In Chapter 12, you will learn the steps to take in making business decisions as well as different information technology tools that are available.
Management often needs to consider large amounts of data and to synthesize the relevant information.
Managers need to make business decisions for structured types of problems in which an optimal solution can be reached through a single set of steps. You will also face unstructured problems, those problems facing more uncertainty and whose solution is more difficult. This chapter will describe the main types of decision support systems, including Executive Information Systems and Geographic Information Systems. Although the topic of the chapter has to do with systems, much of the discussion revolves around structured and semistructured problems. You should realize that as managers, you will face few structured problems and many semistructured ones.