Chapter 12 - Enhancing Decision Making
In your position of office manager at a legal firm, you are in charge of hiring temporary legal assistants and clerical workers. Describe how Simon's decision-making process applies to this decision. Could that decision be aided by an information system in any way?
The decision-making process is: 1.Intelligence: How many temps need to be hired, for how long, and what skills would they need? 2.Design: What temp agencies are available and what are their prices? 3.Choice: Evaluate the offerings of the temp agencies, and evaluate the abilities of temps as per need. 4.Implementation: Evaluate the work of each temp against assignments and other needs. An information system that displayed the temps available for hire along with pertinent information such as rate, and past assignments and evaluations would help in this process.
You are evaluating BI software from a variety of vendors. Identify six elements in the BI environment. Use your understanding of the importance of these elements to formulate six questions to ask the vendor in order to determine how their software will interplay with your needs.
The six elements are: 1. Data from the business environment. A question for a salesperson is: "How does your software integrate with our data?" 2. Business intelligence infrastructure. "What type of database system does your software use?" 3. Business analytics toolset. "What tools are included?" 4. Managerial users and methods. "Our management team uses these metrics. Does your software provide that?" 5. Delivery platform: "How does your software integrate with our platforms?" 6. User interface: "What are the elements of your user interface and what delivery methods are used - mobile, social media, web portal, etc."
You are an analyst for a firm that imports and distributes specialty oils and vinegars and your company wants you to evaluate their options for taking advantage of cutting edge business analytics. What are their choices? What will you recommend?
There are two strategies for adopting BI and BA capabilities: 1. an integrated solution or 2.using multiple best-of-breed vendor software solutions. The hardware firms want to sell you integrated hardware/software solutions that run on their hardware (the totally integrated solution). Software firms will want to sell you "best of breed" software that runs on any machine they want. In this strategy, you adopt the best database and data warehouse solution, and select the best business intelligence and analytics package from whatever vendor you believe is best.
A pivot table is
a spreadsheet tool that displays two or more dimensions of data in a convenient format
A well-designed ESS will allow management to
all of the above
Business intelligence would be useful for analyzing and decision making in which of the following situations
all of the above
The leading methodology for understanding the really important information needed by a firm's executives is called the ___ method
balanced scorecard
Which of the following is not one of the five main analytic functionalities of BI systems for helping decision makers understand information and take action
business case archives
The five classical functions of managers are planning, organizing, deciding, controlling, and
coordinating
___ are visual tools for presenting performance data in a BI system
dashboards and scorecards
The role of entrepreneur falls into which of Mintzberg's managerial classificaitons
decisional
Predictive analytics is used for all of the following except
determine the bets routes for product delivery
MIS typically produce
fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted from the organization's TPS
ESS
have the ability to drill down into lower levels of details
Which types of decisions are automated for high-velocity decision making
highly-structured decisions
GDSS
implement structured methods for organizing and evaluating ideas
Which of the following is a disadvantage of high-velocity, automated decision-making systems
inability to control themselves and respond new environments
In contrast to the classical model of management, behavioral models see the actual behavior of managers as being more
informal
As discussed in the chapter text, the three main reasons that investments in information technology do not always produce positive results are
information quality, organizational culture, and management filters
The concerns that the structure of data is consistent within an information source reflects which quality dimension of information
integrity
Which phase decision making finds or recognizes a problem, need, or opportunity
intelligence
Simon's description of decision making consists of which four stages
intelligence, design, choice, and implementation
The role of liaison falls into which of Mintzberg's managerial classificaitons
interpersonal
Mintzberg's classification of managerial roles outlines which three of the main categories
interpersonal, informational, and decisional
Which of the following are most likely to rely primarily on the drill-down functionality of BI for the their decision-making needs
managers
Which of the following is not one of the 5 observed ways in which managerial behavior differs from the classical description of managers
managers prefer regular, written reports on firm activities
Which of the following managerial roles is not supported by information systems
negotiator
According to Mintzberg, managers in their informational role act as
nerve centers of the organization
Which of the following are most likely to rely primarily on production reports for their decision-making needs
operational employees and supervisors
Which of the following is not one of the six main elements in the business intelligence environment discussed in the chapter
organizational element
Which of the following is not an example of BI predefined production report
revenue forecasts
The decisions involved in creating and producing a corporate intranet can be classified as ____ decisions
semistructured
Checking store inventory is an example of a ___ decision
structured
The type of decision that can made by following a definite procedure is called a ___ decision
structured
Which type of decision is calculating gross pay for hourly workers
structured
Which of the following companies is not one of the top five producers of business intelligence and analytics products
sun
Which of the following systems support a manger's role as leader of an organization
telepresence
An essential component in the ability of GDSS to contribute to a collaborative environment is
the guarantee of user anonymity
Which of the following statements best describes the term business intelligence
the infrastructure for collecting and managing business data
Explain why even well-designed information systems do not always help improve a firm's decision making.
