Transforming e-services evaluation data into business analytics using value models

The rapidly increasing penetration and use of the Internet, in conjunction with the explosion of various technologies based on it, gave rise to the development of numerous e-services, such as e-business, e-banking, e-government and e-learning ones. The websites providing these e-services collect large amounts of users’ activity and evaluation data. It is necessary to transform these data into useful business analytics that allow a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the e-service, the various types of value it generates, and its whole value generation mechanism, and at the same time provide guidance for its improvement and optimization. We propose and validate a methodology for transforming user evaluation data into useful business analytics, founded on the technology acceptance model, the IS success model and e-services. We define a three-layer value model for e-services, including concerning its efficiency, effectiveness and impact on users’ future behavior respectively. This value model is used for collecting and processing service evaluation data from users. We calculated two classes of business analytics: average users’ ratings to identify strengths and weaknesses of e-services; and the impacts of first- layer value measures on the second and third layer value ones. The latter allows a better understanding of the value generation mechanism for e-services and identification of improvement priorities. Our methodology has been applied and validated for an e-learning service provided by a university to technology professionals.

► The paper proposes a method for transforming e-services evaluation data into business analytics.
► It is based on the definition of a three layers value model of the e-service.
► The value model is estimated using users’ evaluation data.
► It combines several statistical techniques exploiting the relations among value dimensions and measures.
► It can provide a better understanding of e-service value generating mechanism and identify improvement priorities.