Topic: “Information support for the management decision-making process.”

	Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………
	The essence of management decisions…………………………………………..
	Concept and classification of management decisions……………………………
	Factors influencing the quality and effectiveness of management decisions………………………………………………………………………………..
	The process of making management decisions………………………………….
	Principles of the management decision-making process……………………
	Stages of the management decision-making process……………………………
	Information tools for supporting management decisions…………………………………………………………………………………..
	Types of information media……………………………………………………………..
	The influence of information on the effectiveness of managerial decision making………………………………………………………………………………..
	Conclusion………………………………………………………………………
	References……………………………………………………………...
	Application……………………………………………………………………..

Introduction

Improving the organization of management is one of the important problems of the modern economy. The most important reserve for increasing management efficiency is improving the quality of decisions made, which is achieved by improving the decision-making process.

Decision making is an integral part of any management function. The need to make decisions permeates everything a manager does, setting goals and achieving them. Therefore, understanding the nature of decision making is extremely important for anyone who wants to succeed in the art of management.

Effective decision making is essential to performing management functions. Improving the process of making informed, objective decisions in situations of exceptional complexity is achieved through the use of a scientific approach to this process, models and quantitative methods of decision-making. To make any decision, information is required, and the more complex the decision, the greater the amount of information required. In addition, the information must meet certain requirements. Be complete, reliable and timely.

Problem formulation. Based on the above, the problem can be formulated as follows: the need to provide (support) decision-making with information that is properly selected, summarized, systematized and analyzed, that is, suitable for making the right and informed decision in each specific situation. Another challenge is the timeliness of information. In this regard, we can set the following goal for this course work: to determine the most effective ways to collect, systematize and analyze the information necessary for making management decisions. And also finding ways to quickly obtain the necessary information.

One of the objectives of this work is the detailed development of specific methods for solving this goal. Finding out the advantages and disadvantages of existing methods for solving such problems and finding possible ways to improve them.

1. The essence of management decisions

Concept and classification of management decisions

The most important reserve for increasing the efficiency of all social production is improving the quality of decisions made by managers.

The concept of “decision” in modern life is very ambiguous. It is understood both as a process, and as an act of choice, and as a result of choice. The main reason for the ambiguous interpretation of the concept “solution” is that each time this concept is given a meaning that corresponds to a specific area of ​​research.

The decision as a process is characterized by the fact that it occurs over time and is carried out in several stages. In this regard, it is appropriate to talk here about the stages of preparation, adoption and implementation of decisions 1. The decision-making stage can be interpreted as an act of choice carried out by an individual or group decision maker (DM) using certain rules.

A decision as a result of a choice is usually recorded in written or oral form and includes a plan (program) of action to achieve the goal.

A decision is one of the types of mental activity and a manifestation of human will. It is characterized by the following features:

the ability to choose from a variety of alternative options: if there are no alternatives, then there is no choice and, therefore, there is no decision;

having a goal: aimless choices are not considered a decision;

the need for a volitional act of the decision-maker when choosing a solution, since the decision-maker forms a decision through the struggle of motives and opinions.

Accordingly, management decision (MD) is understood as:

searching and finding the most effective, most rational or optimal option for a manager’s actions;

the final result of setting and developing SD.

Of greatest interest is the process of making and implementing decisions as a sequential change of interconnected stages, stages of various actions of a leader, revealing the technology of mental actions, searches for truth and analysis of misconceptions, paths to the goal and means of achieving it. Only this approach allows us to understand the recorded act of management decision and the sources of its origin.

There are a number of requirements for a management decision, which include:

comprehensive validity of the decision;

timeliness;

necessary completeness of content;

authority;

consistency with previously made decisions.

Comprehensive validity of a decision means, first of all, the need to make it on the basis of the most complete and reliable information. However, this alone is not enough. It should cover the entire range of issues, the entirety of the needs of the managed system. This requires knowledge of the features, development paths of the controlled systems and the environment. A thorough analysis of resource provision, scientific and technical capabilities, target development functions, economic and social prospects of the enterprise, region, industry, national and global economy is required. Comprehensive validity of decisions requires the search for new forms and ways of processing scientific, technical and socio-economic information, that is, the formation of advanced professional thinking, the development of its analytical and synthetic functions. 2

The timeliness of a management decision means that the decision made should neither lag behind nor be ahead of the needs and objectives of the socio-economic system. A prematurely made decision does not find prepared ground for its implementation and development and can give impetus to the development of negative trends. Late decisions are no less harmful to society. They do not contribute to solving already “overripe” problems and further aggravate already painful processes.

The necessary completeness of the content of decisions means that the decision must cover the entire managed object, all areas of its activity, all directions of development. In its most general form, a management decision should cover:

a) the goal (set of goals) of the functioning and development of the system;

b) the means and resources used to achieve these goals;

c) the main ways and means of achieving goals;

d) deadlines for achieving goals;

e) the procedure for interaction between departments and performers;

f) organization of work at all stages of implementation of the solution.

An important requirement of a management decision is the authority (authority) of the decision - strict compliance by the subject of management with the rights and powers that are granted to him by the highest level of management 3. Balancing the rights and responsibilities of each body, each link and each level of management is a constant problem associated with the inevitable emergence of new development tasks and the lag of the regulation and regulation system behind them.

Consistency with previously made decisions also means the need to maintain a clear cause-and-effect relationship of social development. It is necessary to maintain the traditions of respect for the law, regulations, and orders. At the level of an individual company, it is necessary for the implementation of consistent scientific, technical, market and social policies, and the smooth functioning of the production apparatus.

Consistency with previously made decisions also means the need to maintain a clear cause-and-effect relationship of social development. If necessary, previously made decisions that conflict with the new conditions of the system’s existence must be cancelled. The emergence of decisions that contradict each other is, first of all, a consequence of poor knowledge and understanding of the laws of social development and a manifestation of a low level of management culture.

The adoption of SD requires a high level of professionalism and the presence of certain socio-psychological personality qualities, which not all specialists with professional education possess, but only 5-10% of them.

The main factors influencing the quality of a management decision are: the application of scientific approaches and principles, modeling methods, management automation, motivation for a quality decision, etc. to the management system.

Typically, in making any decision, three elements are present to varying degrees: intuition, judgment and rationality.

When making a purely intuitive decision, people rely on their own feeling that their choice is correct. There is a “sixth sense” here, a kind of insight, usually visited by representatives of the highest echelon of power. Middle managers rely more on computer information and assistance. Despite the fact that intuition becomes sharper along with the acquisition of experience, the continuation of which is precisely a high position, a manager who focuses only on it becomes hostage to chance, and from a statistical point of view, his chances of making the right choice are not very high.

Decisions based on judgment are in many ways similar to intuitive ones, probably because at first glance their logic is poorly visible. But still, they are based on knowledge and meaningful, unlike the previous case, experience of the past. Using them and relying on common sense, as adjusted for today, the option that brought the greatest success in a similar situation in the past is selected. However, common sense is rare among people, so this method of decision-making is also not very reliable, although it is captivating with its speed and cheapness.

Another weakness is that the judgment cannot be correlated with a situation that has not occurred before, and therefore there is simply no experience in solving it. In addition, the manager with this approach tends to act primarily in those directions that are familiar to him, as a result of which he risks missing out on good results. result in another area, consciously or unconsciously refusing to invade it.

A powerful factor activating the decision-making process is modern office equipment, including computer networks. This requires a high level of culture in the field of mathematics and programming, technology of using technical means. However, the process of decision-making and choosing a specific option will always be creative in nature and depend on the individual.

