The Potential of Big Data Analytics to replace Managerial Decision-Making: Findings of a Systematic Review

Organisations have been collecting big data - high volume structured and unstructured data - at a rapid rate from a range of different sources. Big data can add value to organisations if processed, analysed and presented correctly. Organisations can benefit significantly from big data analytics if they have the capability to uncover hidden information from fully automated decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ability of big data analytics to replace managerial decision-making. A systematic literature review approach is used to review relevant studies that are validated through qualitative data analysis. The potential to replace managerial decision-making with fully automated data driven decisions varies per problem domain. There is evidence that managerial, operational and tactical decision-making can be replaced by big data analytics for stable conditions using structured data. From the study, European countries are the ones benefiting highly from tactical and operational decisions without managerial control. Decision-makers should, therefore, re-evaluate strategic decisions resulting from automated processing from unstable conditions for high quality decisions and prevention of errors. Finding from an African context were based on case studies from Egypt, Morocco and South Africa. The case study from Egypt used an experimental case on retail sector with proven decisions effectiveness.