The Role of Business Intelligence in Shaping Organizations in Emerging Economies

Abstract

Globalization and ever-increasing competition affects all existing companies, as well as those in emerging economies. For this reason, companies are constantly improving their own management systems and trying to gain a competitive advantage in the market in addition to eliminating shortcomings. In emerging economies in Central Europe, including Slovakia, there are still not well-established tools to support management decisions that are able to reveal reserves, identify deviations from the required state and reflect all these attributes in the system of motivation, evaluation and remuneration of employees. Such a tool is controlling, the implementation of which is a prerequisite for growth in performance and market value of the company. The aim of the paper is to identify and present the optimal software support for controlling for a given segment of companies based on the mapping of the current state of using Business Intelligence to support controlling in micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the conditions of a specific developing economy, namely Slovakia. This information system will allow MSEs to respond flexibly to market changes, offer alternative options to support management decisions and is able to simulate the impact of any change in the plan on the company's management. The issue was examined in Slovak business practice through empirical research. We focused on groups of micro and small businesses, as these account for 99% of the country's market potential. While the introduction of the controlling module into the basic IS of the company or Business Intelligence are investment-intensive for MSEs, as a real option, affordable Software support for controlling based on the MS Excel program was identified in practice. Given the above, a prototype of a controlling information system called "SOFIN - KA" was designed and successfully tested in the practice of the Slovak Republic in a program in MS Excel, which is customizable to the size of each MSEs.