The thesis deals with problematics of tools marked as Self Service Business Intelligence (SSBI) which is paid close attention by its users as well as producers due to expected progressive growth of this trend. Two products are evaluated: SAS Visual Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics, both tools are evaluated by their extent of user´s autonomy and support of data visualization. Basic principles and concepts connected to the area of business intelligence are defined in theoretical part of the thesis. The problematics of data visualization is introduced and trend of self-service business intelligence is discussed with analyzing its benefits as well as restrictions. Technological factors which helped to fast development of SSBI are mentioned as well. A methodology has been created within practical part of the thesis. It is enforceable for any other tool from the family of SSBI and it is possible to assess the extent of support within observed categories through this methodology: Using information, Creation of information, Creation of sources and Visualization. A set of criteria on basis of which the evaluator can create evaluation form corresponding to his/her needs was defined for each of the stated categories. Usability of the methodology is illustratively demonstrated at mutual comparison of chosen modules of both tools while those parts are sufficiently described before the evaluation itself.

This thesis deals with the extension of Office application Microsoft Excel -- PowerPivot program. First, the thesis focuses on the topic of the actual Business Intelligence (BI) and compares the classical BI approach and self-service BI approach. In the first part are dis-cussed current trends in BI. The second and main part is focused to the PowerPivot. Grad-ually are mentioned benefits and news in PowerPivot on the examples compared to classical analysis in Excel. In the initial description of the features are also instructions for installing the program and its news in version 2013. An important chapter is focused to the DAX expressions and all the calculations that can be implemented in PowerPivot. Separate chapters are devoted to data import and connection with MS SharePoint Server. As an ex-ample, is introduced the calculation of the ABC analysis to classify products, used mainly in logistics. The last part deals with implementation of applications in PowerPivot for MBI model (Management of Business Informatics).

The diploma thesis is focused on a specific area of self-service business intelligence. The advantage of this approach to the business intelligence is reduction of demands on IT development and using tools by end users. They can generate reports and outputs according to their requirements during the relevant time period. The theoretical part is dedicated to illustrate this concept with all benefits and risks. Furthermore, it describes trends occurring in the domain of business intelligence. These trends transcend outline the domain of business intelligence and are valid throughout IT. The practical part is dedicated to the analysis market of self-service business intelligence tools. On basis of established criteria are then compared these tools and deduced general conclusions regarding their functionality. Then, by using three selected tools is created comprehensive business intelligence task with the aim of clarifying a degree of self-service for these instruments. The main benefit of this thesis is based in the integrated analysis of market self-service business intelligence tools and determination of their functionality.

This Master’s thesis concerns with the description and evaluation of czech air carriers‘ business strategy. Because of their large number, selected carriers are Czech Airlines and Travel Service and these are described in detail as to their history, as well as their development in recent years and SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is assembled by the author himself with the usage of knowledge gained from analysis in previous chapters. Each of aforementioned carriers is then compared with one of its competitors and finally, the evaluation of the strategy and the proposal of recommendations are set.

This study investigates the cryptocurrency called bitcoin. A cryptocurrency is a type of currency that depends on cryptography to issue new units instead of depending on government decree like fiat currencies. The study will first explain some of the technical details that make bitcoin work. This is necessary to lay groundwork to get to the actual aim of the study, namely investigating the economic aspects of bitcoin. The study will evaluate bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, along with fiat currencies against certain definitions. In the process it will introduce a new subclass of cryptocurrency - the sovereign cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s implied monetary policy will also be discussed, as well as the problems it creates for central banks. A hypothesis on the behaviour of the bitcoin price will be explained and research will be provided to support the acceptance of the hypothesis. Using this hypothesis, a stochastic pricing model for bitcoin will be derived. Arbitrage trading strategies will also be provided that explain certain price constraints that operate in the bitcoin market. The dissertation will also introduce a means to improve the anonymity of a user of bitcoin and will reason that improvements such as these and others will increase the use of bitcoin. Therefore, improvements to anonymity will increase the economic relevance of bitcoin and increase its competitive edge over the traditional banking system. It will be reasoned, based on the possible problems created by bitcoin’s monetary policy, as well as the growth projections implied by the stochastic pricing model, and the increased economic relevance due to improvements in anonymity, that central banks would need to create their own cryptocurrency that conforms to certain requirements – the previously introduced sovereign cryptocurrency. The study will conclude by explaining the technical changes needed for a fork of bitcoin to become a sovereign cryptocurrency, as well as a mathematical model to control the monetary policy of the sovereign cryptocurrency. As its aim, adaptive monetary policy will have stable prices for the economy using the sovereign cryptocurrency to price its goods and services. Please note, that while every effort was made to use published references, the field of cryptocurrencies is very young and changing constantly. Thus, most publications on the subject are simply placed on websites on the internet. This is especially true for the work relating to the founding of the field, and the data sources of the operation of the cryptocurrencies. Therefore a lot of the references do refer to websites on the internet. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Mathematics and Applied Mathematics / MSc / Unrestricted