The classification of SD is necessary to determine general and specific approaches to their development, implementation and evaluation, which makes it possible to improve their quality, efficiency and continuity. SDs can be classified in a variety of ways (Appendix A). The most common 4 classification principles are:

by functional content;

by the nature of the tasks being solved (scope of action);

according to the management hierarchy;

by the nature of the development organization;

by the nature of the goals;

for reasons of occurrence;

by initial development methods;

on organizational design.

UR can be classified according to functional content, i.e. in relation to general control functions, for example:

a) planning decisions;

b) organizational;

c) controlling;

d) predictive.

Typically, such decisions affect, to one degree or another, all management functions, but in each of them it is possible to identify a main core associated with some basic function.

Another principle of classification is related to the nature of the problems being solved:

a) economic;

b) organizational;

c) technological;

d) technical;

e) environmental and others.

Most often, SD is associated not with one, but with a number of tasks, to one degree or another having a complex nature.

According to the levels of the hierarchy of control systems, SD is distinguished at the BS level; at the subsystem level; at the level of individual elements of the system. Typically, system-wide decisions are initiated, which are then brought to the elementary level, but the opposite option is also possible.

Depending on the organization of solution development, the following SDs are distinguished:

a) sole persons;

b) collegial;

c) collective.

The preference for the method of organizing the development of SD depends on many reasons: the competence of the manager, the level of qualifications of the team, the nature of the tasks, resources, etc.

By the nature of the goals, the decisions made can be presented as:

a) current (operational);

b) tactical;

c) strategic.

According to the reasons for their occurrence, SDs are divided into:

a) situational, related to the nature of the circumstances that arise;

b) by order (order) of higher authorities;

c) program related to the inclusion of a given management object in a certain structure of program-target relations and activities;

d) proactive systems associated with the manifestation of initiative, for example in the production of goods, services, and intermediary activities;

e) episodic and periodic, resulting from the periodicity of reproductive processes in the system (for example, seasonality of agricultural production, rafting of timber along rivers, geological work).

An important classification approach is the initial methods of SD development. These include:

a) graphical, using graphic-analytical approaches (network models and methods, strip graphs, block diagrams, decomposition of large systems);

b) mathematical methods that involve the formalization of ideas, relationships, proportions, timing, events, resources;

c) heuristic, associated with the widespread use of expert assessments, development of scenarios, and situational models.

According to organizational design, SDs are divided into:

a) rigid, unambiguously defining the further path of their implementation;

b) guiding, determining the direction of development of the system;

c) flexible, changing in accordance with the conditions of operation and development of the system;

d) normative, setting the parameters for the flow of processes in the system.

Since decisions are made by people, their character largely bears the imprint of the personality of the manager involved in their birth. In this regard, it is customary to distinguish between balanced, impulsive, inert, risky and cautious decisions 5 .

Balanced decisions are made by managers who are attentive and critical to their actions, put forward hypotheses and their testing. They usually have an initial idea formulated before making a decision.

Impulsive decisions, the authors of which easily generate a wide variety of ideas in unlimited quantities, but are not able to properly test, clarify, or evaluate them. Therefore, decisions turn out to be insufficiently substantiated and reliable; they are made “at once”, “in jerks”.

Inert solutions become the result of careful search. In them, on the contrary, control and clarifying actions prevail over the generation of ideas, so it is difficult to detect originality, brilliance, and innovation in such decisions.

Risky decisions differ from impulsive ones in that their authors do not need to carefully substantiate their hypotheses and, if they are confident in themselves, may not be afraid of any dangers.

Cautious decisions are characterized by the manager's thorough assessment of all options and a hypercritical approach to business. They are even less distinguished by novelty and originality than inert ones.

The listed types of decisions are made mainly in the process of operational personnel management. For strategic and tactical management of any subsystem of the management system, rational decisions are made based on methods of economic analysis, justification and optimization. 6

1.2 Factors determining the quality and effectiveness of management decisions.

The quality of management decisions should be understood as the degree of its compliance with the nature of the tasks being resolved in the functioning and development of production systems. In other words, to what extent does SD ensure further development of the production system in the conditions of the formation of market relations?

Factors that determine the quality and effectiveness of management decisions can be classified according to various criteria - both internal factors (related to the control and managed systems) and external factors (environmental influence). These factors include:

laws of the objective world related to the adoption and implementation of SD;

a clear statement of the goal - why SD is being adopted, what real results can be achieved, how to measure, correlate the goal and the results achieved;

volume and value of available information - for the successful adoption of SD, the main thing is not the volume of information, but the value determined by the level of professionalism, experience, and intuition of personnel;

time for development of SD - as a rule, management decisions are always made under conditions of time shortage and emergency circumstances (lack of resources, activity of competitors, market conditions, inconsistent behavior of politicians);

organizational management structures;

forms and methods of implementing management activities;

methods and techniques for developing and implementing SD (for example, if a company is a leader, there is one methodology, if it follows others, it is different);

subjectivity of evaluation of the solution choice option. The more extraordinary the SD is, the more subjective the assessment.

the state of the control and managed systems (psychological climate, authority of the manager, professional and qualified personnel, etc.);

a system of expert assessments of the level of quality and efficiency of SD.

Management decisions must be based on objective laws and patterns of social development. On the other hand, SD significantly depends on many subjective factors - the logic of developing solutions, the quality of assessment of the situation, the structuring of tasks and problems, a certain level of management culture, the mechanism for implementing decisions, execution discipline, etc. It must always be remembered that even carefully thought-out decisions may be ineffective if they cannot anticipate possible changes in the situation, the state of the production system. 7

2. Management decision-making process

2.1. Principles of the management decision-making process

Sooner or later, managers must move from analysis of past events to action. Ideally, if action is motivated by a correct analysis of the problem, the search for causes is narrowed to the point where one can confidently begin to solve the problem. It is important, however, to remember that all actions are motivated by the need to respond to the problem that has arisen. Experienced managers continually take action to improve situations, raise job expectations, and prevent problems from arising that could threaten to derail current plans.

Being in the present time, the manager selects actions (alternatives) that can often be implemented in the future 8. The problem is that sometimes you even have to compare the relative consequences of alternatives without having valid data. You cannot know exactly what will happen if you choose another alternative. The manager must consider the alternatives, take a stand with confidence, and state that, say, alternative A will better meet the goals than alternatives B or C. However, this is a complex process of moving towards the truth.

The existing uncertainty in the decision-making process can create a number of situations in which confusion between the concepts of “decisiveness” and “decision making” is not excluded. In many businesses, managers are assessed and rewarded for how quickly and confidently they make decisions. Uncertainty in this case is seen as a sign of weakness. Managers are expected to make quick and decisive judgments and are highly valued for their willingness to implement decisions despite difficulties. In theory this is correct, but in practice it is not always the best course of action.

In management, decisiveness is seen as the ability to make a decision and turn it into action. And decision making is the ability to analyze the most important information and make the best choice. It is important to properly combine both of these abilities. Paralyzing yourself with endless analysis is just as undesirable as making decisions on a whim, spontaneously.

The decision-making process for managing a company is based on four basic principles, ignoring which (completely or partially) can lead to erroneous decisions and unsatisfactory results. Compliance with these principles makes it possible to make quality decisions at all levels of the organization.

The first principle is the principle of organizational fit. The form of the organization must be adapted to the uninterrupted implementation of communications, which facilitates both the decision-making process and control over their implementation. One cannot ignore the fact that powers and responsibilities are increasingly changing hands. Only by holding managers accountable for the results of their decisions can the best leadership be developed.

The second principle is that policies, strategies and goals must be so clearly defined that they allow general decisions to be made regarding new activities that go beyond today's needs.

The third principle requires having sufficient reliable data about the changing environment necessary to maintain effective communications between top-level managers and lower levels of the functioning units of the organization. It is extremely important to select the available data in such a way that senior managers have at their disposal only those facts that they really need and are not overloaded with irrelevant factual material.

