Decision Support Systems (DSS) in Organizations

Organizations that have proven to be successful often use Decision Support Systems (DSS) to help with forecasting, sales planning, revenue projection and other problem solving matters that a manager may come across.  DSS refers to a computerized system that gathers and presents data from a wide range of sources within an organization. (2)

In general, the primary components of a decision support system are a database management system, a model-base management system, and the people that will be utilizing the data.  All of these systems must be able to work with data that are internal and external to the organization. (1) Depending on who will be using the data, the systems used could be placed in different classifications:

A Model Driven system is one in which decision makers use statistical simulations models to come up with a solution or strategy. In this type of system, data is not the basis of the model.

A Communications system model is one in that involves a number of people to come up with a series of decisions depending on selected data that is then manipulated to fit the decision maker’s needs. An example would be the number of employees needed to run a call center based on call volume and trends and may vary from quarter to quarter.
A Document Driven system model uses documents such as text documents, spreadsheets, and records.  When all put together, a decision can be made.
A Knowledge Driven system model uses special rules stored in a computer or that a human uses to determine whether a decision should be made.  In the end it will come up with rules or facts that will be used to make a decision. (3)

Resources

1. http://www.answers.com/topic/decision-support-system
2. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/decision_support_system.html
3. http://www.tech-faq.com/decision-support-system.html

Decision Making Methods and/or Approaches

Whether we are making decisions in our personal life or professional life, there is a process that takes place, considering the advantages and disadvantages of the decision.

Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. [1] When you are part of a workforce that a number of employees depend on the decision that you make, you must always take into consideration the decision is the right one and no mistakes can be made.

People in general take several approaches to make a decision. Well, how many steps or approaches does one take make a decision?  There is no specific answer to the question and every situation will vary depending on the complexity of the issue and what we hope the final outcome will be.  Companies these days are so financially constrained the decision is based on costs-How much is it going to cost me to achieve that goal?  This is just one way one may make a decision but depending on the individual, there are several approaches that could be taken:

1. How can I please others?
2. Use intuition.
3. Let someone else make the decision for you.
4. Should I choose the easy way, or more difficult way?
5. Do some research and consider the advantages and disadvantages.
6. Consult with others that have a true opinion.

The first 4 approaches are ones that you may be able to afford and make wrong decision. A successful company will take approaches # 5 and #6 as they are the more intelligent way of making a decision.  According to Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, consult is when you ask for input: “Consulting is a process whereby decision makers invite others to influence them before they make their choice.  You can consult with experts, a representative population, or even everyone who wants to offer an opinion.  Consulting can be an efficient way of gaining ideas and support without bogging down the decision making process.  Wise leaders, parents, and even couples frequently make decisions in this way.  They gather ideas, evaluate options, make a choice, and then inform the broader population.” [2]

Other approaches that are intelligent and have proven to be successful are: To vote or until everyone agrees to the decision. When you the method is one of vote, ensure that you have the best decision makers or matter experts in the room so options are given to the group to make a decision. Making everyone agree to a decision is one that is difficult, depending on whom your audience is.  The advantage though is that you have everyone in agreement and you may unify a group.

I once participated in a Tony Robbins session and one thing that he said that is truly motivational was: “A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”[2]

Resources

1        http://sourcesofinsight.com/4-decision-making-methods/

2        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_making

Web 2.0/Social Networks

Web 2.0/Social Networks

Should one imagine a set of people that created a network to connect with one another to share thoughts, experiences, facts, etc. on a specific interest through the Web, that network becomes a Social Network. A Web 2.0 site is an application that allows the network to be created and for the interaction of its users.

Human beings are a very unique species that have the need to interact with one another and most of us have special interests in life. A social network allows us and gives us the opportunity to explore, participate and learn. The network is created because of a particular interest but some are also very general, simply to have an interaction with our friends, families, or simply because we now can and have interaction, in our own home, with anyone across the globe. Facebook is a social network that most of have an account or at least are familiar with and usually its purpose is to interact with people that we know, or would like to know. Some may consider it the rolodex of the world. Linkedin is a social network that is very specific to business or professionals to get their name and working experiences to manage their careers.