As data becomes a ubiquitous part of today’s business, trust in data is recognised as a crucialfactor for organisations on the data-driven journey to stay competitive in the fast-evolvingmarketplace. To support the journey, Self-Service Business Intelligence (SSBI) has emerged asa popular approach for organisations to empower business users and gain actionable insightfrom data faster and better. Despite its importance and relevance at the organisational level,SSBI has suffered sluggish adoption rates at the user level. The purpose of this thesis is toexplore the importance of trust in data and how it influences SSBI adoption by business users.Through seven semi-structured interviews, this thesis is able to establish that: 1) trust in data isa prerequisite for SSBI adoption by business users; 2) business users trust the people behind thedata; 3) trust in SSBI tools is essential; and 4) trust in data is necessary for user adoption.Furthermore, these findings lead to a descriptive model of how trust in data influences SSBIadoption by business users as well as how business users can transition between a vicious cycleof SSBI resistance and a benign cycle of SSBI adoption.

Att ha lojala kunder har blivit avgörande för företag i servicebranschen. När en kris uppstår i samhället där viktiga delar av människors liv förändras, där råd och rekommendationer från myndigheter gör att man inte längre rör sig ute på samma sätt tvingas företag till förändringar och uppoffringar. När denna studie utförs pågår det en pandemi av viruset Covid-19 som påverkar hela världen. För att bibehålla citykärnan i en mellanstor stad krävs det att konsumenter är lojala och fortsätter stötta servicebranschen i den mån det är möjligt. Här är alltså kundlojalitet avgörande för många företag. I denna studie har vi undersökt hur kundlojaliteten ser ut hos företag och konsumenter i Linköpings city samt hur man kan bibehålla den under en kris. Syftet med studien var då att studera vilka aspekter konsumenter anser är viktigast för att vara en lojal kund samt vilka åtgärder företagen inom servicebranschen har gjort för att på bästa sätt anpassa sig för den rådande situationen. Studien är baserad på kvantitativ data i form av enkätundersökningar hos både konsument och företag i Linköping city för att få en bredare och ett mer valid resultat. Konsumentrespondenterna var totalt 156 stycken och företagsrespondenterna var sammanlagt 20 stycken där alla är baserade i Linköpings city. En kvalitativ analys har sedan utförts genom en tematisk analysmetod där empiri och teorier från teoretiska referensramen ligger till grund för analys och slutsatsen för studien. I slutsatsen besvaras studiens tre forskningsfrågor där vi bland annat kommit fram till vilka aspekter som företagen bör fokusera på för att bibehålla kundlojalitet, vad kundlojalitet innebär, hur kundlojalitet ser ut i Linköping city samt hur den har förändrats under en kris. I slutet av studien ger vi även rekommendationer för framtida forskning. / Having loyal customers has become vital for companies in the service business. When a crisis occurs in a society where important parts of people’s lives change, where advice and recommendations from authorities makes it difficult to live like we used to, companies have to make changes and sacrifices to survive. When this research is done a global pandemic from the virus Covid-19 are affecting the whole world in many different ways. To maintain the city center customers have to stay loyal and support their local businesses to the extent possible. In this study we have examined how companies and consumers customer loyalty looks like and also how you maintain customer loyalty during a crisis. The aim of this study was to see what aspects consumers think are most important to become a loyal customer and also what actions companies within the service business have done to best adjust to the ongoing situation. The study is based on quantitative data made from surveys that got answered from both companies and consumers to obtain a wider and more valid result. It was 156 consumer respondents and 20 company respondents that answered where all the respondents were based in Linköping city. A qualitative analysis has been made with a thematic analysis where empirical data and theoretical information builds the foundation to the analysis and the conclusion. In the conclusion we answer our three research questions where we among many things answer what aspects companies should focus on in to be able to maintain customer loyalty, what customer loyalty is, how customer loyalty looks like in Linköping city center and how it has changed during a crisis. In the end of the study we give recommendations for future research within this subject.

Service-oriented environments are central backbone of todays enterprise workflows. These workflow includes traditional process types like travel booking or order processing as well as data-intensive integration processes like operational business intelligence and data analytics. For the latter process types, current execution semantics and concepts do not scale very well in terms of performance and resource consumption. In this paper, we present a concept for data streaming in business processes that is inspired by the typical execution semantics in data management environments. Therefore, we present a conceptual process and execution model that leverages the idea of stream-based service invocation for a scalable and efficient process execution. In selected results of the evaluation we show, that it outperforms the execution model of current process engines.

