Business Intelligence pro malé firmy

Abstract

The thesis focuses on the deployment of Business Intelligence (BI) in a small enterprise. BI is a set of technologies and processes that allows people at all levels of organization to access and analyse data important for business management so that it can improve its performance. The overall BI architecture consists of data, analytics and a presentation layers. The aim of the data layer is to transform the data from ERP systems into a data warehouse and the structure and quality of the data is extremely important. The presentation layer allows to interpret the data from a data warehouse in a transparent form, primarily, as user’s reports, OLAP or key performance indicators. The analytical layer focuses on quantitative methods, mainly statistical methods for analysing and forecasting time series. The thesis also describes software tools that enable a comprehensive information support of BI solutions in small enterprises. The described methods and tools are practically implemented during BI deployment in the Select Company, which sells soft furnishings and materials. The actual implementation is based on analysis of the user’s requirements, preparation of the data layer and the subsequent deployment methods of the analytical and presentation layers. The selected methods are supported by Microsoft Excel and its extension for BI called PowerPivot and the statistical tool SPSS. The main contribution of the thesis lies in the presentation of BI performance possibilities and in the description of the used methods in the presentation and analysis layers. At the same time the practical implementation in small business environment is comprised. The thesis also emphasizes the corresponding information support of BI solutions. The primary result of the thesis is the real and comprehensive deployment of presented BI methods in the Select Company.