Effect of Business Intelligence on Competitive Advantage Case of Ankara IT Sector

The main purpose of this research is to examine the effect of business intelligence (BI) on competitive advantage in Ankara IT sector. For this purpose, we followed a qualitative research design phenomenology and conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with BI staff of 14 organizations defined according to criterion sampling method. We applied inductive qualitative content analysis to interview data. As a result, four main themes emerged: (1) BI adoption (2) competition, (3) organizations, and (4) recommendations. We found that BI has a positive effect on competitive advantage, but the nature of competition in sector is unfair and changeable according to the origin of the product. Leader foreign companies adopt differentiation strategy in gaining competitive advantage and there is a severe competition between the sector leaders. Companies that produce domestic BI solutions adopt low-cost strategy, but they are far away from the high-level competition among foreign companies. Government support and guidance are required for domestic BI solutions to be competitive.