Decision Support Systems.

Every day, managers are faced with decisions about how best to run their organizations in order to gain or maintain a competitive edge. Although some decisions are simple, many are quite complex and require the manager to consider many variables. To help managers in decision making processes, many organizations employ the use of computer-aided decision support systems. These systems can help managers make decisions about semi-structured and even unstructured problems where not all the information is known in advance. Several different types of decision support systems are available. These include model-driven systems, data-driven systems, knowledge-driven systems, and group support systems. These decision support systems can be quite effective in aiding managers in making decisions and improving the effectiveness and performance of organizations.