees in management accounting or employees of result control who are more involved in BI application use. This is, according to the job description, with the strategic

orientations at five percent. Therefore, the level of detail for relevant terms is different as Figure 4.5 illustrates.

The abbreviations in this chart can be defined as follows:

man. acc. – management accounting employee auth. agent to CEO – authorized agent to CEO dir. physical therapy – director physical therapy marketing dir. – marketing director

health care man. dir. – health care management director

Figure 4.5: BI and strategic orientation/ market-oriented business management – level of detail from interview responses

The two dimensions were defined to discover the appropriate characteristics for the research issues and to answer the research questions in an optimal way. The vertical scale stresses the degree of participant involvement in BI applications or processes. The horizontal scale defines the strategic orientation or market- oriented business management engagement according to the participant job characteristics. The size of the circles characterizes the extent of job potential and focus. For instance, the job focus of the BI consultant is vast as shown by the assessment of BI applications (3,2) and strategic orientation (0,5). Therefore, this portfolio matrix with both dimensions and its particular degree offers a picture of whether the participant is suitable subject with regard to relevant information for a BI conceptual framework.

It can be assumed that all participants have a certain relationship and engagement in either strategically oriented and market-oriented business management, uses and and understands BI applications with all their components (products, analyses opportunities, support to end users etc.).