The fourth principle is flexibility, without which countless opportunities may go unexploited. Under ideal conditions (exact criteria, clear goals and complete information), the need for decision-making managers would be small. A computer could answer any question. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world, and there is a constant need for qualified managers who determine the optimal directions for the organization's actions. By their nature, the listed principles are universal and must be adhered to in management and business activities.

Let us note, continuing the conversation from this perspective, that managers usually make decisions that are associated with certain obligations and the need to implement them. Once a decision is made, it is difficult to change it. The procedure for analyzing alternatives in decision making differs from the procedure in cause-and-effect analysis.

The decision itself can take a number of forms and represent: a standard decision, in which there is a fixed set of alternatives; binary decision (yes or no); multiple-choice solution (there is a very wide range of alternatives); an innovative solution when action is required but there are no acceptable alternatives 9.

The most common type of solution is the standard solution. The analytical steps required to make it apply to other types of decisions as well. When making any type of decision, the manager's experience is included from the first step and is used throughout the entire process. If one must be wary of managers' "pet causes" in cause-and-effect analysis, then one may fall prey to "favorite alternatives" when making decisions. In this case, preference for the “favorite option” can distort the entire analysis and lead to a previously known choice. 10

2.2. Stages of the management decision-making process

As a rule, to successfully implement the management decision-making process, a manager needs to go through eight main stages.

At the first stage, the main task is to correctly set the goal of the solution. Any decision-making process must begin with an awareness of the need to make it. It is important, first of all, to ask the question about the choice itself that has to be made 11 . Such questions contribute to the fulfillment of three tasks: to show the connection of the decision with the need to make a choice; set the direction in the search for alternatives; exclude alternatives that lie outside the stated goal.

In an effort to ensure that the decision goal is set correctly, the manager must answer the following questions:

1. What choice am I trying to make? This question provides a starting point. It will be clarified by the next two questions.

2. Why is this solution necessary?

3. What was the final decision? This question stems from the concept that all decisions form a chain. Therefore, it is very important to find the place of this solution in it. For example, suppose that the purpose of the decision is to select a training program to implement activities to improve working conditions. Before setting such a goal, it is necessary to answer the question: “Are we sure that improving working conditions will solve the problem of improving the moral climate in the team?” If so, a new question arises: "Are we convinced that a training program is required?" Only after answering these questions can we move forward, based on the fact that the previous decisions were obtained as a result of serious analysis.

The second stage is associated with establishing decision criteria. Since decisions are judged primarily by the results obtained, it is reasonable to begin the selection process by considering them. These results are called “decision criteria” and represent the basis for the actual choice made. It is important for managers to be clear about what they want to achieve. The key question in this case is: “What factors should be considered when making a choice?” This question gives rise to a number of factors that must be taken into account when choosing a solution. In a situation of group decision-making, posing such a question assumes that persons whose activities should be affected by this decision will have the opportunity to express their assumptions and demands.

At the third stage, the manager divides the criteria according to their importance for the organization. The criteria have different meanings. For example, some criteria represent mandatory constraints, while others simply capture desirable characteristics. In order to make a sufficiently effective decision, the criteria should be divided into strict restrictions and desirable characteristics, which could be dispensed with. It is then important to rank the criteria classified as desirable. In making management decisions, of course, compromises are inevitable. For example, would you choose a lower price over faster delivery? Are you ready to sacrifice speed of repair for better quality of service?

At the fourth stage, alternatives are developed. This is not a problem when discussing standard solutions. For example, when comparing different locations of a new food outlet. When considering other types of solutions, especially innovative ones, this step is more difficult.

The fifth stage is allocated for comparing the alternatives developed at the previous stage. Skilled decision making requires developing a number of alternatives, comparing them and choosing the best one. Sometimes all solutions look good and none seem to be superior. Therefore, in order to make a choice, a manager needs some means of comparing alternatives.

Let's look at some of them. So, first of all, it is advisable to start by collecting information about alternatives. In many cases, the alternatives are initially described in very general terms, such as: “We can outsource all this work” or “We can hire temporary workers.” But in order to be able to compare alternatives, it is necessary to understand the essence of the choice, answering, for example, the following questions: “How much will it cost to do the work outsourced?”, “Can it be done efficiently outsourced?”, “When will the work be done outsourced?” finished?" etc.

Without sufficient data on the alternatives, it is unlikely that their relative merits can be compared. The information collected will help measure the degree of satisfaction of requirements for each of the criteria. Data collection is a planned process, not a random response to information as it becomes available. Once the manager has clearly identified the alternatives, the first question may be: “How to organize and compare the data?” The following fundamental principle must be adhered to: “Always compare decision options with criteria, never compare one decision option with another. It is important to avoid “decision blindness,” a disease that affects those managers who constantly compare alternatives with each other and eventually lose sight goals and final results of decision making.

At the same stage of searching for effective solutions, another illness may occur - analytical “paralysis”. It occurs when collecting information about alternatives becomes an end in itself. Decision making is the process of finding the best option based on the best and available information. Meanwhile, it is hardly possible to achieve a situation where all the facts, data, and necessary materials for developing decisions are available. The process of matching alternatives to criteria is an attempt to help the decision maker focus on key sources of information. Both of these ills of decision making can be "cured" by focusing primarily on criteria rather than alternatives.

The criterion for assessing the consequences of various options is usually determined by the purpose of the decisions. There is a need to measure the extent to which a particular event contributes to the achievement of a goal 12 . Conflict resolution requires a common unit of measurement for consequences. Without it, it is impossible, for example, to compare an alternative that leads to minimizing the cost of transporting goods with an alternative that allows minimizing delivery time. To compare the consequences of these alternatives, they must belong to the same class. How to translate measurements on one scale (shipping costs) into consequences on another scale (delivery time) or measure both on a third scale? In addition, we must know how to relate increases on different scales.

In economics, unfortunately, it is impossible to express all the consequences in terms of their impact on costs and profits, so using money as a universal unit of measurement can be difficult

At the sixth stage, the risk to which the firm may be exposed if a particular alternative is chosen is determined. In business, risk identification can range from complex probability analysis in operations research models to purely intuition, which can be represented by questions like: “What do you think they (customers or competing manufacturers) will do when we announce a price increase? " We are interested in a working tool for managers that can be used quickly and efficiently and that does not require complex mathematical tools.

To properly identify the area of ​​risk, you should consider the alternatives one by one and try to predict the difficulties that might be encountered if each option were implemented. We emphasize the importance of considering an alternative because the deviations associated with the adoption of one alternative, as a rule, have nothing to do with possible deviations in the case of the implementation of other alternatives.

Here are some risk cases. If, for example, the construction of a building is not completed on time, the opening of the hairdresser will have to be delayed. Or another example. If campus demand drops in the summer, merchandise revenue may decline. These types of risks characterize some of the typical side effects that should be considered in business.

At the seventh stage, the solution developer makes a risk assessment. Knowing that a risk exists is important, but not sufficient. It is necessary to determine its significance. When assessing risk, factors such as likelihood and severity are taken into account. Using the probability factor, a judgment is formed that an event will actually happen. The severity factor allows you to form a judgment about the degree of influence of the event on the situation if it occurs.