When you explore the type of Social Networks that exist today, and continue to grow, you get a very good picture of the type of people that surround us, the differences in people’s interests within organizations, geographical boundaries, social boundaries and many others. As one explores any one of these areas, they may find an interest that they were not aware of.

Building these Social Networks on a Web 2.0 concept has become so affordable and easy that the concept continues to grow, allowing more users to educate themselves, communicate with each other. There is also a benefit to society itself or organizations that attempt to study the behaviors of human beings and certain patterns. Predictions can be made on social and economical behaviors of communities. When purchasing a product in today’s world, a consumer may take social networks and learn about the product and read other people’s opinion on the product or even the service that a company may perform. This type of interaction is new and can either make or break a business.

Web 2.0 has been accepted globally and more users are using Social Networking sites more than ever. Social Networks and its implementation of Web 2.0 is here to stay and will only become more popular as time goes on.
Sited Sources:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-socialcollab/index.html?ca=drs-

E-Commerce

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)

One of the most important aspects of the internet currently is having the ability to do business electronically, online. This type of business is called e-business or
E-Commerce (1).

There are three categories that E-commerce can be decided into 3 subsets:

1. Business-to-Business (B2B) Transactions between organizations
2. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) Transactions between consumers using a
third party for the transaction
3. Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Transactions between an organization and consumer

Over the past decade, each year is a more profitable one for those companies that do business on-line. It seems to be a more convenient way of doing business with a click of your mouse. “Despite the recession in 2010, e-retailers increased their sales by 9.8% from the previous year, totaling $142.491 billion worth of merchandise, according to Web measuring company comScore” (2).

Business-to-Consumer sites are no longer only about signing on to a companies website and purchasing directly from them. Social Media has become a huge part of advertising and a huge avenue to advertise your product. Since millions of people are signed on to Facebook, companies will advertise their product based on your profile and what you like. Amazon will post on your page products based on what you or your friends have listed as favorite books, authors, etc.

Consumer-to-Consumer Business is on the rise as more individuals and smaller companies have a desire to sell their product at reduced costs, but a profitable market base. As a business, one of the benefits of a C2C e-commerce solution is that you only need to provide the platform to facilitate buyer and interaction. The tedious processes involved in completing a sale such as managing product inventory, order processing and shipping etc are done away with. You as a service provider can earn a commission from every sale that you make. Ebay, Amazon and Craigslist are just some platforms that one may use to sell their product.

There are some disadvantages for C2C transactions. Some, security related but some are simply initiated by scams. “One recent example would the profound “Craigslist Killer” in which a person was purchasing exotic women services only to meet and murder the women giving the service. Though the example is a bit extreme, it nevertheless underlines another disadvantage to the sites is damaged reputation. When things go wrong on C2C e-commerce communities, people can easily spread their stories across the Internet” (3).



Sited Resources
1. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-ebusiness.htm
2. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/17/five-hot-consumer-e-commerce-trends-in-2011/
3. http://sites.google.com/site/b188sjsu/Home/ebusiness/consumer-to-consumer

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing

When we try to define cloud computing at first, it sounds so technical and difficult to explain. However, most of us that use the Internet today are using some sort of Cloud Computing service each and every day. Cloud Computing replaces the traditional applications and platforms that have been used by business over the years and is defined as the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a over a network. (1)

One specific service provided is Software as a Service (SaaS) and it is a new technique in the field of software technology and it enables you to hire any software application only when there is a requirement of such a utility. (2) Companies that use SaaS that are some of the top ones in revenue are Google and Amazon. Amazon went from a company that sold books to now selling any product that you can imagine at the lowest price. What makes the 2 companies more dominating than others is their promise to turn large amounts of operational competency and accumulated economies of scale into a highly competitive new software platform. Salesforce is another company that uses an SaaS service for business to connect with their employees and customers. (3) Radian6 is one of the services that they provide for Social Media Monitoring; track what people are saying about their business, monitor these conversations to better improve their products.

The benefits are great for big companies that want to be more efficient, not having to store the hardware required to run the business or to worry about data memory. Global reach, access from US to China has to the services that you want to provide and are instant, easily accessible. Flexibility to change your business instantly as the demands of your business requires. These businesses that use these services will increase productivity in other areas of the company and have less focus on IT support.

