ERP : Implementation of DSS
With the birth of electronic commerce and supply chains, the call centers and other business initiatives supported by the information technologies had been worried about finding applications that join to decode, interpret and take the opportunity to make good use of the risks that allows an organization to make decisions, or at least, feel accompanied in the making of decisions.
Information is a priceless tool for organizations. Therefore, their resources should be orientated to provide the managers with all the information required for the proper strategic decision making in business. Through this perspective, it is important to evaluate the factors that may lead to the success or failure of the implementation of a system.
The facts to consider in a previous analysis for the decision to develop DSS will be useful to implement a data warehouse, ERP, and executive system or any other information system, since their components work as points to test in an investment project on the technology of information.
General Information for the Implementation of DSS
Since the enterprises are committed to finding applications to help the decision making, it is important to understand how the best decision comes up. There are many ways to give an answer to the goals of business, and one of them could be the way in which the pieces of software, hardware and human elements are related in a company, and the way in which its construction and purchase are defined in the case of software or hardware.
Integrating elements of the business applications that can do this is not a new thing, but the focusing and priority of the tasks nowadays is designing a bridge between the data in real time and all the components through which the decisions are being based.
Plans of the Organization
This task is performed by both the technology area and the board of directors, this means that the two areas should combine the efforts to define the results that will be reached, the way in which they will be reached and the methods that will help to follow the results. And through this, the way in which the organization is working must be analyzed.
Revision of the Technological Infrastructure
In this part, it is necessary to define the technological infrastructure that the organization already has and the ones that should be acquired in order to avoid extra costs, the evaluation of the actual options should be effected carefully with the ones involved, and there has to be an analysis of the alternatives of growth based on the expectations and limitations of the company.
Evaluation of the Human Capital
Defining the personnel that will interfere in the process is an important activity. It also has to be defined in the responsibilities of each part, the technological and administrative areas. The first should make a complete analysis, the second one should involve all the corresponding personnel to define the parameters under which the decisions could be structured, and how this could be interpreted in an application. It is useful to state who will define and interfere in the process of implementing DSS, if there would be participation of external staff or not.
Financial Situation of the Enterprise
It is necessary to define the economical feasibility of the project, to avoid the expenses that will not return in a benefit for the enterprise. It is needed to make an economical analysis, since one of the main objectives and benefits of DSS is the reduction in costs, and it would be a shame to implement a system that will not provide it.
The process of change should be an integrated task of the organization. It should influence it, as no changes can be done successfully without the participation of the interested parties. There are different methods that collaborate with the change in the organization, and they are classic and generic, and their work is the organization of working teams, better practices and the most useful tools in an organization: training and communication.
If we consider the last two points, it is important to develop an adequate planning for the implementation of DSS, in which it has to be taken into account each factor that will have a bearing on the management and developing of DSS, where technical, economical, operational and human factors will intervene.
Finally, the success in the implementation of DSS will depend on how the organization faces up, the degree of compromise and the efficiency of the tools of DSS, the way in which the system will be able to generate results from the entries.
It is important to remark that the outcome of a system is the product of the quality of the entries. If the information that will be entered is not structured adequately, the outcome would not mean a lot for the process of decision making, and instead of enforcing the process, this will be weaken and affected, which will lead to disastrous results.
The decisions made based on DSS will be totally inconsistent with the reality of the organization and all the resources invested and used will be a total waste. Therefore, it is necessary to define and comply properly with the planning of the development and implementation of DSS in order to provide the organization with an effective competitive advantage.
Conclusion
Nowadays, an enterprise looks like a desperately competitive advantage that provides the necessary power to continue operating in the current times. Those advantages may be based on the decisions made in the operational environment of each organization, in order to reach the best result, DSS is very useful.
These tools are efficient for helping the managers in the decision making processes, but they should improve the capacity to make those tools work properly, and it has to generate a correct information structure. Besides, doing an adequate use of the said structure during the process of feeding the systems with data.
The generation of DSS is not the only solution for the many problems of the companies, but also for all the design phases, implementation, interpretation and implementation of the DSS tools. The work is performed by many people, where the communication of the way that the system will work and how it will collaborate to reach the objectives is essential for the good use of DSS and the development of the organization.
Once implemented, it is not enough to have and use it from time to time, it is necessary to use it until it becomes a competitive advantage that represents a way to win markets and attack the problems with the bases and not with inconsistent information due to the lack of structure on the information.
