MIS AND THE BENEFITS OF DSS
MIS AND THE BENEFITS OF DSS
· The DSS is a special class of system which is used as a support in decision-making. Many of the decision-making situations, at all levels of management, are such that its occurrence is in frequent but the methodology of decision-making is known. Some of the methods are proven and are widely used. Such applications are separated and are packed in the DSS.
· These systems are data from the general MIS and they are used by a manager or a decision maker for decision support. The basic characteristic of the DSS is that it is based on some tool, techniques or model. These systems are used sometimes for testing new alternatives, training, and learning. They are also used for sensing the various parameters of the model.
· The MIS designer has to look for all such situations and design the DSS for integration in the system. The MIS would become more useful if the decision-making is made person-independent and executed system covers the normal variety of decision situations. If anything outside the considered variety crops up. DSS will bring to be notified of the decision makers that actions are called for in the situation.
· When the decision situation requires multidimensional analysis using the internal and external data, then such DSS are kept out of the main MIS design scope. Most of these situations call for the use of models and the nature of the decision is strategic, calling for the planned activity.
· Decisions like a new product launch, price revision, appointing new dealers, change of product design or change in the manufacturing process are strategic decisions which require artificial analysis of data, careful evaluation of various alternatives and selecting one of them for implementation on the given criteria.
· The DSS plays a dominant role in the management information system, as a support to decision makers.
THE BENEFITS OF DSS
One strong reason for using DSS is that existing information system and MIS are not sufficient for meeting all the needs of information and decision-making. Decision maker still has to look for additional information, analysis and a model for decision-making in certain of a situation. Exception reporting and controlling by using standards and targets are useful to some extends in decision-making. The single largest benefit of DSS is that it raises the capability of the decision maker to make the right rational decisions. The capability is built due to several abilities DSS provides to the decision maker to deal with the program:
· Ability to view data/information in different dimensions and sensing the problem, trend, pattern through different views
· Ability to understand and assess business performance and various results in terms of cause and effect, and enabling to define the problem
· Ability to understand the problem and its results, and the ability to judge the impact on business
· Ability to assess the impact of any change in the business performance and enabling to focus on the areas where the impact is negative
· Ability to view a complex situation or problem and to design a model to analyze the problem, develop alternatives to solve the problem, test the solution and to conduct sensitivity analysis
· Ability to make better decisions due to quick analysis, modeling, developing alternatives and testing for selection
· Ability to control the risk exposure in decisions
All these abilities together make a decision maker a capable person to handle any complex business situation or problem. DSS enables managers to construct databases for the ad-hoc (informal) query, reporting analysis, viewing and modeling the data to describe and understand the decision-making scenario. The manager through DSS builds capability to execute the decision-making process “intelligent-design-choice” built by Herbert Simon.
MAJOR FUNCTIONS OF MIS
1. DSS can be used to identify relationships among the key elements of the problems.
2. Determining the sensitivity of the result to change in decision variables
3. DSS can be used to estimate the impact on sales, budget or introducing a product into a new market.
4. Developing models of business process
