The Impact of Data Analytics on the Effectiveness of SMEs Strategic Decision-Making Processes

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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have for a long time been challenged by large competitors around the globe. However, this pressure increases now even more because large companies have so far been more able to utilize data analytics for the identification of emerging opportunities and for the improvement of their internal infrastructures. Literature suggests that SMEs tend to lag behind, because they have less assets available to invest in the required human resources, R&D and infrastructure (Michalkova & Bianchini, 2019). Besides that, there is also a lack of scientific literature available tailored to their limited amount of resources to spend. This study has attempted to fill this literature gap, by investigating how SMEs could take advantage of data analytics technology in order to improve the effectiveness of their strategic decision-making processes. The research question was as follows: “How can data analytics improve the effectiveness of SMEs strategic board decision-making processes?“. The Grounded Theory has been applied in order to develop two new theories based on the researcher’s interpretations of existing literature in order to: 1. Explain how data analytics could be applied by SMEs despite their limited amount of resources to spend. 2. Explain how data analytics could increase the effectiveness of SMEs strategic decision-making processes.