Internal Data page 98

The term “internal data” is used here to denote any information useful to the decision-making process found within the company.

http://www.gestiondesarts.com/index.php?id=783

Levels of DSS models - Strategic, Tactical, Operational page 105

http://www.smallbusinesshq.com.au/factsheet/20305-Tips-on-Strategic-Tactical-and-Operational-Decision-Making.htm

Strategic Decisions - 'What?'

Strategic decisions deal with the big picture of your business. The focus of strategic decisions is typically external to the business and usually future oriented. Strategic decision-making creates the forward thrust in the business.

It includes decisions about:

• What business are you in?
• What is your vision for the business?
• What's your business' identity?
• What do you stand for?
• Which direction is the business headed?
• How will the business compete?

Corporations often capture their overall business strategy in a "Statement of Intent" and it's an excellent term for describing what strategic decision-making is. Too often people confuse strategic decisions with tactical decisions and fail to really examine the big picture. It can lead to stagnation in the business and an inability to move forward.

Top managers

Tactical Decisions - 'How?'

Tactical decisions involve the establishment of key initiatives to achieve the overall strategy. For example, if you have decided to be the Number 1 provider in your market (a strategic decision) then you will develop tactics (e.g. implement a marketing system, increase number of therapists) to achieve that outcome. In a small business you may have 4 or 5 key tactics that you are going to use to achieve your overall strategy.

Again this layer of decision-making can sometimes be overlooked yet it is the glue that creates a strong connection between your long-term vision and your day-to-day activities. Tactical decision-making is the domain of 'mission' statements.

Think in terms of the battlefields from which the term has emerged. The overall strategy, that is, what the army is there to do, is to win the war. Then you have a number of 'missions' you send troops on, preferably diplomatic ones, the cumulative effect of which is intended to win the war.

Operational Decisions - 'How will we deploy resources?'

Operational decisions determine how activities actually get done. They are the 'grass roots' decisions about who is going to do what and when. It includes:

• How will we spend our money this month?
• How will we service that client?
• What is our procedure for delivering an order?
• Who will be doing quality control?

If you are making decisions involving processes and procedures they are usually operational decisions. Operational decisions are often made in 'real time' and are the result of needing to make quick adjustments or change to achieve the desired outcome.

http://www.enotes.com/business-finance-encyclopedia/decision-making

STRATEGIC, TACTICAL, AND OPERATIONAL DECISIONS

People at different levels in a company have different types of decision-making responsibilities.

Strategic decisions, which affect the long-term direction of the entire company, are typically made by top managers. Examples of strategic decisions might be to focus efforts on a newproduct or to increase production output. These types of decisions are often complex and the outcomes uncertain, because available information is often limited. Managers at this level must often depend on past experiences and their instincts when making strategic decisions.

Tactical decisions, which focus on more intermediate-term issues, are typically made by middle managers. The purpose of decisions made at this level is to help move the company closer to reaching the strategic goal. Examples of tactical decisions might be to pick an advertising agency to promote a newproduct or to provide an incentive plan to employees to encourage increased production.

Operational decisions focus on day-to-day activities within the company and are typically made by lower-level managers. Decisions made at this level help to ensure that daily activities proceed smoothly and therefore help to move the company toward reaching the strategic goal. Examples of operational decisions include scheduling employees, handling employee conflicts, and purchasing rawmaterials needed for production.

It should be noted that in many "flatter" organizations, where the middle management level has been eliminated, both tactical and operational decisions are made by lower-level management and/or teams of employees.

Regression analysis

regression analysis refers to techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.

Regression analysis is widely used for prediction (including forecasting of time-series data).

from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis

ass 2 links

http://dssresources.com/

http://dssresources.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&id=56

http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk/glossary/decision-support-systems.htm

Methods of handling multiple goals page 159

With some methods, the decision maker needs to search the solution space for an alternative that provides the required attainmemt of all goals while searching for an efficient solution.

Utility theory : Utility theory is an attempt to infer subjective value, or utility, from choices. Utility theory can be used in both decision making under risk (where the probabilities are explicitly given) and in decision making under uncertainty (where the probabilities are not explicitly given). More...

Goal programming : It can be thought of as an extension or generalisation of linear programming to handle multiple, normally conflicting objective measures. Each of these measures is given a goal or target value to be achieved. More...

Expression of goals as constraints

A points system

Decision Trees page 149

Alternative representation of the desicion table.

http://mindtools.com

Shows the relationships of the problems graphically and can handle complex situations in a compact form.

Can be cumbersome if there are many alternatives

Decision making under risk page 144

Probabilistic

• From wiki: is a way of expressing knowledge or belief that an event will occur or has occurred. More...

Stochastic

• from wiki: A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. More...

Decision maker must consider several possible outcomes for each alternative, each with a given probability of occurance.

qualitative models

http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/papers/QualEncyclo.htm

Quantitative models

Quantitative models

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=209082

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_analyst

Environmental Scanning and analysis page 138

Monitoring, scanning and interpreatation of collected data.

From wiki:
Environmental scanning is a process of gathering, analyzing, and dispensing information for tactical or strategic purposes. The environmental scanning process entails obtaining both factual and subjective information on the business environments in which a company is operating or considering entering. more...

Modeling with decision tables

A tabular representation of a decision.

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_table

Can model multiple criteria decisions

Features include:

• Decision variables (alternatives)
• Uncontrollable variables
• Result variables

Applies principles of certainty, uncertainty, and risk

Modeling with spreadsheets page 145

see Modelling and Analysis.ppt

Spreadsheets are a computerised mathematical and data management tool.

• An end-user modeling tool.
• Flexible and ‘easy’ to use.
• Supports complex mathematical methods.
• Can be used to implement linear programming techniques.
• Supports complex statistical and regression analysis methods.
• Provides services like what-if analysis, data-base management, automation macros.
• Can be used for static and dynamic modeling.
• risk analysis can be incorporated
  

Models can be developed and implemented in a variey of programming languages and systems.

Spreadsheets include extensive forecatsing, statistical and other modeling and databse management capabilities, functions and routines. As spreadsheet packages eveolved, add-ins were develpoed for structuring and solving specific model classes.

DSS related add-ins

Most popular end user modeling tool, incorporates many power financial statistical, mathematical and other functions.

Spreadsheets can perform model solution tasks such as:

1. Linear programming
Informally, linear programming determines the way to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a given mathematical model and given some list of requirements represented as linear equations.
from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_programming

2. Regression analysis
regression analysis refers to techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.
from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis

Other features:

• what-if analysis

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/excel/HA102431641033.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/CH010004551033.aspx
http://www.informit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=B4C8DE7D-3AC1-45CD-8F4A-1F31714AA61A
http://www.sskkii.gu.se/publications/Documents/html/dynwhatif/

• goal-seeking: Indicating a taget cell,its desired value and changing a cell.
  
• datamanagement
• programmability (macros)

Most OLAP systems ahev the look and feel of advance spreadsheet software.

Most spreadsheet packages provide seemless integration beciase they read and write common file structures and easily interface with databases.