Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2019 109 Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A conceptual framework for business intelligence critical success factors Farzad Firouzi Jahantigh* Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran Email: firouzi@eng.usb.ac.ir *Corresponding author Arash Habibi Department of Management, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran Email: arash.habibi@parsmodir.com Azam Sarafrazi Department of Management and Economics, Payam-e-Noor University, Qheshm, Iran Email: raheleh.sarfaraz09@gmail.com Abstract: From theoretical and practical viewpoints, business intelligence application is considered by scholars and managers in their organisations. Most organisations are seeking to develop their capabilities and to gain a sustainable competitive advantage through business intelligence. Previous studies are mostly descriptive and they have emphasised the importance of business intelligence. This study aims to provide a conceptual framework for the assessment of business intelligence critical success factors in the organisations. The study was a pure research, which was conducted based on scientific research method and a five-year application of business intelligence in different organisations. The scale validity was approved using confirmatory factor analysis. The statistical data was also collected from 78 large and medium-sized companies. In this study, consistent with scientific research method principles, an operational scale is presented for the implementation of business intelligence. The results indicate that a suitable software and hardware platform is one of the most significant technical infrastructures for business intelligence implementation. Keywords: business intelligence; BI; software maturity; data integrity; hardware maturity; data transparency. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Jahantigh, F.F., Habibi, A. and Sarafrazi, A. (2019) ‘A conceptual framework for business intelligence critical success factors’, Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp.109–123.