Chapter 6 • Managerial Support Systems 249(^1) This generalization is not entirely correct. Data mining, in particular,
may incorporate neural networks—a branch of artificial intelligence—as
a technique employed to mine data. Nevertheless, the authors believe that
the groupings of managerial support systems given here provide a useful
way of summarizing the chapter.
Summary
We have now completed our two-chapter survey of intraorg-
anizationalIT application areas. Chapter 5 focused on
application areas that support the entire organization or large
portions of it, including transaction processing systems, data
warehousing, and office automation. At the conclusion of
Chapter 5, we argued that modern organizations cannot do
business without these enterprise IT systems. In this chapter,
we have concentrated on managerial support systems such
as decision support systems, business intelligence systems,
and neural networks. These managerial support systems are
just as critical to the individual managers in a business as the
enterprise systems are to the firm as a whole. Modern
managers simply cannot manage effectively and efficiently
without managerial support IT systems.
Several types of managerial support systems are
designed to support individualmanagers in their decision-
making endeavors withoutthe aid of artificial intelligence.
Decision support systems (DSSs), data mining, geographic
information systems (GISs), executive information systems
(EISs), and business intelligence systems all fall into this
broad grouping.^1 A DSS is an interactive system, employing
a model of some sort, that assists a manager in making deci-
sions in a situation that is not well structured. The prototyp-
ical example of a DSS is carrying out what-if analyses on a
financial model. Data mining is concerned with digging out
nuggets of information from a data warehouse, again using a
model; thus data mining can be considered as a subset of the
broader DSS construct. A GIS is based on spatial relation-
ships; many, but not all, GISs incorporate a model and are
used as a DSS. In contrast, an EIS does not usually involve a
model. An EIS provides easy online access to current aggre-
gate information about key business conditions. A business
intelligence system is a newer variant of an EIS incorporat-
ing special tools to capture and display competitive informa-
tion. In general, a DSS, data mining, or a GIS provides
specific information of value to a manager working on a par-
ticular problem, while an EIS provides aggregated informa-
tion of value to a wide range of managers within the firm.
Group support systems (GSSs) and knowledge
management systems (KMSs) provide support to a groupof
managers, although in quite different ways. A GSS provides
support to a group of managers engaged in some sort of
group activity, most commonly a meeting, whereas a KMS is
a system for managing organizational knowledge and
sharing it with the appropriate group. A GSS, which is a
specialized type of groupware, consists of software running
on a Web server that permits all meeting participants to
simultaneously and anonymously make contributions to the
group discussion by keying in their ideas and having them
displayed on a large public screen, if desired. The software
facilitates various group tasks, such as idea generation,
organizing ideas, prioritizing, and policy development. With
a KMS, knowledge might be shared within a community of
practice (a group of managers with similar interests) via
knowledge repositories, discussion forums, and community
calendars, or within a broader grouping of employees via a
carefully structured package of knowledge content.
Artificial intelligence(AI) is used to support the
individualmanager in our third grouping of managerial
support systems. By capturing the decision-making logic of
a human expert, an expert system provides nonexperts with
expert advice. A neural network teases out obscure patterns
from vast amounts of data by a process of adaptive learning.
In both cases, the user is led to better decisions via AI.
Closely related to AI is virtual reality (VR), where computer-
based systems create an environment that seems real to one
or more human senses. VR has proved particularly useful
for training and design activities, and it is increasingly being
used for marketing on the Web.
We hope that these two chapters have convinced you
of the value of these intraorganizational systems. But how
does an organization, or an individual manager, acquire
one of these potentially valuable systems? The complete
answer to this question will have to wait until Part III of
this book, entitled “Acquiring Information Systems,” but
we already have some clues.
The enterprise systems, for example, are primarily
large-scale systems that would be purchased from an
outside vendor or custom developed by the internal IS
organization or an external consulting firm. In particular,
enterprise resource planning, office automation,
groupware, and factory automation are almost always
purchased from an outside vendor. These are all massive
systems that require similar functionality across a wide
variety of firms. Of course, the internal IS department or a
consultant may customize them to the organization. Data
warehousing, customer relationship management systems,
intranets, and supply chain management systems are often
implemented with purchased software, but there might
also be internal or consultant development. Historically,
the internal IS organization developed most transaction
processing systems, but even these systems are likely to be
purchased today, as shown by the growth of ERP systems,
unless the firm’s requirements are unique.