Decision Theory In Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Question: Describe about a Decision Theory In Sustainable Supply Chain Management? Answer: Introduction Business Intelligence and Analytics is used as a forecasting and planning tool that is used by the individuals in their business that is using historical data to achieve insight into the future. This tool is an expected business competency to improve the effectiveness of decision-making (Kuznetsov 2014). The enterprises are establishing competency in business intelligence such as decision modeling as well as support for the executives, workers, and managers to take effective actions in the business circumstances. The report analyzes the impact of business intelligence and analytics to improve business decision making and managing business knowledge. It reflects on various types of decisions that are taken in the business environment for making a decision. The business intelligence system utilizes to provide correct decisions to the users using five analytics. This report gives the benefits of modern business to employ the use of intelligent techniques in decision-making and knowledge management. Finally, it discusses on the systems which are used to improve enterprise-wide knowledge management that helps people working in groups make a decision more efficiently. Findings and Analysis Analyzing the decision making process in an organization using six elements of business environment In the business environment of an organization, different types of decisions are to be taken for decision-making. The senior management takes strategic decisions, which is complex as well as multi-dimensional (Post and Kagan 2012). It involves a large amount of money, which has a long-term impact on the business environment; therefore, it affects the direction of the whole business. The long-term forecasts of the business turnover is set against the market conditions of the business, which help to determine if the business runs, or not (Laudon and Laudon 2011). The senior management analyzes the internal and external environment of the business that helps to recognize the characteristics of the companys products and resources. As in an organization, different levels of management are there within the business environment; therefore the senior and middle manager takes tactical decisions. It involves significant resources, which have medium-term implications on the business operations (Brijs 2013). When a misguided strategy enters into a wrong direction, then it leads to failure of the business. Mainly, these decisions are directed towards developing structuring workflows, divisional plans and distribution channels. The business environment depends on its operational decisions. The middle and first line manager takes this decision, which involves resources that are more limited and have a short-term application (Yogev, Even and Fink 2013). The operational decisions are taken that help the manager to take informed as well as rational decisions. Even the information system requires focusing on the technique of managerial type of decision-making. Business intelligence and analytics need strong database system and analytics tools that are used to analyze the business data using the six elements. Azevedo and Santos (2012) opined that firstly data such as structured as well as unstructured data are required to be incorporated as well as planned from different types of sources such as mobile devices as well as the internet. Those data are used for human decision makers. The business intelligence structure consists of a database system is required to capture all the business process data (Laudon and Lau don 2011). The data are stored in transactional databases, and it is incorporated into enterprise data warehouse. The business analytics tools are required to analyze the data as well as produce the reports that should track the development of the business using key performance indicators. Figure 1: Business Intelligence and Analytics for Decision Support (Source: Azevedo and Santos 2012, pp-41) The managers uses strategic business goals to measure the progress of the business by using BI and BA tools (Caraganciu 2013). The delivery platforms are Management Information System (MIS), Decision Support System (DSS) and Executive Support System (ESS), which results from BI as well as BA to be delivered to each and everyone within the firm (Brijs 2013). The information is delivered to different people at all levels such as middle manager, senior executives, and operational employees. The visual techniques such as dashboards as well as scorecards are used to present the BI and BA outcomes. The data are available on iPhones, mobile handsets and the web portal of the firms (Post and Kagan 2012). BA software posts the information on Facebook and Twitter to support decision making for the online group. Problems in decision making process is solved by five analytics outputs to provide real time information Business intelligence and analytics deliver accurate as well as real time information to the decision makers using the five analytic functionalities that the BI system delivers are as follows: Production reports: The production reports of the organization are based on different industry specified requirements (Caraganciu 2013). Functional areas of Business Production reports Marketing Market-based analysis, loyalty, attrition, and campaign effectiveness. Sales Sales forecast, sales cycle times and sales team performance. Financials Accounts receivable, cash flow and general ledger. Service Resolution rate and customer satisfaction. Procurement and support Supplier performance, direct and indirect spending and off-contract purchases. Human resources Compensation, the productivity of employee and retention. Supply chain Fulfillment status, order cycle time and bills of materials. Table 1: Production reports of different industry (Source: Caraganciu 2013, pp- 69) Parameterized reports: The users are entering various parameters in a pivot table in order to filter the data as well as separate the impacts of the parameters. Dashboards: These are the tools used to present the presentation data presented by the users. Ad hoc query: It allows the users to build their reports based on the queries as well as searches (Kuznetsov 2014). Forecasts and models: It has the capability to perform forecasting using what-if-scenario analysis, and the data are analyzed using standard statistical tools. Business intelligence and analytics helps to maintain the business goals as well as targets by guiding the timely strategic decisions. Interaction with the customers by using voice calls, email, and chats are used to analyze the business intelligence gathering teams (Foshay, Boyle and Mather 2013). Reporting which is based on timely information helps the companies to determine the performance of their business processes. Business intelligence and analytics help the company to make more informed decisions on the strategic issues (Laudon and Laudon 2011). It is analyzed by providing critical information