Leveraging Process Innovation with Business Analytics

Although recognized as increasingly relevant, the relationships between analytical orientation and process innovation are still unclear, specifically the role of analytical resources and capabilities in this association. This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted to investigate these complex links. The empirical data was drawn from 81 companies of different sectors in Brazil. Data analysis was mainly based on path analysis with structural equation modeling. The findings of this study indicate that analytical orientation can leverage process innovation. Moreover, information quality is somehow a more valuable resource to analytical orientation than information technology, and that analytical capabilities, especially analytical leadership, were proven to be more important to sustain analytical orientation than companies' analytical resources. Another important result, also with considerable repercussion in future research on the theme, was the predictive relevance of analytical capabilities for analytical orientation. This was much higher than the predictive relevance shown by analytical resources.