Introduction

With increasing globalization of markets, fierce competition, increasing the speed with changes in market conditions and customer needs, all market participants and companies face new challenges. In the long run, companies will be able to assert themselves, who can adapt to these conditions, who can respond flexibly and quickly to changes while at the same time keeping their costs under control. For this purpose, however, an exact knowledge of the current corporate and market situation is indispensable. To ensure this and to provide management with the information needed in their planning and decision-making, sophisticated information and communication systems are used. Since the 1960s, various approaches have been developed for such systems, which have become known under many different names such as Management Information Systems (MIS), Decision Support Systems (DSS) or Executive Information Systems (EIS). Today, the term Business Intelligence (BI) has become established both in practice and in research. BI describes approaches such as collecting, storing, processing, analyzing and presenting company data.

In recent years, Business Intelligence has become one of the top topics in the German and international IT market. In this regard, the importance of companies has increased significantly. By using BI systems, companies are supported in making their business-critical data and processes transparent and intelligent. Also, employees will be able to make better decisions, achieve the required results faster, and continuously develop them. Another advantage of BI systems is that companies can make their customer and supplier relationships even more profitable, reduce costs, minimize risks and increase added value. Without the use of BI systems, enormous amounts of data are available, but then they spread confusion and ultimately complicate business.

A few years ago, almost only large companies and corporations showed interest, but now this topic has become increasingly attractive for start-up companies. Because there they discovered what potential could be tapped with Business Intelligence. One reason for this is that BI software has become increasingly cheaper and more affordable for many start-ups. For example, the BI market is flooded by software vendors (such as SAP, Oracle, IBM, SAS, Microsoft, and open source vendors) that are specific to start-ups. On the other hand, increasing competitive pressure and the requirement to be able to rely on reliable information quickly and at all times ensure strong demand.

Against this background, the aim of this present paper is to demonstrate the use of business intelligence in start-ups and to give an overview of the providers of business intelligence solutions that are suitable for start-up companies.