BUSINESS PERFORMANCE AND FINANCIAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT THROUGH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Research background: Globalisation and the development of technology introduce new requirements for effective business management. Every business must constantly adapt to the environment, analyse and know its competitors and its customers’ requirements, and meet other stakeholders’ commitments. An unsuccessful business will go into liquidation. The intention of any business should be not only to avoid this situation, but to thrive and prosper and create value for its shareholders. Purpose of the paper: The aim of this study is to propose an appropriate tool for cluster analysis and determine the ability of a business to survive a potential financial distress. Methods: Details from financial statements of construction companies operating in the period 2015-2019 in the Czech Republic are analysed. Attention is mainly directed to items that represent the capital and asset structures of a company, liquid assets, and the ability to generate sales and profit. Artificial neural networks in the form of Kohonen networks are used for the purpose of cluster analysis. Financial analysis is used to examine the underlying dataset as well as for a detailed analysis of selected clusters, i.e. the contribution margin and ratio indicators. Findings & Value added: The basic analysis clearly shows that companies in liquidation attempt to reduce the value of inventories and engage additional foreign capital with a view to survival, while there is a certain solidarity between companies’ key persons. Cluster analysis using Kohonen networks is quite successful. The present methodology and approach can still be applied to the design of an enterprise decision support tool. Further research may study whether the representation of businesses in the different clusters will change over time, or whether the development of the construction industry can indeed be predicted based on an analysis of the leaders.

Artificial Intelligence for Cluster Analysis: Case Study of Transport Companies in Czech Republic

What is the situation of the transport sector in the Czech Republic and what is its importance for the economy of the Czech Republic? How and to what extent do businesses operating in this sector influence the sector as such, and how many businesses in this sector have such influence? Additionally, what happens if the most important businesses in the transport sector go bankrupt, and which businesses are the most important ones? Searching for the answers to these questions is a subject of this contribution, focusing primarily on the cluster analysis using artificial neural networks (ANN), specifically with Kohonen networks, which represent the main method for processing a large volume of not only accounting data on transport companies. In this research, the dataset consists of the financial statements of transport companies for the years 2015–2018. The research part of the contribution deals mainly with the issue of the transport sector’s development in the years 2015–2018 with the companies operating in this sector and tries to identify the most important companies in terms of their importance for this sector. The results show that the whole transport sector is influenced mainly by the two largest companies, whose potential changes can affect companies themselves but to a great extent also the development of the whole transport sector. For the two companies, financial analysis is carried out using ratios, whose results show that despite the negative values of the important value generators of one of these companies, the company is still able to significantly influence the situation in the transport sector of the CR. This information is a clear guide for experts, development analysts, to determine the further development of the whole sector when focusing on the development of the two specific companies only. A question arises as to how the created model can be applied to other economic sectors, especially in other EU countries.

Application of clustering algorithms to analyze the customer base of the store

This paper analyzes the buyers of the BigCar store, which sells spare parts for trucks, using clustering methods. The algorithms of k-means, g-means, EM and construction of Kohonen networks are considered. For their implementation, the Loginom Community analytical platform is used. Based on sales data for 3 years, buyers are divided into 3 clusters by implementing the k-means, EM algorithms and building a self-organizing Kohonen network. An EM algorithm was also performed with automatic determination of the number of clusters and g-means, which divided buyers into 9 and 10 clusters. The analysis of the resulting clusters showed that the results of the k-means and Kohonen algorithms are better suited to increase sales efficiency.

Analysis of Transportation Companies in the Czech Republic by the Kohonen Networks – Identification of Industry Leaders

Computational models of artificial neural networks are currently used in different areas. Accuracy of results exceeds the performance of traditional statistical techniques. Artificial neural networks as the Kohonen map may be used e.g. to identify industry leaders, thus replacing the traditional cluster analysis and other methods. The aim of this contribution is to analyse the transportation industry in the Czech Republic by the Kohonen networks and identify industry leaders. The data file contains results - division of companies into a total of 100 clusters. Each cluster is subjected to analysis of absolute indicators and several parameters, average, as well as absolute, are examined. In total, 88 firms may be considered as industry leaders. Consequently, a fairly small group of companies has a strong influence on development of the whole transportation industry in the Czech Republic.