At the eighth stage, a decision is made. Quantitative risk indicators help you make informed decisions. After all, this data allows you to compare the effectiveness of alternatives. It should be noted that risk indicators are not directly related to each other, and there is no formula yet that would allow them to be compared. So the question to ask is, “Is the additional efficiency that can be gained worth the risk that I am taking?” Typically, managers do not seek to minimize risk, but take acceptable and controllable risks. When making a choice, the manager analyzes and weighs a number of judgments. It is very important to clearly sort these judgments. After all, the decision that needs to be made is based on a certain amount of value judgments. However, in business practice there are also ambiguous (double) decisions, which are called binary. A binary decision presents two diametrically opposed alternatives. These are usually competing alternatives that force a yes/no, either/or choice. For example, whether to open another workshop or not. These decisions are subject to a high degree of uncertainty. The brief nature of alternatives forces decision makers to take polar opposite positions, which often paralyzes choice. A binary solution reflects an unnatural state of affairs. This unnaturalness is caused by the restrictions placed on choice. Restrictions such as “yes or no”, “to do or not to do” sharply narrow the possibilities of choice. Therefore, very few decisions should be presented in this form. Most binary situations arise as a result of the fact that a serious and in-depth analysis of the problem is not carried out.

The reasons for the occurrence of binary situations include the following 13:

1. Redirecting decision-making to senior managers. Subordinates, suppliers, or others who want to influence a decision often present it for consideration in binary form. Such an attempt, whether intentional or unintentional, is intended to force a choice that is in the competitor's interests.

2. Superficial analysis of the problem. Asking questions about whether there are different ways to achieve the same goals is not considered acceptable behavior in many organizations. As a result, the binary solution becomes a way of life.

3. lack of time to develop optimal solutions. Under the pressure of time pressure, it is often faster to simply choose a course of action than to establish the validity of the very statement of the problem to be solved. The willingness and ability to accept responsibility for saying yes or no is cultivated and rewarded in many firms. It should be cautioned that encouraging decisiveness can lead to its identification with decision-making itself. Under these conditions, a serious analysis of facts begins to be perceived as clumsiness and reinsurance. And then the binary decision becomes a generally accepted and decisive criterion for assessing the manager’s effectiveness.

4. Justification of binary solutions in some cases. There are situations in which a manager, considering a chain of decisions, reaches the most specific level: yes or no. This situation usually develops as a result of a sequence of consciously made decisions and represents the final decision in this chain. An example of a valid binary situation would be a make-or-buy decision, especially when there is only one source of supply.

When making a multiple choice decision, the first two steps follow the standard decision process. It is setting the purpose of a decision and establishing the criteria to be used in making it. The criteria should be further divided into constraints and desirable characteristics, and the latter ranked by their relative value. But it is important to take into account that in this case it is impossible to use criteria to determine the relative value of alternatives based on their mutual comparison, since the difficulties of comparing, say, fifty or more alternatives are practically insurmountable. Therefore, the list of criteria must be converted into an absolute measurement scale, which will allow each alternative to be assessed on its own and a more correct choice to be made.

Modern management shows the greatest interest in the process of making an innovative decision, which involves some innovation, that is, the formation and implementation of a previously unknown alternative. Managers most often find themselves in situations where they must develop new and more effective ways to solve problems or achieve results. And this is best done through the innovation process.

In cases where none of the known alternatives seems suitable, the criterion optimization method can be used. The main idea of ​​this method is the assumption that combining the best features of known alternatives can lead to a more effective solution. This procedure is used to help make decisions in situations where traditional methods of generating alternatives do not or cannot produce acceptable results.

The first step in applying the criteria optimization method is to compile a complete list of desired end results, that is, criteria. Since there are no alternatives yet and nothing to evaluate, they are called “design criteria.” Criteria for constructing alternatives provide incentives and direction for creative ideas.

At the second step, each criterion is taken in turn and “ideal” solutions are constructed to achieve the final desired result.

At this point, no alternative is evaluated. At the moment, they are guided by the following judgment: “What might an alternative look like that ideally meets this criterion?” This process is repeated for each criterion until the optimal criteria (ideas) are identified.

It is at this stage of criterion-based decision making that innovative ideas are required. This is best achieved by brainstorming or another form of group creativity. Here it is especially important to follow the basic principles of organizing innovation activities outlined above. The freedom to generate ideas increases the likelihood of coming up with components that will be included in the final innovative solution. Once a list of optimal ideas has been compiled for each of the criteria separately, it is important to evaluate them and try to construct a combined, comprehensive alternative based on them. When starting to combine optimal ideas according to individual criteria into a final alternative, it is necessary first of all to check them for mutual compatibility. At this stage, the competent judgment of the manager plays a key role. For if ideas according to two criteria contradict each other, then it is necessary to determine which of them to include in the combined version.

The next step is to compare each of the optimal ideas to see if they support each other. They may turn out to be natural combinations that mutually reinforce and complement each other. Such element combinations should be immediately linked and used as the basis for a future final alternative. The end result of all this work should be a combination of ideas that becomes an effective innovative "synergic alternative". A synergistic alternative is a combination of ideas whose combined effect exceeds the simple sum of the effects of these ideas taken separately.

If the criterion optimization method yielded several alternatives, then the decision maker can turn to the standard decision-making procedure and compare these alternatives. When the applied criterion optimization method gives only one alternative, then the initial design criteria turn into a tool for its evaluation.

An important subject of attention for managers in the emerging market in Russia is commercial risk and the problem of managing it. Several points deserve attention here first of all. Firstly, risk in market conditions is always personified. Secondly, the presence of a risk factor is a kind of incentive for entrepreneurs to save money and resources, forcing firms to carefully analyze capital investments, purchase resources, and hire highly qualified labor. Thirdly, risk as an integral feature of entrepreneurship should be accepted only after careful calculations and analysis.

A binary decision must always be evaluated in light of its nature. Namely, it is the result of unqualified management and a high degree of uncertainty, or it is the result of careful analytical development of a management decision, in the process of which uncertainty is eliminated.

The criteria optimization method helps managers successfully construct alternatives for decision making and its subsequent implementation in business practice.

The transition of society in the post-industrial era and knowledge-intensive technologies introduces information resources into active circulation and further increases the requirements for the qualifications of specialists. But it is information that makes it possible to rationally manage all other types of resources. Intensive use of information can significantly reduce the material and energy consumption of products. The main problem of any economy is to overcome limited resources. But existing resources can be used in various ways. The key here is deciding where and how to concentrate economic resources. Concentration of resources at the right time, in the right place, to solve the main, priority area - this is where information helps when making an economic decision.

Information is the basis for an entrepreneur’s maneuver with matter and energy. It allows you to get a solution on how to organize the production of goods or services more efficiently and economically. Knowledge and information become strategic resources, since, along with empirical knowledge and everyday experience, systematized theoretical knowledge is directly involved in economic activity. It becomes a direct productive force, the same as, for example, the knowledge embedded in the control programs of robots and flexible production systems.

To achieve economic goals, an entrepreneur needs support in the form of information about professional knowledge and the characteristics of the chosen field of business. The required information is scattered across multiple sources and storage locations. The goal of applied informatics is to collect, thematically combine and process information in such a way as to speed up access to information and present it in a form convenient for interpretation by a human user. Moreover, today in computer science there are no restrictions on the type of information collected and the type of information media used. Computer science tools make it possible to integrate a variety of information in “one place” and create a comprehensive field of information resources. And this, in turn, removes uncertainty and increases the likelihood of obtaining the necessary knowledge. The enterprise (at least its head office) can be considered as an effective information center. Such flows of information converge in it.

The external business environment (or macrosphere) is a set of economic and political entities operating outside the enterprise, and the relationships that develop between them and the enterprise, its actual and potential clients, as well as competitors. According to experts, the greatest opportunities for an enterprise are provided by the qualifications of personnel and the technological base, and the greatest danger lies in unexpected actions from competitors of foreign companies.

The internal business environment is relationships in a team that determine the saturation of information flows and the intensity of communication flows, as well as knowledge embedded and generated in production

According to modern estimates, an entrepreneur plays three information roles in his activities:

information receiver;

information distributor;

professional representative in the outside world.

