Decision Support System

A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that is computer-based and supports business/organizational decision-making activities (1). They serve in many parts of a business, assisting in management as well as operations, and help make decisions. Decision support systems include knowledge-based systems and are designed as interactive software-based systems, which serve to help decision makers collect useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, or business models (1). These help workers identify/solve problems and make decisions, which is greatly important in any business. Decision support systems may access all of a business’s information benefits, such as legacy and relational data sources, cubes, data warehouses, and data marts (2). In addition, they may gather sales and revenue information between one week and the next, helping organizations compare their sales figures and projected revenue figures (2). This helps businesses evaluate how their sales are doing. A decision support system is different from a typical information system or management information system due to the fact that it not only provide users with information, databases, and reports, but also provides users with answers to queries such as decisions through its models (3). Decision-making is extremely important within businesses. Making the right decision in these circumstances is based on the quality of the business’s data and its ability to go through and analyze this data to find the trends in which they can create solutions and strategies for, depending on the information that was collected (4). Organizations should not be without a DSS because they collect, analyze and shape the data that is collected in which they make key decisions and construct strategies from. They help make important decisions and solve problems for businesses and are useful in any organization.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_support_system
(2) http://www.informationbuilders.com/decision-support-systems-dss.html
(3) http://www.bit.vt.edu/academics/dss_index.html
(4) http://www.tech-faq.com/decision-support-system.html

Electronic Business

Electronic business refers to the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the actions of business (1). It is any process that a business conducts over a computer network. This can help businesses by allowing companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more capably. This results in more customer satisfaction (1). Many companies use electronic business for production, customer-focused processes, or management-focused processes (2). This can include electronic selling, customer management, employee training, and more. Electronic business includes e-commerce, which is “any transaction completed over a computer-mediated network that involves the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services” (2). The buying and selling of products online, which is an example of e-commerce, has become very popular for businesses as well as customers, since there are many advantages for both. First of all, the customers can order their products no matter what time of the day. Sometimes they may even obtain their order right away, such as electronic books or computer software that downloads right to their computer. This way, they do not need to leave their home or office in order to buy the product and they can order it on their own time without having to worry about when the store closes. As for the sellers, e-business helps cut costs and expand their markets. For instance, since the buying and selling is done electronically, the company does not need to build staff, maintain a physical store, or print and distribute mail order catalogs (3). “Automated order tracking and billing systems cut additional labor costs, and if the product or service can be downloaded then e-commerce firms have no distribution costs involved” (3). These businesses are not limited by the physical location of a store (3). Some examples of e-commerce businesses include Amazon and EBay, which are both extremely popular for their electronic buying and selling.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_business
(2) http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/ebusines.htm
(3) http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-e-Commerce---Advantages-and-Drawbacks!&id=241542

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has changed the computer industry and the way businesses and people use hardware and software. Cloud computing uses a giant collection of computers to serve has a host to run applications. Therefore, local computers do not have to do all of the work when it comes to running applications and the network of computers that make up “the cloud” handles them instead (1). Almost everybody has had experience with cloud computing considering e-mail communication, which is cloud computing, has become a big part of peoples’ lives. Big companies that offer online e-mail include Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. Almost everywhere you go, your e-mail can be available to you since you just have to log-on to a web e-mail account, which is possible to do on any computer (2). “The software and storage for your account does not exist on your computer – it’s on the service’s computer cloud (1). When you first log in to your user account on your chosen e-mail service provider, the system verifies your identity through a series of verification and authentication procedures (3). Once you log on, you are given different options of services and applications. After you decide what you want to do, the middleware on the main server processes your request and forwards it to another set of verification and authentication procedures (3). As soon as identity is established, the main server requests the services you wanted from a series of application servers running different application software, followed by returning it to the main server for delivery to your computer as web applications (3). Your data is saved in the cloud’s database storage system. This is how e-mail works as cloud computing, showing that cloud computing has become a useful and effective part of our lives.

(1) http://communication.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing.htm
(2) http://www.technobuffalo.com/blog/guides/five-examples-of-cloud-computing/
(3) http://ezinearticles.com/?Cloud-Computing---How-Does-it-Work?&id=3400843