Decision Support Systems Overview

If you ever worked for a large company or enterprise, or lead in some capacity, you know that decisions are made every minute of the day over something. Some decisions are just local. Some decisions involve a department, while others involve the whole company. The bottom line is that decisions have to be made everyday. In some cases, making decisions is the hardest part. Some decisions require difficult choices to be made. If you are the manager of a department, director of a division, or CEO of the company, you know the company relies on you making correct decisions that will benefit the company. However, making decisions is harder than anyone realizes. This is where decision support systems can help. A decision support system is an interactive computer-based system that helps decision-makers use communication tools to identify and solve problems. This way they can make correct decisions. What exactly is a decision support system? What makes up the decision support system? To answer these questions, let’s consider these facts first:

 

·        What it is: A decision support system (DSS) covers many systems, tools, and technologies. It is one system that many leaders use in business today. It is a process that helps managers makes decisions based on user input and analysis. The questions involved could be sophisticated, complex, or simple. It depends on the decision to be made. It can involve enterprise-wide DSS or desk-top DSS.

·        Enterprise-wide DSS: These are linked to large, data warehouses, and serve many managers. Most managers can use this system to find out anything about their company in a matter of moments. If you are a manager, you can drill-down in the program, gather data, analyze, and interpret in the information top make decisions. An enterprise-wide DSS can contain fairly simple to complex systems. Some managers have been able to use the DSS as a file drawer so they can gain access to the data they need immediately. Other more sophisticated systems have access to a bunch of databases that provide the information to make decisions.

·        Desk-top DSS: Desk-top DSSs can be very useful in an enterprise. For example, when you use Excel, or some other desktop analyses program, you are using a desk-top DSS. Also, using Microsoft Access to create and manipulate databases is also using a desk-top DSS. The accounting department uses a DSS system. Some top managers use knowledge-based systems as DSSs. These are also referred to as expert systems. These DSSs help to remind managers to use whatever options are available to consider before making a decision.

·        Questions considered: If the decision to be made requires a lot of thinking, many questions may be entered into the system so a more careful analysis can be drawn. For example, what if the manager wanted to know what his department’s sales was for the last five years. He wants the average so he can plan for the upcoming year. All he has to do is input a question about total sales for each year up to five years ago. Then he may put a question to request what the average would be. Wants he gets this information, he can ask what future sales would be liked based on past data.