Information Systems that Really Support Decision-making

Abstract

A decision maker in an enterprise is expected to make decision which have a positive effect on its future. Information systems should support their activities. Today, databases and web-based resources, accessed through effective communications, make information about the past rapidly available. To project the future the decision maker either has to use intuition or employ other tools, and initialize them with information obtained from an information system to such tools. An effective information system should also support forecasting the future. Since choices are to be made, including the case of not doing anything, such a system must also support the comparative assessment of the effects of alternate decisions. We recommend the use of an SQL-like interface language, to access existing tools to assess the future, as spreadsheets and simulations. Making results of simulations as accessible as other resources