The Sharing Economy is an innovative social, economic and technological paradigm which is shaping worldwide production and consumption patterns of many industries. Its strength relies on factors of competitiveness such as the use of idle capacity, temporary access to resources without transfer of ownership, the flexibility and adaptability of its models, and the participation of a growing number of players allowed by peer-to-peer digital platforms. From the management perspective, the conditions for lasting competitiveness lies on sustainability, the paradigm integrating the supply, demand, and technological dimensions in a holistic, or ecosystem, perspective. Tourism is among the industries making extensive use of sharing digital platforms and experiencing changes that foster the sustainability debate. The PhD Thesis aims to investigate the relationships between competitiveness and sustainability in the tourism and hospitality accommodation industry in the Sharing Economy Era. Its investigation is multifaced and is addressed through three studies adopting a post-modernist perspective that builds on qualitative approaches and strategies for data collection and analysis. The Part I of the Thesis explores the Sharing Economy concept’s evolution and the sustainability issues through an in-depth review of the literature. Results reveal the leading economic-technological evolution of the paradigm over the social one, and its dual links with sustainability in relation to the extensive use of peer-to-peer digital platforms. Therefore, the evolution of the Sharing Economy activities have shown that today competitiveness is built on the interactions of an ever-increasing number of actors and factors, both off-line and on-line, within a complex ecosystem for the creation of – shared – value. The tourism industry strongly challenges this relationship between extended competition and sustainability. The Part II evaluates the competitiveness model and its evolution during the Sharing eTourism Era in the tourism and hospitality accommodation sector introducing an ecosystem perspective for the creation and distribution of shared value. Specifically, it investigates how the non-traditional and informal tourist services have affected the structure of the industry and have altered the competition among the actors, through semi-structured in-depth interviews. Results show that competitiveness is given by the balance among the complex interactions of internal and external ecosystem’s actors and factors. On a micro level this imply that businesses must adopts an ecosystem vision compensating for negative externalities which translate into the adoption of Business Models promoting sustainability for the creation of sustainable shared value. Therefore, the Part III investigates through the use of an illustrative case study how peer-to-peer digital platforms in the tourist accommodation service can boost profitability while strengthening economic, social and environmental sustainability by applying the innovative Business Model for Sustainability. The research sheds light on the complex Sharing Economy literature and lays the theoretical foundations for the implementation of managerial strategies aimed at promoting extended sustainable competition-cooperation.

With the increasing amount of valuable data that companies have access to the need for tools visualizing this data have reached a wider group of users, many of which are not tech-savvy. Self-service Business Intelligence applications aim to meet this need and many guidelines regarding the general design of Business Intelligence have been produced in recent years. In this thesis some of these guidelines are interpreted and applied during the development of a Qlik Sense application for the Device Connection Platform department at Ericsson. The purpose of this thesis is to produce more specific guidelines that aim to complement existing general guidelines on Self-service Business Intelligence design; guidelines that should be taken into account when developing Qlik Sense applications. As a result, five guidelines that concerns conditional dimensions, screen resolutions, naming conventions for master items, the data layer and Qlik Sense conventions for visualizations are presented. Pros and cons regarding these guidelines are discussed along with alternative approaches. The conclusion states that the general guidelines interpreted in this project work were helpful for the workflow and readability of the application, but that more specific guidelines such as the ones presented in the result could be well needed when it comes to customizabil ity and flexibility for end users. / Allt eftersom mängden värdefull data som företag har tillgång till ökar har behovet av verktyg som visualiserar dessa data nått en bredare grupp användare, där många är mindre tekniskt kunniga. Self-service Business Intelligence applikationer syftar till att möta detta behov och många generella riktlinjer för hur sådana applikationer ska designas har tagits fram under senare år. I denna rapport blir dessa riktlinjer tolkade och därefter applicerade under tiden av skapandet av en Self-service Business Intelligence applikation i mjukvaran Qlik Sense och för Ericsson Device Connection Platform. Syftet med rapporten är att utforma och presentera specifika riktlinjer för Qlik Sense att användas som komplement till de existerande och mer generella riktlinjerna för design av Self-service Business Intelligence i allmänhet. Rapportens resultat består av fem riktlinjer som avser villkorliga dimensioner, skärmupplösning, namnkonventioner för original, datalagret och Qlik Sense egna konventioner för visualiseringar. Föroch nackdelar med de framtagna riktlinjerna diskuteras tillsammans med alternativa tillvägagångssätt. Vi drar slutsatsen att de generella riktlinjerna som tolkats genom projektet i denna rapport var speciellt hjälpfulla för att uppnå läsbarhet och ett bra arbetsflöde för slutanvändaren i applikationen. Vidare konstateras att fler mjukvaruspecifika riktlinjer kan vara välbehövliga när det kommer till anpassningsbarhet av applikationer och flexibilitet för slutanvändare.