The productivity of the enterprise largely depends on how the entrepreneur plays his information roles by organizing professional information flows. But the productivity of an enterprise is determined not only by the quantity of information, but also by the quality, which an entrepreneur must correctly understand and evaluate.

Information is one of the main resources for increasing the productivity of an enterprise, since it allows:

establish strategic goals and objectives of the enterprise and take advantage of emerging opportunities;

make informed and timely management decisions;

coordinate the actions of disparate departments, directing their efforts to achieve common goals.

Therefore, at any enterprise, work is organized and systematically carried out in the following main directions:

identifying problems and identifying information needs;

selection of information sources;

collection of information;

processing information and assessing its completeness and significance;

analysis of information and identification of trends in selected areas;

development of forecasts and alternatives for enterprise behavior;

assessing alternatives for various actions, choosing a strategy and making management decisions to implement strategic plans.

Information enrichment of modern business is its most characteristic feature. The winner is the one who more effectively collects, processes and uses information about emerging opportunities. 14

3. Information tools to support management decision making

3.1. Types of information resources

Three main information flows arise, spread and develop in the economy:

information that exists in the form of embodied knowledge in science-intensive products;

information reflecting human professional knowledge, partly recorded in the form of inventions, patents, licenses, but mainly in the form of production skills and techniques;

information on the art, methods and technology of practical solutions to the problems of managing modern production, on the issues of conquering sales markets in the production of even high-quality products.

All these flows of information are contained as a result of the intellectual component of the work of the most qualified and creative part of the workers. The peculiarity and most important feature of modernity is that all professional groups of workers make their contribution to the information component - from workers to senior managers. The rupture of any link in the chain of production relations between manufacturers leads to a loss of information and, as a consequence, to a deterioration in product quality.

Philosophers define knowledge as a practice-tested experience of knowing the world around us, a reflection of reality in human thinking. Knowledge is something that belongs to a person.

“Information, according to N. Wiener’s definition, is the designation of content received from the external world in the process of our adaptation to it and the adaptation of our feelings to it. The process of obtaining and using information is the process of our adaptation to the contingencies of the external environment and our life activity in this environment.”

Information is knowledge for others, alienated from its original living carrier (generator) and becoming messages (processed to one degree or another). This includes knowledge concentrated in articles, books, patent descriptions, oral communications, management documents, design documentation, models, algorithms, programs, etc. Almost every entrepreneur has his own management style, so knowledge that works successfully in one place may not be useful in another. The same applies to the phenomenon of internationalization of knowledge: only general scientific knowledge is international.

Based on a synthesis of many approaches, we can give the following definition of the term “information”, taking into account, among other things, its modern legal meaning: information is alienated knowledge recorded in a certain language in the form of signs on a material medium, available for reproduction without the participation of the author and transferred to public communication channels 15.

Amount of information.

From an ordinary point of view, the amount of information has little to do with the length of the speech or the volume of the text. The information message is received and interpreted depending on the context. However, the number of characters of the alphabet or the number of pages of text is accepted as a standard for the amount of information, for example in printing.

In technical information systems, each new signal requires resources for its display. Therefore, the length of messages is a measure of the amount of information; in order to measure the information signal, this standard should be chosen. It is justified by the desire to reduce the entire alphabet of a technical language to two signs: dot, dash; closed, open; red, green; Not really; "1" and "0". To encode letters, numbers, and other symbols, we need sequences of “1s” and “0s,” called binary numbers. Eight-bit binary numbers called bytes are used as standard information in technical systems. And a simple rule for measuring the amount of information is introduced - the number of bytes to represent text is equal to the number of characters in the natural language of this text.

One unit of information - a byte - consists of eight binary units, otherwise called bits. Therefore, practically in technical information systems two equal standards for the amount of information are used - bits and bytes.

Quality of information.

This indicator is important, but controversial. The same information has different meanings (values) for the same person, but at different times or for several people. In general, information, as a rule, does not retain its value over time, although there is knowledge of seemingly constant significance (for example, the fundamental laws of nature, birthdays...).

Three approaches (criteria) to assessing the quality of information have been adopted: to reduce the state of uncertainty, to achieve the goal and to increase the thesaurus.

Statistical information theory assumes that information is taken as a measure of reducing uncertainty after receiving a message. Therefore, receiving a message is equivalent to receiving additional knowledge that changes the previously created picture. Obviously, the less probable the a priori information about the essence of the received message, the greater the changes it will cause. It is important to note here that the transmitted information - the message - must be transmitted in a code that is understood by the receiving party. Knowing the code will allow you to correctly receive and interpret information even with some distortion of information in the communication channel.

For systems with a clearly expressed goal, the value of information can be expressed in terms of the increment in the probability of achieving the goal. The pragmatic value of information in economic systems is extremely high: to increase the productivity of an economic system by k times, it is necessary to expand the capacity of channels and the volume of created, transmitted and processed messages by approximately k+k times.

A message is a form of knowledge transfer - an ordered reflection of objects and processes in concepts, judgments and images of concepts 16. In order to perceive and assimilate a message, it is necessary to have a certain stock of knowledge, which is presented to the system in the form of a thesaurus - a systematized dictionary of concepts indicating the semantic connections between them. The received message is compared with the thesaurus, after which:

If there is a complete discrepancy, it is not understood;

If there is a complete match, nothing is added to it and is not considered as informative;

If there is a partial match, it enriches the thesaurus by adding new concepts.

Consequently, the value of information is understood as the measure of expansion and development of the thesaurus by the perceived party when receiving and interpreting the message. By isolating from the general flow relevantly useful information that facilitates decision-making and achieving set goals, through the cognitive (semantic) filter of a specialist assessing the information, the entrepreneur sets the boundaries of possibilities for the implementation of his entrepreneurial idea. Today, in addition to high machine productivity, electronic knowledge dissemination provides the highest flexibility, programmable production, the ability to efficiently produce small series and quickly fulfill complex individual orders.

Databases.

At enterprises, information about projects carried out by the enterprise is accumulated and stored in computer form; about parts, blocks, assemblies, components used in projects; about suppliers and warehouses where parts are stored; about employees and departments that are executors of projects. Any information arrays can be recorded in such databases, and by analogy, databases can be considered electronic libraries. Such electronic libraries provide completely new information capabilities: the ability to select facts and fragments of text, rather than entire books (magazines). There are no “shelves” in the machine, so it is possible to directly look inside the book and display on the display screen (monitor) only that part of the book that is interesting to the user.

Expert systems

An important step in the development of information systems is the construction of expert systems. The expert system must ask questions to the user, assess the situation and obtain solutions presented in some form to the user. In addition, the expert system may be required to demonstrate the manner in which the decision was obtained and justify it.

An expert system models the thought process of a human expert who is a specialist in solving a certain type of problem. With the help of expert systems, problems that belong to the class of formalized, semi-structured problems are solved. An algorithmic solution to such problems either does not exist due to the incompleteness, uncertainty, inaccuracy, vagueness of the situations under consideration and knowledge about them, or such solutions are unacceptable in practice due to the complexity of the resolution algorithms. The main difference between information retrieval and expert systems is that the first searches for information available in it on a given topic, and the second - logically processes information in order to obtain new information that was not explicitly entered into it. At the same time, based on the machine’s knowledge base, not only facts are automatically determined, as in a database, but new knowledge is generated through logical inference. Expert systems are capable of providing qualified advice (advice, hint, orientation) in difficult situations. Helping an entrepreneur or specialist make an informed decision.

An expert system can be created for a specific user, and then its creation takes into account the specific requirements of the customer, his taste and inclinations. Such systems include various automated workstations.

