Page 15 - DCAP208_Management Support Systems

Management Support Systems

Notes an acquisition prospect, an interactive DSS used by product planners for capacity planning, a
model-driven DSS used by a brand marketing manager for making marketing allocations, a DSS
(IBM’s Geodata Analysis and Display System called GADS) used by police officers and
commanders in teams of four to redesign police beats, and also GADS used by school officials to
explore and define alternative school district boundaries.
So who uses computerized decision support including analytics and business intelligence systems?
Managers, knowledge workers and staff specialists in a wide variety of professions, occupations,
industries and disciplines. Decision support users include internal and external stakeholders of
an organization. Ultimately, anyone who makes decisions and has access to a computer is a
potential user of a computer-based decision aiding applications.

Self Assessment

State True or False:
7. Identifying the targeted or intended users for computerized decision support does not
helps differentiate the specific system.
8. Anyone who makes decisions and has access to a computer is a potential user of a computer-
based decision aiding applications.
1.4 Concept of Decision Support Systems (DSS)

In the world of business there are so many approaches to decision-making and because of the
wide areas where these systems are used, the concept of decision support systems is very broad.
A DSS can be any system that supports decision-making. We might say that a DSS is a system for
helping people make decisions using a computer.

A Decision Support System is a computerized system that assists in corporate decision making,
with a decision being a choice between alternatives based on the estimated values of those
alternatives. Supporting a decision means to assist people working alone, or in a group, to
gather intelligence, generate alternatives and make choices.
A Decision Support System is a collection of integrated software applications and hardware that
form the backbone of an organization’s decision making process. Companies across all industries
rely on decision support tools, techniques, and models to help them assess and resolve everyday
business questions. The decision support system is data-driven, as the entire process feeds off of
the collection and availability of data to analyze.

Notes Business Intelligence (BI) reporting tools, processes, and methodologies are key
components to any decision support system and provide end users with rich reporting,
monitoring, and data analysis.

Generally, decision support systems are interactive, flexible, and adaptable information systems,
developed to support the solution of non-structured management problems for improved
decision making.

Example: Medical decision making often involves making a diagnosis and selecting an
appropriate treatment.
The closer we get to completely automating our lives, the more crucially we depend upon these
kinds of decision-making to be correct beyond a shadow of a doubt! Imagine a wrong decision

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