three main reasons for information systems not always producing positive results: 1. information quality 2. management filters 3. organizational inertia/politics.
Behavioral models of managers find that, from observations, managers
typically work in a fragmented manner, with only 10% of activities exceeding an hour in duration
The decision to approve a capital budget is an example of a ___ decision
unstructured
When there is no well-understood or agreed-on procedure for making a decision, it is aid to be
unstructured
Which type of decision is deciding whether to introduce a new product line
unstructured
The concerns that data values of an information source fall within a defined range reflects which quality dimension of information
validity
Which of the following describes how the Simon framework of decision-making works in high-velocity decision environments
All four steps of the process are handled by software algorithms; humans are eliminated from the decisions because they are too slow
The management methodology of using a firm's strategy to generate operational targets for the business and measuring progress towards them using the firms enterprise systems is called
BPM
What is the business value of a DSS?
DSS can help companies improve supply chain management and customer relationship management. Some take advantage of the company-wide data provided by enterprise systems. DSS today can also harness the interactive capabilities of the Web to provide decision-support tools to both employees and customers.
The information used by Caesar's Entertainment, which combines data from internal TPS with information from financial systems and external sources to deliver reports such as profit-loss statements and impact analyses, is an example of
ESS
Which of the following types of systems would be used to present senior marketing executives with in-depth information about customer retention, satisfaction, and quality performance?
ESS
GDSS
Enable increasing a meeting size without reducing productivity
Which type of information system uses data visualization technology to analyze and display data for planning and decision making in the form digitized maps
GIS
What is a GIS? Describe at least three ways in which a GIS could be used by modern business.
Geographic information systems are a special category of DSS that use data visualization technology to analyze and display data for planning and decision making in the form of digitized maps. GIS can best be used to support decisions that require knowledge about the geographic distribution of people or other resources
Which of the following statements best describes the business value of improved decision making?
Improved decision making results in a large monetary value for the firm as numerous small daily decisions affecting efficiency, production, costs, and more add up to large annual values
Measures defined by management and used to internally evaluate the success of a firm's financial, business process, customer, and learning and growth are aclled
KPIs
An information system for a building company that tracks construction costs for various projects across the US would be categorized as a type of
MIS
Describe MIS and DSS and differentiate between them.
MIS provide information on the firm's performance to help managers monitor and control the business. They typically produce hard copy, fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted and summarized from the organization's underlying transaction processing systems. DSS provide new sets of capabilities for nonroutine decisions and user control. MIS accents reports based on routine flows of data and assists in the general control of the organization. DSS emphasizes change, flexibility, and rapid response to unstructured problems.
A key business decision in your sporting goods manufacturing company is determining what suppliers to use for your raw materials. How can you determine if a manager in charge of selecting suppliers is making the best choice?
One way to determine the manager's choice is to find out what he or she is basing their decision on: price, quality, schedule, relationship, etc. Then you could find out how those measurements of the supplier qualities are made—is the data about the suppliers accurate information. You could evaluate the data informing the decision along the information quality dimensions: accuracy, integrity, consistency, completeness, validity, timeliness, and accessibility.
Describe the balanced scorecard model and its role in ESS.
The balanced score card is a framework for operationalizing a firm's strategic plan by focusing on measurable outcomes on four dimensions of firm performance: financial, business process, customer, and learning and growth. Performance on each dimension is measured using key performance indicators (KPIs).