Structural expert systems contain logical inference subsystems, knowledge bases and intelligent interfaces - programs for “communication” with the machine. Knowledge bases are a set of empirical rules for the truth of conclusions (statements) on a given topic (problem); databases of empirical data and descriptions of problems, as well as options for their solutions.

3.2 The influence of information on the effectiveness of management decisions.

The activity of each enterprise has two sides: external and internal. The management of the enterprise makes decisions that affect both of these parties.

The external side is the interaction with factors external to the enterprise that affect the activities of the enterprise. These include such as current legislation, specific local conditions, and most importantly, the characteristics of consumer behavior in relation to the product offered by the enterprise. Buyers perceive and evaluate precisely the external side of the enterprise’s activities, the end result of which is the creation of a certain image of both the product and the enterprise itself.

The internal side is what is inside the enterprise and determines how effectively the work is organized within it. In the most general form, internal factors include the structure of the enterprise, existing business processes and business operations, and resources used in the operation of the enterprise.

The external and internal aspects of the enterprise’s activities are inextricably linked, since they serve to achieve the same goal: increasing the efficiency of the enterprise, namely, increasing sales volumes of products and increasing the profit that these products bring. The sales volume of a product offered to the market depends on external factors that the enterprise often cannot change. The situation with product profitability is different: the profit per unit of output received by an enterprise not only can, but must be controlled by the management of the enterprise, since many factors influencing profit are located within the enterprise and can be controlled by the management of the enterprise.

The sales volume of products depends on the market reaction to the products offered. To sell the maximum volume of goods offered to the market, an enterprise must take into account many factors influencing demand, but first of all, these are the expectations of potential buyers regarding how they would like to see the product. It is the determination of the properties that a product must have in order to be attractive to a certain circle of consumers that is the main task of the marketing activity of an enterprise.

The profit received by the enterprise directly depends on the efficiency of the organization of the enterprise's work. An enterprise can be viewed both from the point of view of its technological or production processes, and from the point of view of business processes - logically related and interdependent sequences of actions (business operations) that use the resources of the enterprise to create a useful output result in the form of a product or service for internal or external consumer (buyer).

The cost of products offered to the market depends on how well business processes are organized. You can offer a good product to the market, but if its price exceeds the market level, the enterprise will not be able to withstand competition and will incur losses. Such a product will not be sold, even if the company has a very good distribution system. Therefore, the only possible way to ensure the competitiveness of an enterprise is to build rational and effective business processes.

The basis for making the right decisions in both the external and internal spheres is the availability of reliable information necessary for correct analysis. Collection and analysis of external information is one of the main functions of marketing. Obtaining internal information, as a rule, is carried out on the basis of management accounting, which provides the management of the enterprise with the data necessary to analyze the current situation and make management decisions. The management of the enterprise receives the necessary data if the enterprise has a rationally constructed management reporting system. Therefore, building such a system is the first step towards increasing the efficiency of an enterprise.

Let's consider these two aspects of the enterprise's activities. The external side of the enterprise's activities largely coincides with marketing activities. Marketing can be divided into strategic and operational. Strategic marketing is primarily an analysis of the needs of individuals and organizations. It includes an analysis of competitive advantages, an analysis of the attractiveness of products and generally determines the strategic position of the enterprise in the market. Operational marketing is the active commercial process of achieving target sales through the use of tactical means related to product, distribution, price and communication.

Strategic marketing is of great importance for an enterprise and requires special attention. This is a complex set of issues that require separate consideration. The goal of the enterprise's operational marketing activities is to form an optimal product range in the short term. Naturally, when forming an assortment, external and internal restrictions inherent in the enterprise are taken into account. The choice of the optimal production program must necessarily be based on knowledge of the demand for specific types of goods and services. The price of the product is what the market dictates. Therefore, the demand for a specific product (the maximum sales volume of this product in a given place for a certain period of time at a certain price) is a limitation that is largely dictated by the external environment, and which must be taken into account when developing business plans for the enterprise.

Internal limitations are the technical capabilities of the enterprise, the availability of working capital and existing opportunities for additional financing, the current level of costs, including features of the cost structure, personnel qualifications, etc. In order to take into account the restrictions dictated by demand when developing plans, data on the relationship between the maximum possible sales volumes and the price of the product should be presented, if possible, in quantitative form, which is very difficult to do due to the almost complete lack of reliable data on the market situation. This is one of the most difficult problems of the modern Russian market. Enterprises that have good regular marketing, as a rule, create marketing databases in which various marketing information is collected and systematized. These databases are replenished in various ways - by monitoring the press, personal contacts, and conducting targeted marketing research. The task of systematizing and processing marketing information is greatly facilitated by various software tools for automating marketing activities.

Understanding that the accuracy of demand forecasting depends on the information used for analysis and on the methods of processing it, many Russian enterprises try to obtain basic information about consumers and the market not only through the marketing department, but also through sales structures. Sometimes, depending on the organizational structure of the enterprise, financial services also contact customers regarding payment issues. As a rule, the task of the marketing department is to analyze consumers and competitors and develop a marketing strategy for the enterprise, while the sales department is engaged in direct sales and collecting first-hand information. Sales personnel typically have an accurate understanding of the sales potential their customers provide. Expert judgment, intuition, and experience of marketing and sales personnel, as well as consumers, can serve as the basis for a subjective assessment of demand.

Financial analysis of the assortment should be carried out in financial services. It is important that the results of the analysis are provided to the marketing and sales department. This information is the basis for further analysis of the assortment from a market perspective. To obtain the necessary information, the marketing department uses various methods of analyzing the market, consumers and competitors. Based on the data obtained, forecasts of changes in consumer demand are made. The degree of accuracy of the demand forecast shows the effectiveness of the marketing and sales department. All activities of the enterprise are planned depending on the sales forecast. Having chosen the most profitable goods and services for the enterprise, it is necessary to clarify the target segment, i.e. determine the consumers for whom the product is designed, as well as a number of other marketing characteristics of the enterprise’s activities.

Product positioning. The nature of the perception of the product by target customers determines the positioning of the product. During the positioning process, it is important to evaluate the potential profitability of the selected position. Positioning includes several elements:

• product promotion (communications).

Pricing is one of the simplest and most flexible ways to determine market position. Product promotion is the activity of an enterprise to create demand for the goods offered. The enterprise is virtually powerless in the face of environmental uncertainty. All it can do is try to anticipate the future by creating a reliable system for tracking key factors to which primary demand is particularly sensitive. Market instability systematically forces enterprises to develop alternative scenarios and not limit themselves to only the most likely option.

The internal side of an enterprise's activities is much more predictable, and most importantly, subject to the will of the enterprise's management. An enterprise cannot control the price level on the market to a large extent, therefore, to increase the profit received by the enterprise, the main way is to reduce the cost of production of the enterprise - i.e. effective cost control. The first step towards establishing such control is the creation of a system for obtaining prompt, accurate and reliable information about the activities of the enterprise - a management reporting system.

Management reporting poses a problem for almost all business leaders with whom we have worked - mainly due to the lack of an appropriate system for recording, processing and presenting data on the basis of which decisions are made. Sometimes the information received by management for control and decision-making is generated from the tax reporting system, which is required of all enterprises by law. The problem is that this information serves specific purposes and does not meet the needs of management. Therefore, in many enterprises there are two parallel accounting systems - accounting and “practical”, i.e. serving to ensure the fulfillment of daily work tasks of employees and managers of the enterprise. As a rule, such accounting is carried out on a bottom-up basis. To perform their work, employees of an enterprise record the data they need (primary information). When the management of an enterprise needs to obtain some information about the state of affairs at the enterprise, it makes requests to lower-level managers, and they, in turn, to the performers. The consequence of this spontaneous approach to the formation of a reporting system is that, as a rule, a conflict arises between the information that management wants to receive and the data that performers can provide. The reason for this conflict is obvious - at different levels of the enterprise hierarchy, different information is required, and when building a bottom-up reporting system, the basic principle of building an information system - focus on the first person - is violated. Performers either have the wrong types of data that management needs, or the data they need is not at the right level of detail.

