Business Analysis of Marten Transport: A Case Study on BIBA and IS

This case study examines Marten Transport, a leading transportation company, and its use of technology, including Big Data, Information Science (IS), and Business Intelligence Business Analytics (BIBA). The report identifies the challenges Marten Transport faces in converting data into actionable information, particularly in managing costs. It then analyzes the application of the Business Analytics (BA) model, the Rockart model, and the Information Wheel to address these challenges. The BA model helps in creating knowledge for decision-makers, the Rockart model identifies critical success factors, and the Information Wheel focuses on delivering the right information. Finally, the report provides recommendations based on these models to improve business processes, efficiency, and data utilization within Marten Transport, offering insights into how the company can leverage data for strategic advantage and operational improvements.

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Running head: MARTEN TRANSPORT CASE STUDY
MARTEN TRANSPORT CASE STUDY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

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Executive Summary
The report helps in underlying the various processes that are followed by Marten Transport
within their organisation. This organisation is mainly responsible for providing the best form of
transportation processes and with the help of important technologies. The following part of this
report discusses the main problems that are faced by the business sector. The other parts of the
report help in identifying about the brief business concepts such as Business Intelligence
Business Analytics (BIBA) and Information Science (IS) that helps in the understanding of the
other models defined within them. The report finally concludes by providing recommendations
based on the use of the models for the benefit of business processes.

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Table of Contents
1. Background..................................................................................................................................4
2. Problem Statement.......................................................................................................................4
3. Analysis.......................................................................................................................................4
3.1 Challenges faced by Marten Transport..................................................................................4
3.2 Business Analytics (BA) Model............................................................................................5
3.3 Rockart Model.......................................................................................................................7
3.4 The Information Wheel..........................................................................................................8
4. Recommendations and Conclusions..........................................................................................11
Appendix........................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14

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1. Background
Marten Transport is considered as the leading provider of transportation based on
temperature and time sensitive based commodities. The initiation of the business had mainly
begun in 1946. The founder of the company is Roger Marten. Throughout the history of the
company, the Marten Transport had always been regarded as the leader within the transportation
industry. They have a history in terms of growth, profitability and innovation that have also been
brought within the business performance (Walker, 2016). In the recent times, with the growth of
technological aspects, the company has made great usage of advanced technologies such as Big
Data, Information Science (IS) concepts and Business Intelligence Business Analytics (BIBA).
They have used these kinds of technologies to help in progressing in the field of business. They
have also partnered with the leading software provider companies to use the wealth of data in
turning high growth for the business. With the use of such kind of technologies, they have also
planned for including more form of advanced technologies to manage their business processes
and also provide better kind of services and also make new advancements in the trucking
technology.
2. Problem Statement
With the use of such kind of important technology, the company is still in the process of
addressing several kinds of issues that might be addressable by focusing on the data that is
gathered. The business makers have thought of this issue and also discussed the ways in which
the costs could be reduced in order to manage the various issues incurring within the business.
3. Analysis
3.1 Challenges faced by Marten Transport
The most vital challenges that were faced by the firm based on the problems based on Big
Data is that the business owners at Marten Transport were not able to determine the ways in
which they could be able to convert the vital data into more useful information (Schmieder,
2014). The data that was gathered and produced would help the companies to practice ingenuity
based on the ways of proposing specific kind of business operations. These companies based on

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the transportation business should be able to focus on their efforts based on data gathering about
their needs and specific modes of usage.
The different forms of an initiative based on data gathering had been able to produce a
wealth of information in relation to the specific issues. Although the business of Marten
Transport was progressing well over the concept of data gathering and using it for further
processing of business data, yet the process was not able to suffice to the growing needs of the
company (Walker, 2014). They were also not able to decide about the amount of data that would
be required for collection. They were also not been able to decide about the other forms of
technological measures that could be further applied for the mitigation of the impact based on the
present issues.
The business of Marten Transport and many other transportation businesses made use of
the captured data to focus more on efficiencies. The various forms of advancements made in the
field of transportation could be able to define the next generation of increasing competition. With
the rise of the need for generated data, the trucks for the new generation were mostly equipped
with Electronic Onboard Recording Devices (EORD) (Levy & Franklin, 2014). These devices
were equipped with such kind of valuable inbuilt objects that were able to calculate the driving
hours, monitoring the status of duty offered by a particular driver, short and long idling time,
miles per gallon, log in and log out times and different other parameters.
Based on the discussed scenario, some of the concepts that could be described for the
current business processes are:
1. Business Intelligence Business Analytics (BIBA)
2. Information Science (IS)
Some of the common models that have been defined by the above-discussed concepts
are:
3.2 Business Analytics (BA) Model
The BA model is defined as a hierarchical and layered approach to discipline. The arrows
help in depicting the underlying layers that would be in subjection to the above layers. As

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defined within the BA model, three are many kinds of people, processes and competencies
involved within the creation of the BA approach.
However, in the middle layer, the controllers, analysts and report developers would be
able to create the knowledge and information, which would be able to help the decision makers
within a company to bring in innovative changes (Seddon et al., 2017). In the bottom layer of the
technically oriented environment, the primary data of the business would be able to generate
source systems that would be primarily be developed by the IT professionals.
(Figure 1: The BA Model)
(Source: Seddon et al., 2017)
The various IT professionals would be able to handle the various operations of
development (Real, Roldán & Leal, 2014). The most successful of business operations and
processes should have a common fixed structure that would initiate based on the specification of

