Decision support system
Decision making is one of the activities that take place within organizations on a daily basis, and it is one of the major roles that corporation’s manager or the management team is involved in, and entrusted to carry out for the corporation. As a result, therefore, there have been many opinions and approaches towards this activity, since it carries a lot of weight and relevant for corporations. It is also necessary to note beforehand, that decision making is one of the most essential roles for every corporation, as it involves taking major steps towards the achievement of the corporation’s set goals and objectives. In this case, therefore, many corporations, especially in middle level and large scale corporations and organizations, have adopted the decision support system (Information Builders, 2012).
The decision support system, otherwise referred to as the DSS, is a computerized info system, which supports a company or organization’s decision making steps, process and activities. As it has already been highlighted before, there are several activities and processes that take place in every organization, irrespective of its size, with the help, assistance and monitoring of the corporation’s managers. These activities include planning, management, decision making and operations, and each of these activities take place at their own distinct levels. Some of these activities and processes in the organizations might be inconsistent changing rapidly, constantly and unexpectedly. There are various reasons that normally lead to these unexpected changes, and these are some of the reasons why corporations have adopted the system, and some of the reasons for these changes include the current inconsistent changes I the world economy, the consistent and rapid developments and changes in the information and computer technology field (which leads to changes in the corporation’s activities and setting) as well as other internal changes that might affect the corporation, leading to changes of the same. The role of the Decision Support System is top therefore, monitor and effectively manage all these changes, in order to maintain the corporations’ activities at an optimum (Turban, 2010).
One of the most essential things to note before adopting a decision support system for an organization is to note the fact that the support system can operate in a number of ways, whereby it can be fully computerized, manually (human) operated, or in other cases, depending with the operations of the corporation and the activities that take place at the organization, the decision system can be a combination of both the human and the computerized systems. This is one of the major advantages of adopting the system, because it serves to fit the corporation in accordance with the organization of the corporation (Turban & Aronson, 2004).
It is necessary to note the fact that there have been other decision making systems that various companies, organizations and corporations have adopted to assist them in decision making, as well as keeping a trail on the changes taking place in the corporation, and these include expert system, knowledge base system, as well as group decision support systems. However, the decision support system has been found to be one of the most effective and adoptable support systems, based on several properties. Firstly, it is necessary to note the fact that the system is flexible, and versatile in various ways. For example, the support system adopts the computerized and manual systems, as well as a combination of both. This is necessary because it makes it applicable in the small scale, middle level and even the large scale corporations (Turban, 2010).
In this case, therefore, no size of corporation will be affected by the level of development or function ability of the corporation, as the corporation can adopt the system irrespective of its level of information and computer technology advancement in its strategies and operations. At the same time, the decision support system is an interactive software, and its main role is to assist the decision makers to collect and compile only the useful information from raw data collected in the field, for example during research. At the same time, personal knowledge, skill and opinion, information from documents as well as other sources are considered raw data, and the decision support systems assists in analyzing the same, in order to come up with only the useful information to be used in any project or purpose, thereby adopting only the information that is verified as relevant. This is one of the reasons why many corporations, especially in the twenty first century, have adopted this system (Turban & Aronson, 2004).
In conclusion, some of the unique roles that the system can perform and that give it an upper hand compare to the other three earlier mentioned systems include accessing and assessing all the information assets in a corporation’s database, comparing information (quantitative information) between one period and the next (for example on weekly basis), projecting revenue figures and guiding the corporation’s management team on the possible consequences arising from various decisions, based on past experiences and outcomes from similar or related decisions (Information Builders, 2012). This system has, therefore, come in handy and helpful to organizations, and has been adopted since it assists in not only planning, but also time saving and forecasting on the future trends of the corporations.
References
Information Builders. (2012). “Decision Support System: DSS.” Information Builders. Retrieved from http://www.informationbuilders.com/decision-support-systems-dss on April 3rd, 2013.
Turban, E. (2010). Decision Support and Business Intelligence Systems (9th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Press, pp. 233-43.
Turban, E., & Aronson, J. (2004). Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems (7th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Press, pp. 146-48.