Most managers do receive reports on the work of their departments, but this information is either too lengthy - for example, filing sales contracts instead of a summary report giving figures on total sales for a specified period, or, conversely, is not complete enough. In addition, information arrives late - for example, you can receive information about accounts receivable 20 days after the end of the month, and meanwhile the sales department has already shipped goods to the customer with the last payment overdue. Inaccurate data can cause poor decisions. Accurate data received late also loses value.

In order for the management of an enterprise to receive the data it needs to make management decisions, it is necessary to build a reporting system “from top to bottom”, formulating the needs of the top level of management and projecting them onto the lower levels of execution. Only this approach ensures the receipt and recording at the lowest executive level of such primary data, which in a generalized form can provide the management of the enterprise with the information it needs.

The most important requirements for a management accounting system are timeliness, uniformity, accuracy and regularity of information received by the management of the enterprise. These requirements can be implemented subject to a number of simple principles for constructing a management reporting system:

The system should be focused on the first person. The system must be built from top to bottom. Managers at each level must analyze the composition and frequency of the data they need to do their jobs. Performers must have the ability to record and transmit “upward” the data established by their management. Data must be recorded where it is generated. Information should become available to all interested consumers immediately after it is recorded.

Obviously, these requirements can be most fully realized using an automated system. However, the experience of streamlining management reporting systems at various enterprises shows that the installation of an automated management accounting system must be preceded by quite a lot of “paper” work. Its implementation allows you to simulate various features of the enterprise’s management reporting and, thereby, speed up the process of implementing the system and avoid many costly mistakes.

Conclusion

Based on everything said above, we can conclude that the problem of providing the decision-making process with information that meets all the requirements is completely solvable. Currently, this problem is being solved through the use of modern electronic computing technology, the creation of various databases, expert systems and decision-making preparation systems. Such methods allow you to quite simply and, most importantly, quickly collect, process and analyze existing information. They also make the decision-making process much easier for managers at all levels. The implementation of the systems described above requires quite a large investment, but it undoubtedly pays off in a big way. After all, as they say, whoever owns the information owns the situation, whoever owns the situation owns everything.

Along with all the advantages, this solution to the problem also has its own difficulties. The main problem is the need for managers to acquire new knowledge in order to use the proposed tools most effectively, which requires quite a lot of time.

Many studies conducted in the United States indicate that even successful businessmen make informed and meaningful decisions only half of the time. One can only be surprised at how some businessmen make decisions, the inconsistency of which is visible even to an inexperienced person. But improving the quality of decisions made by economic managers is the most important reserve for increasing the efficiency of all social production.

We believe that such unsatisfactory results are primarily due to insufficient provision of information to management decisions.

The purpose of this course work was to convince the reader of the importance and necessity of paying special attention to information support in the process of making management decisions. I hope that we managed to do this at least to a small extent.

References

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Godin V.V., Korneev I.K.. Information support for management activities. – M.: Higher School; Mastery, 2001. - 239 p.

Goldstein G.Ya. Fundamentals of management: Lecture notes. Taganrog: TRTU Publishing House, 2003.

Dorf R., Bishop R. Modern control systems. – M.: Lab. Basic Knowledge: Unimedstyle, 2002. – 832 p.

Kardanskaya N.L. Making management decisions. – M.: Unity, 1999. – 407 p.

Karminsky A.M., Nesterov P.V. Business informatization. – M.: Finance and Statistics, 1997. 87 p.

Litvak B.G. Development of management solutions. – M.: Delo, 2000. – 392 p.

Fundamentals of information management: Textbook. allowance /A.V. Kostrov.- M.: Finance and Statistics, 2001.-164 p.

Decision making in organizations: Textbook. manual / O.A. Kulagin. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house "September", 2001.-98 p.

Development of a management decision: Textbook / V.B. Remennikov. - M.-UNITY-DANA, 2001. -144s.

Seleznev Yu. I. Information support of management decisions. - M.-UNITY-DANA, 2006. - 254 p.

Seliverstova A.V. Improving the mechanism for selecting information for making management decisions. / Abstract – Chelyabinsk, 2002. 3-8 p.

Stepanova E. E. Khmelevskaya N. V. "Information support of management activities: Textbook." – M.: Infra-M, 2002. 138 p.

Eddowes M., Stansfield R. Methods of decision making. – M.: Audit: UNITY, 1997. - 325 p.

Management in Russia and abroad No. 2 / 2000

Application. Classification of management decisions

By functional content

By hierarchy level

By the nature of the development organization

For reasons of occurrence

According to original development methods

By organizational design

Planned

Organizational

Controlling

Forecast

Regulatory

16 Stepanova E. E. Information support for management activities: Textbook. – M.: Infra-M, 2002. P. 47.

The activity of each enterprise has two sides: external and internal. The management of the enterprise makes decisions that affect both of these parties.

The external side is the interaction with factors external to the enterprise that affect the activities of the enterprise. These include such as current legislation, specific local conditions, and most importantly, the characteristics of consumer behavior in relation to the product offered by the enterprise. Buyers perceive and evaluate precisely the external side of the enterprise’s activities, the end result of which is the creation of a certain image of both the product and the enterprise itself.

The internal side is what is inside the enterprise and determines how effectively the work is organized within it. In the most general form, internal factors include the structure of the enterprise, existing business processes and business operations, and resources used in the operation of the enterprise.

MARKETING

The external and internal aspects of the enterprise’s activities are inextricably linked, since they serve to achieve the same goal: increasing the efficiency of the enterprise, namely, increasing sales volumes of products and increasing the profit that these products bring. The sales volume of a product offered to the market depends on external factors that the enterprise often cannot change. The situation with product profitability is different: the profit per unit of output received by an enterprise not only can, but must be controlled by the management of the enterprise, since many factors influencing profit are located within the enterprise and can be controlled by the management of the enterprise.

The sales volume of products depends on the market reaction to the products offered. To sell the maximum volume of goods offered to the market, an enterprise must take into account many factors influencing demand, but first of all, these are the expectations of potential buyers regarding how they would like to see the product. It is the determination of the properties that a product must have in order to be attractive to a certain circle of consumers that is the main task of the marketing activity of an enterprise.

The profit received by the enterprise directly depends on the efficiency of the organization of the enterprise's work. An enterprise can be viewed both from the point of view of its technological or production processes, and from the point of view of business processes - logically related and interdependent sequences of actions (business operations) that use the resources of the enterprise to create a useful output result in the form of a product or service for internal or an external consumer (buyer). The cost of the products offered to the market depends on how well business processes are organized. You can offer a good product to the market, but if its price exceeds the market level, the enterprise will not be able to withstand competition and will incur losses. Such a product will not be sold, even if the company has a very good distribution system. Therefore, the only possible way to ensure the competitiveness of an enterprise is to build rational and effective business processes.

The basis for making the right decisions in both the external and internal spheres is the availability of reliable information necessary for correct analysis. Collection and analysis of external information is one of the main functions of marketing. Obtaining internal information, as a rule, is carried out on the basis of management accounting, which provides the management of the enterprise with the data necessary to analyze the current situation and make management decisions. The management of the enterprise receives the necessary data if the enterprise has a rationally constructed management reporting system. Therefore, building such a system is the first step towards increasing the efficiency of an enterprise.

Let's consider these two aspects of the enterprise's activities.

