Strategic alignment of big data analytics: leveraging operational and market capabilities for organisational performance

Although the emergence of big data analytics (BDA) has stimulated enormous investments from contemporary businesses, empirical evidence tends to remain limited about how firms should leverage their BDA initiatives. There is also a need to understand how BDA integrates with organisational capabilities to drive performance gains. We draw on the strategic alignment framework grounded in dynamic capabilities theory to examine combinations of BDA dimensions with other organisational resources, such as internal competencies and external integration with supply chain actors to drive operational and market competitiveness in realising performance. Our hypotheses find support in a combination of primary and secondary data gathered from 207 dyads of business and IT executives. Our results suggest that simply implementing BDA tools and techniques do not automatically translate into financial gains. Instead, it must align with the firm's strategic integration capabilities to leverage operational and market capabilities. Our research delineates the mechanisms by which the business value of BDA capability is realised and provides useful guidance to managers and consultants in implementing BDA.