Applying topic model combined with Kohonen networks to discover and visualize communities on social networks

Users are members of communities on social networks. Users’ interested topics keep changing, resulting in the change of their communities’ interested topics as well. Level, period of time, and interested topics represent features of a community which (i) change upon preferences of each user on social networks for making friends or being interested in topics (based on message content); (ii) are formed or change from online groups of friends or the suggestions to make friends. Hence, the link of users in communities can be viewed as a network of users by their features in social network communities. In this paper, the author studies and proposes a new model for discovering communities using Temporal-Author-Recipient-Topic (TART) model combined with Kohonen neural networks to discover communities of users with the same interested topics over different periods of time. The research goal is achieved through testing models on two Vietnamese datasets (collected from social networks at universities and online newspapers).

Application of Kohonen networks for clustering of the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship districts in terms of the level of socio-economic development

The author presents the possibilities of using artificial neural networks in a multidimensional analysis – cluster analysis. The empirical example using districts of the Zachodniopomorskie (West Pomeranian) Voivodeship is the illustration of theoretical considerations. The study used statistical data from many areas related to socio-economic development: demography, labour market, natural environment, recreation, culture, social and technical infrastructure, and the economy. The aim of the study was to divide the voivodeship into disjointed typological groups of districts using Kohonen networks (Self-Organizing Maps). Several networks differing in structure of the output layer were constructed and trained. Selected diagnostic features of socio-economic development of districts were their input values. Using verified Kohonen networks, various sets of groups of the researched objects were created, and confirmed them are a useful tool for identifying clusters of districts similar to each other in terms of the level of socio-economic development.

Belemnites of the Neobelemnella kazimiroviensis group – a comparison of the self-organizing Kohonen networks algorithm with the classic palaeopopulation statistical approach and approaching their origin

Belemnites of the Neobelemnella kazimiroviensis group were classified applying the Artificial Neural Networks method, the self-organizing Kohonen algorithm. Four species are distinguished, Neobelemnella kazimiroviensis (Skołozdrówna, 1932), Neobelemnella pensaensis (Naidin, 1952), Neobelemnella skolozdrownae (Kongiel, 1962), and Neobelemnella aff. kazimiroviensis (Skołozdrówna, 1932). The first two species occur in the Upper Maastrichtian of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan), Russia, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. N. skolozdrownae is limited to Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, while N. aff. kazimiroviensis occurs in the Volga Basin (Russia) and Kazakhstan. The evolution of the N. kazimiroviensis group from a member of the Belemnella praearkhangelskii group of Central Russia or Kazakhstan or from the Belemnitella americana group from New Jersey (USA) is discussed applying Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and Multidimensional Comparative Analysis. A member of the Bt. americana group – ? Neo-belemnella subfusiformis (Whitfield, 1892) – is referred to the genus Neobelemnella Naidin, 1975 albeit with a query. This supports the hypothesis that the N. kazimiroviensis group could have evolved from a North American precursor.

The application of Kohonen networks for identification of leaders in the trade sector in Czechia

Research background: The trade sector is considered to be the power of economy, in developing countries in particular. With regard to the Czech Republic, this field of the national economy constitutes the second most significant employer and, at the same time, the second most significant contributor to GNP. Apart from traditional methods of business analyzing and identifying leaders, artificial neural networks are widely used. These networks have become more popular in the field of economy, although their potential has yet to be fully exploited. Purpose of the article: The aim of this article is to analyze the trade sector in the Czech Republic using Kohonen networks and to identify the leaders in this field. Methods: The data set consists of complete financial statements of 11,604 enterprises that engaged in trade activities in the Czech Republic in 2016. The data set is subjected to cluster analysis using Kohonen networks. Individual clusters are subjected to the analysis of absolute indicators and return on equity which, apart from other, shows a special attraction of individual clusters to potential investors. Average and absolute quantities of individual clusters are also analyzed, which means that the most successful clusters of enterprises in the trade sector are indicated. Findings & Value added: The results show that a relatively small group of enter-prises enormously influences the development of the trade sector, including the whole economy. The results of analyzing 319 enterprises showed that it is possible to predict the future development of the trade sector. Nevertheless, it is also evident that the trade sector did not go well in 2016, which means that investments of owners are minimal.