There are disadvantages that I see though in every one of them: privacy-everything that you do on the sites can be monitored and have access to your information. Security is also a concern- remote access is always associated with increased effort and a huge security risk. Companies would need to hire high-tech IT administrators to monitor their data. If there is a security breach, you may put your company in jeopardy.

There are very little improvements that one can recommend without utilizing and understanding the service itself. However, the Scope of search engines and the need to applications to run faster are some things than can always improve. Search engines will not always give you exactly what you are looking for, especially when there are companies that pay to have their services related to your search at the very top of your search!
There is nothing more frustrating than utilizing a system that is slow. In today’s word, some of the areas that a company measures its’ success is by being measured by quantity and speed.

Resources
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
2. http://www.whatissaas.net/
3. http://www.salesforce.com/

Hardware and Software

Mobile System Regimes and Impact on Businesses

Many companies today, regardless of their size, depend of some type of mobile communications in order to succeed and be on the go. We have become a society that wants information or is looking for a service, anytime, anywhere.

A company will establish its databases and software based on their needs or purpose of their existence but working 5 days a week in the office is more so than ever not an option. smartphones. Whether you are a Vice President of a corporation or a doctor that has multiple practices, Androids and Blackberries have become very popular in means of communication. Microsoft Applications are often used in Blackberries to read emails create spreadsheets and have the ability to import or export communications is a way of life today.

Over the past decade, Google has become the dominant force on the web, processing over one billion search requests per day. However, Google's web dominance only extends to desktop PCs, which are slowly being replaced by mobile devices, with over 3 times more mobile devices than desktops being sold each year. The Android is Google strategy to extend its reach into the rapidly expanding mobile market. (1)


For Blackberry users, the latest and greatest phone is the Curve 9360 which will offer a BB-licious physical full QWERTY keyboard, in addition to the BlackBerry 7 OS. Other specs include 800 MHz processor, optical trackpad, 5MP camera with flash, VGA vid capture, NFC, 512 MB RAM, support for microSD cards (up to 32GB) and a 2.44-inch display (360 x 480 pixels, Liquid Graphics). (2)

In conjunction with all the smartphones, it’s important which applications are available to be used on each one. This depends on how you want to enhance your business A perfect example of how a certain application can increase productivity, lower expenses and increase customer service is an app called Xora, www.xora.com. This application allows construction companies to track the GPS location and activities of mobile workers, allowing companies to do GPS tracking, wireless timecards, job tracking, and data capture. (3)

1. http://philbyrne.articlesbase.com/cell-phones-articles/the-potential-impact-of-android-on-the-mobile-application-development-industry-1911886.html

2. http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/blackberry/blackberry-curve-9360-to-hit-tmo-shelves-sept-28/

3. http://www.constructech.com/news/articles/article.aspx?article_id=8752

Information Concepts

Working in the Corporate America today, I deeply rely on information. I can do my job unless I have valuable information that is easily accessible to me, accurate and most important, complete.

A company can not survive financially unless the information they have is accurate and in today’s world, it needs to be economical. Sometimes there are many debates whether or not there is a “work around” in order to get the information that is needed by collecting all the relevant facts, or better know as data [1] to come up with information that will help us with make a decision on how to manage our business.

An example of how I personally use information that receive from several reports is when I need to Manage a Call Center and the appropriate times that I need a certain amount of employees on the phones. I know the facts (data), how many employees do I have, I know my hours of operation (data), I know the amount of calls that I receive within a half hour increments (information received from other collection of data). Now, that I have all the facts, I have information that will assist me in making a decision on the amount of representatives that I need, per half hour increments, because the information that I get, will tell me which half hour increments are the busiest during my hours of operation.

In addition to the above, I will notice patterns [2] and trends [3], depending on the day of the week, month, etc. That is valuable information that will also assist me in making decision on staff coverage. Once again, without information, we would be making decisions that most likely would be inaccurately forecasting Call Center coverage.

Content

1. Data-A collection of numbers, characters, images or other outputs from devices that collect information to convert physical quantities into symbols. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data
2. Patterns-a combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, etc., forming a consistent or characteristic arrangement.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pattern

3. Trends-A general tendency or inclination.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trends