Final blogpost #2

Management Information System (MIS) is a subset of the overall internal controls of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures by management accountants to solving business problems such as costing a product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management Information Systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization.

MIS' is a planned system of collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data in the form of information needed to carry out the functions of management.

Decision Support System (DSS) is a computer program application that analyzes business data and presents it so that users can make business decisions more easily. It is an "informational application" (to distinguish it from an "operational application" that collects the data in the course of normal business operation).Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would be:

• Comparative sales figures between one week and the next
• Projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions
• The consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a context that is described

A decision support system may present information graphically and may include an expert system or artificial intelligence . It may be aimed at business executives or some other group of knowledge workers.

The term decision support system has been used in many different ways and has been defined in various ways depending upon the author's point of view.

A DSS can take many different forms. In general, we can say that a DSS is a computerized system for helping make decisions. A decision is a choice between alternatives based on estimates of the values of those alternatives. Supporting a decision means helping people working alone or in a group gather intelligence, generate alternatives and make choices. Supporting the choice making process involves supporting the estimation, the evaluation and/or the comparison of alternatives. In practice, references to DSS are usually references to computer applications that perform such a supporting role.

Through this 5 benefits of DSS it can improve company's competitive advantage and organizational performance:

1. Improving Personal Efficiency
2. Expediting Problem Solving
3. Facilitating Interpersonal Communication
4. Promoting Learning or Training
5. Increasing Organizational Control

Example:
Web-based and Web-enabled DSS are more accessible and as powerful as DSS built using client/server technologies.

A first generation web-based GDSS, TCBWorks (cf., Dennis, 1998), was available for academic use in the mid-90s,

References

Dennis, Alan R., "Lessons from Three Years of Web Development", Communications of the ACM, v41, n7, July 1998, pp. 112-113.

Power, D., "Where can I find or download a DSS demo?" DSS News, 01/05/2003.

Power, D. and S. Kaparthi, "Building Web-based Decision Support Systems", Studies in Informatics and Control, Vol. 11, Number 4, Dec. 2002, pp. 291-302, URL http://www.ici.ro/ici/revista/sic2002_4/art1.pdf