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Decision Support Systems for Executives

By Alice LaPlante

Keeping a business on course and profitable requires a corporate leader to make judicious decisions at every step. It's no surprise, then, that decision support systems (DSS), long used at the operational levels of enterprises, have matured enough to become part of executives' everyday tools.

"Although some people think the term DSS is dated -- preferring to call it business intelligence, performance management, executive information system or some other name -- DSS is still a useful way to inclusively describe a broad variety of automated systems specifically designed to support decision-making," says Dan Power, editor of Decision Support Systems Resources, based in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

The Difference Is in the Data
When compared to DSS systems designed for the rank-and-file, executive DSS systems are much more visual. They focus on graphical representations of key metrics to help executives digest a lot of information quickly, according to William McKnight, senior vice president of information management at CSI, a systems consulting firm based in Plano, Texas. "In many, if not most cases, executives don't have the time to drill down into the data, but instead want to get to a quick conclusion," he says. (article continues)

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