Decision SUpport and Business Intelligence Support Exam Questions and Answers

Business Pressures-Responses-Support Model - Answer- -pressures from changing business environment -responses to those pressures -support to help facilitate this process major factors in today's business environment - Answer- govt regulation, market conditions, consumer demand, competition etc. major response activities - Answer- business models, new partnerships, , strategy, response, agility, increased productivity, new vendors etc. 3 major managerial roles - Answer- informational, decisional, interpersonal informational - Answer- monitor disseminator spokesperson decisional - Answer- entrepreneur disturbance handler resource allocator negotiator interpersonal - Answer- figurehead leader liaison 4 steps in decision making - Answer- 1. define the problem 2. construct a model identify possible solutions compare, choose, and recommend a solution capabilities of computing that can facilitate managerial decisional making - Answer- speedy computations(software that can analyze large amounts of data quickly and show you results) improved communication and collaboration increased productivity of group members(don't have to do things by hand) improved data management (data warehouse) quality support; agility support overcoming cognitive limits in processing and storing information(ex: turning 100 row table to a graph to understand) using the web; anywhere, anytime support Structured Decisions - Answer- you know what you need to do and you have all the information to get the solution (ex: you know all the customers who haven't made their loan payments on time. can just look at the spreadsheet) AR/AP, order entry semistructured decisions - Answer- you don't have all of the information (ex: we sell 5 different products. Which products should be focused on? Not a perfectly definable problem. But not everything is unknown) -production scheduling, inventory control unstructured decisions - Answer- when you have very little or no information to help with a decision (ex: your company wants to invest in a completely new product which is outside it's core competency) Simon Decision Making Process - Answer- 1. Intelligence= searching for conditions that call for decisions 2. design= inventing, developing, and analyzing possible alternative solutions 3. choice= selecting a course of action from among those available 4. implementation= adapting the selected solution to the decision situation strategic planning - Answer- defining long range goals and policies for resource allocation management control - Answer- acquisition and efficient use of resources in the accomplishment of organizational goals operational control - Answer- efficient and effective execution of specific tasks Automated Decision making - Answer- rule-based system that provides a solution, usually in one functional area (ex: airlines use it to price tickets. closer the date comes, the higher the prices) Decision Support Systems - Answer- interactive computer-based systems, which help decision makers utilize data and models to solve unstructured and semistructured problems (ex: a GPS system. helps you decide where to go.) umbrella term to descried any computerized system that supports decision making in an organization Business Intelligence(BI) - Answer- transformation of data into information, then to decisions, then to actions Components of a BI System - Answer- 1. data warehouse (where all the data is) 2. business analytics (collection of tools for manipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in the data warehouse) 3. business performance management (monitoring and analyzing performance) 4. user interface Styles of BI - Answer- 1. report delivery and alerting 2. enterprise reporting(using dashboards and scorecards) 3. cube analysis (also known as slice and dice analysis) 4. ad-hoc queries 5. statistics and data mining Difference between DSS and BI - Answer- BI is more comprehensive than DSS. It involves all of DSS but then also involv