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information strategy. This would be further derived from the main objectives defined by the
strategy of the business. Each of the strategies that would be primarily be developed by the IT
professionals would be driven based on the chosen form of information strategy (Cao, Duan &
Li, 2015). The other objectives of the BA would be mainly focused on putting in changes within
the actions and processes. These would also be targeted towards the achievement of the
objectives of the organisational strategy.
With the help of the BA Model, Marten Transport could apply it within the business
processes, the operational managers at the company would be able to deploy the statistical and
analytical models within their data warehouse. This would majorly help the transport
organisation to design the front-end applications and detail the functionality of their business.
The data stored within the data warehouse would help the employees in working with the
delivered data.
3.3 Rockart Model
This model is primarily influenced by the critical success factor model. This kind of
business model would be able to describe the main relationship between the new processes with
the help of the needs of subsequent information and objectives that would be defined by the
strategic level. On the basis of the use of this model, it would be helpful for the concerned
department to identify the various forms of critical success factors (Lerma et al., 2014). These
can also be defined as the elements of a certain plan that would be having a successful business
outcome.
Based on the critical success factors defined within the model, the BA function would be
able to deliver the best forms of information. Based on the definitions supported by the Rockart
model, it would entirely be dependent on analytics. This would also allow for the business to
research beyond the reporting of business intelligence (BI) (Labes, Hanner & Zarnekow, 2015).
This would further be used for the use of information as a form of a strategic resource. Some of
the included levels that are used within this model are:
a. Identification of objectives – In this level, the businesses would be able to adopt the
dialogue programs that would be able to inform customers about the new prices of goods and
many others.

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b. Identification of an Operational Strategy – In this phase the necessary form of
operational strategy would be defined that would help the organisation in gaining the maximum
number of benefits for the business (Nofal & Yusof, 2016).
c. Identification of Critical Success Factors – The most important factors for the
business would be taken into consideration (Laursen & Thorlund, 2016). These factors would be
able to define the best kind of actions that would help the business in gaining a competitive
advantage.
d. Identification of Lag and Lead Information – This kind of information would be
able to define about the best kind of factors based on carrying out the defined strategies for the
business (Loebbecke & Picot, 2015).
The data collected from the analysis based on the Rockart Model, would help Marten
Transport to discuss about the start time of any drive, calculate the budget and also ensure time
columns that could be fixed before any trip. With the help of this model, the company would be
able to update the graphics of the dashboard for the website of the company. The dynamic
dashboard would also be automatically updated. The KPIs would also be measured based on a
range of factors. The transport department at Marten should be able to identify the critical
success factors with the generation of the huge wealth of generated data. They would also be
able to lag and lead information generated after the completion of any drive.
3.4 The Information Wheel
The primary functions of the business wheel are to deliver the best and right kind of
information based on the right knowledge that would also be essential to be delivered to the right
people at the proper time. The process of knowledge management would also be essential for
maintaining the overall process of learning (Priebe & Markus, 2015). The use of the method
offered by Information Wheel would be able to define the ways in which the establishment,
improvement, maintenance or closing down of the business processes would be needed to be
stored for the use of other people.
One of the most noticeable and common features of the information wheel strategy with
the other forms of strategy is that this model has the major form of capacity to centralize the

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activities of the company based on capturing and benefitting them from local skills (Puyou &
Faÿ, 2015). In the simple form of nature, the various follow up processes could be based on
maintaining the documents. The various business application should be able to establish and thus
maintain each of the information wheels within a parallel based process (Locke & Cave, 2018).
A good form of technological solution based on the usage of the information wheel model is to
educate the users with the help of a good form of technological solution that would be able to
support the information strategy.
(Figure 3: The Information Wheel Model)
(Source: Puyou & Faÿ, 2015)
The Information Wheel Model could create a form of synergy based on the data side with
the varied combination of business data. The system developed for the analysis of data would be
user-friendly so that the employees at Marten Transport might be able to use them. The business
analysts at Marten would have a large number of programs or data sets based on which they

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would be able to generate answers in a quick manner. Based on the generated answers, the
analyst would be able to direct the employees in supporting decisions.

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4. Recommendations and Conclusions
Based on the discussed models, it could be concluded that these different models would
be able to improvise the various processes of Marten Transport based on their business process
development. There has been major kind of advancements made in the field of trucking
technology that would be able to attract companies to collaborate with the truck-based
companies in order to deliver their services to their customers. Based on the innovation models
supported in the discussion, it would be helpful for the transportation agencies to deliver the best
kind of approaches towards the industry. The defined models would thus help in guiding the
entire business strategies and thus would help in enhancing the business model.
Based on the above conclusions, it could be recommended that with the help of this
model, the trucking industry would be able to gain a better form of insights. The decision makers
within the industry should imply the best form of procedure based on the knowledge gained from
the model. The company should also make use of Big Data technology to be implemented within
the backend functionality. These valuable insights would be able to guide the business process
and thus improve the future growth of the organisation.

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Appendix
(Figure 1: The BA Model)
(Source: Seddon et al., 2017)