on both recent and historical performance of the business organization with their future trends, demands as well as customer behavior. Predictive analytics is the business intelligence applications used for decision making by all varieties of employees such as finance as well as marketing. As for example, predictive analysis is used in the credit card industry in order to recognize the customers who are at risk of leaving (Caraganciu 2013). In the dealer services, predictive analytics is used to screen the potential customers. This model reviews the data such as the size of the dealer, number of locations, patterns of payment as well as inventory practices. Benefits of modern business to employ the use of intelligent techniques in decision-making and knowledge management The modern business is benefited by the use of business intelligence techniques for decision-making and knowledge management. The modern business gets benefited by implementing BI in the business, it provides targeted information at the accurate place as well as time is central to improve the process of decision-making (Kanetkar and Chanchlani 2014). It allows the business organization to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Data warehouse achieves the individual knowledge and spreads that knowledge in such a manner that it ensures the business its accessibility (Caron and Daniels 2013). The techniques of knowledge discovery are online analytical processing as well as data mining though its supports the management of the explicit knowledge. It masters the hidden knowledge of the users in making decisions. BI system enables to make faster decisions, which makes the business more responsive towards threats as well as opportunities. It enables the fast decisions from various sources in common reports (Kuznetsov 2014). It saves the time of the users from manually combining data into the spreadsheets. It also reduces the response time of the system by using fast data aggregation. Business Intelligence in knowledge management technologies has the ability to process as well as organize the textual information (Laudon and Laudon 2011). The data enhances the capability of search to access relevance and new opportunities for solving current issues within the business. Figure 2: Benefits of Business Intelligence System (Source: Kanetkar and Chanchlani 2014, pp-37) Evaluating the functions of Business Support System uses to improve enterprise-wide knowledge management The business decision support system consists of the diverse group of interactive tools and designs in order to assist managerial decision-making. This system makes the management more efficient as well as effective using ad hoc as well as discretionary decisions (Foshay, Boyle and Mather 2013). The group decision support system is used to aid the group of decision makers such as executive committees as well as effort teams. This system is designed to be used when the group is assembled. As for example, tallying as well as handing out the group members preferences, then the outputs are presented to the participants in order to discuss. The members are doing some common tasks such as financial monitoring as well as reporting use the centralized system (Laudon and Laudon 2011). The decision support system provides an opportunity to increase the accuracy of the data with taking rapid decisions, which further contributes to the profitability of the business (Refer to Appendix 2). Busines s Support System improves the enterprise wise knowledge management system of the organization. Data mining in Decision Support System: This system holds knowledge base that consists of facts of the decision makers. It has the capability of purchasing as well as managing descriptive knowledge. It has the capability to present ad-hoc knowledge in a cyclic report format. This system directly interacts with the decision makers to choose the flexible solutions as well as knowledge management (Caron and Daniels 2013). The manager of the organization using data mining in DSS to analyze the data through an automatic process such as Knowledge Discovery in data mining (Refer to Appendix 1). Artificial Intelligence (AI) System: Knowledge bases are combined with the AI. This system enhances the problem solving, improves the quality of decision, capability to solve vital problems as well as takes consistent decisions (Kanetkar and Chanchlani 2014). The difficulty in this system is that it extracts the needs of the knowledge expertise in order to develop the knowledge base. It is vital to extract the knowledge of the expertise and then codifies into a format that is used in the automated application. Conclusion It is concluded that the decisions, which are taken by the business, makes to determine its future. A successful business knows the process to analyze, collect as well as access the important information of business to gain strategic, tactical as well as operational decisions. Business intelligence is the use of procedures as well as technologies, which are used to transform the raw material into better information. BI and Enterprise Reporting capabilities ensure the performance management of the business. However, the solutions of BI providers integrate the view of the business data from various sources. This system enables the users to build balance scorecards, key performance indicators as well as dashboards to satisfy the role of the departments. Using business intelligence tools, the users engaged into strategic, operational as well as tactical goals, which provide them support for continuous success to acquire new clients. Recommendations The following are the recommendations that are suggested to improve the business operations using business intelligence system: Business intelligence applications should in the business process to create a hierarchical performance metric, which analyzes the performance of the business (Laudon and Laudon 2011). The performance metric is used to keep track of the marketers such as shareholders, executives, employees as well as customers. If the business organization should use benchmarking process, then the business intelligence helps the company to raise their speed as well as decrease the costs. Business knowledge discovery should be used which involves the data mining process (Yogev, Even and Fink 2013). The primary functions of the business intelligence are to organize as well as manage the data for future use. References Azevedo, A. and Santos, M., 2012. Closing the Gap between Data Mining and Business Users of Business Intelligence Systems.International Journal of Business Intelligence Research, 3(4), pp.14-53. Brijs, B., 2013.Business analysis for business intelligence. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Caraganciu, A., 2013. Cultural Variations and Business Performance.International Journal of Business Intelligence Research, 4(2), pp.67-71. Caron, E. and Daniels, H., 2013. Explanatory Business Analytics in OLAP.International Journal of Business Intelligence Research, 4(3), pp.67-82. 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