The external side of the enterprise's activities largely coincides with marketing activities. Marketing can be divided into strategic and operational. Strategic marketing is primarily an analysis of the needs of individuals and organizations. It includes an analysis of competitive advantages, an analysis of the attractiveness of products and generally determines the strategic position of the enterprise in the market. Operational marketing is the active commercial process of achieving target sales through the use of tactical means related to product, distribution, price and communication.

Strategic marketing is of great importance for an enterprise and requires special attention. This is a complex set of issues that require separate consideration. The goal of the operational marketing activities of an enterprise is to form an optimal product range in the short term. Naturally, when forming an assortment, external and internal limitations inherent in the enterprise are taken into account.

The choice of the optimal production program must necessarily be based on knowledge of the demand for specific types of goods and services. The price of the product is what the market dictates. Therefore, the demand for a specific product (the maximum sales volume of this product in a given place for a certain period of time at a certain price) is a limitation that is largely dictated by the external environment, and which must be taken into account when developing business plans for the enterprise. Internal limitations are the technical capabilities of the enterprise, the availability of working capital and existing opportunities for additional financing, the current level of costs, including features of the cost structure, personnel qualifications, etc. In order to take into account restrictions dictated by demand when developing plans, data on the ratio of the maximum possible sales volumes and product prices should be presented, if possible, in quantitative form, which is very difficult to do due to the almost complete lack of reliable data on the market situation. This is one of the most difficult problems of the modern Russian market. Enterprises that have good regular marketing, as a rule, create marketing databases in which various marketing information is collected and systematized. These databases are replenished in various ways - by monitoring the press, personal contacts, and conducting targeted marketing research. The task of systematizing and processing marketing information is greatly facilitated by various software tools for automating marketing activities.

Understanding that the accuracy of demand forecasting depends on the information used for analysis and on the methods of processing it, many Russian enterprises try to obtain basic information about consumers and the market not only through the marketing department, but also through sales structures. Sometimes, depending on the organizational structure of the enterprise, financial services also contact customers regarding payment issues. As a rule, the task of the marketing department is to analyze consumers and competitors and develop a marketing strategy for the enterprise, while the function of the sales department is direct sales and collection of first-hand information. Sales personnel typically have an accurate understanding of the sales potential their customers provide. Expert judgment, intuition, and experience of marketing and sales staff, as well as consumers, can serve as the basis for a subjective assessment of demand. Financial analysis of the assortment should be carried out in financial services. It is important that the results of the analysis are provided to the marketing and sales department employees. This information is the basis for further analysis of the assortment from a market perspective. To obtain the necessary information, the marketing department uses various methods of analyzing the market, consumers and competitors. Based on the data obtained, forecasts of changes in consumer demand are made. The degree of accuracy of the demand forecast shows the effectiveness of the marketing and sales department. All activities of the enterprise are planned depending on the sales forecast. Having chosen the most profitable goods and services for the enterprise, it is necessary to clarify the target segment, i.e. determine the consumers for whom the product is designed, as well as a number of other marketing characteristics of the enterprise’s activities.

Product positioning. The nature of the perception of the product by target customers determines the positioning of the product. During the positioning process, it is important to evaluate the potential profitability of the selected position.

Positioning includes several elements:

product promotion (communications).

The enterprise is virtually powerless in the face of environmental uncertainty. All it can do is try to anticipate the future by creating a reliable system for tracking key factors to which primary demand is particularly sensitive. Market instability systematically forces enterprises to develop alternative scenarios and not limit themselves to only the most likely option.

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING

The internal side of an enterprise’s activities is much more predictable, and most importantly, subject to the will of the enterprise’s management. An enterprise cannot control the price level on the market to a large extent, therefore, to increase the profit received by the enterprise, the main way is to reduce the cost of the enterprise’s products - i.e. effective cost control.

The first step towards establishing such control is the creation of a system for obtaining prompt, accurate and reliable information about the activities of the enterprise - a management reporting system.

Management reporting poses a problem for almost all business leaders with whom we have worked - mainly due to the lack of an appropriate system for recording, processing and presenting data on the basis of which decisions are made. Sometimes the information received by management for control and decision-making is generated from the tax reporting system, which is required of all enterprises by law. The problem is that this information serves specific purposes and does not meet the needs of management. Therefore, in many enterprises there are two parallel accounting systems - accounting and “practical”, i.e. serving to ensure the fulfillment of daily work tasks of employees and managers of the enterprise. As a rule, such accounting is carried out on a bottom-up basis. To perform their work, employees of an enterprise record the data they need (primary information). When the management of an enterprise needs to obtain some information about the state of affairs at the enterprise, it makes requests to lower-level managers, and they, in turn, to the performers.

The consequence of this spontaneous approach to the formation of a reporting system is that, as a rule, a conflict arises between the information that management wants to receive and the data that performers can provide. The reason for this conflict is obvious - at different levels of the enterprise hierarchy, different information is required, and when building a bottom-up reporting system, the basic principle of building an information system - focus on the first person - is violated. Performers either have the wrong types of data that management needs, or the data they need is not at the right level of detail. Most managers do receive reports on the work of their departments, but this information is either too extensive - for example, filing sales agreements instead of a summary report with a summary figures on total sales for the specified period, or, conversely, are not complete enough. In addition, information arrives late - for example, you can receive information about accounts receivable 20 days after the end of the month, and meanwhile the sales department has already shipped goods to the customer with the last payment overdue. Inaccurate data can cause poor decisions. Accurate data received late also loses value.

In order for the management of an enterprise to receive the data it needs to make management decisions, it is necessary to build a reporting system “from top to bottom”, formulating the needs of the top level of management and projecting them onto the lower levels of execution. Only this approach ensures the receipt and recording at the lowest executive level of such primary data, which in a generalized form can provide the management of the enterprise with the information it needs.

The most important requirements for a management accounting system are timeliness, uniformity, accuracy and regularity of information received by the management of the enterprise. These requirements can be implemented subject to a number of simple principles for constructing a management reporting system:

The system should be focused on the first person. The system must be built from top to bottom.

Managers at each level must analyze the composition and frequency of the data they need to do their jobs.

Performers must have the ability to record and transmit “upward” the data established by their management.

Data must be recorded where it is generated.

Information should become available to all interested consumers immediately after it is recorded.

Obviously, these requirements can be most fully realized using an automated system. However, the experience of streamlining management reporting systems at various enterprises shows that the installation of an automated management accounting system must be preceded by quite a lot of “paper” work. Its implementation allows you to simulate various features of the enterprise’s management reporting and, thereby, speed up the process of implementing the system and avoid many costly mistakes.

Manage – means to decide.
Management Commandment

A good solution can be successfully applied to any problem.
Universal Law of Management

The essence of management decisions, their characteristics

In organizational management structures, decision-making processes are implemented constantly. Management decisions are made in situations:

• the emergence of new conditions and circumstances that disrupt the normal functioning of the organization in order to return it to the optimal level;
• the need to preserve the created conditions unchanged if the organization’s operating mode is optimal;
• the need to transfer the organization to a new mode of operation, determined by new goals.

Making a management decision involves actions aimed at:

• to restore control over the course of events;
• adjustment of standards for assessing business information in accordance with the situation;
• taking advantage of new opportunities.

Management decisions are made at all levels of the hierarchical structure of the enterprise. In this case, goals, forms of activity, resources, opportunities, difficulties and ways to overcome them are determined. All these points are formed in the form of a management decision.

Management decision – creative, volitional action of a management subject based on knowledge of the objective laws of functioning of the managed subsystem, analysis of information about its state, consisting in choosing a goal, program and methods of action of the team to resolve the problem.

A management decision is characterized by:

• focus;
• strong-willed character;
• directiveness;
• concreteness.

A problem is a situation characterized by such a difference between the desired and existing state of the controlled subsystem, which prevents its development and normal functioning.

The identification of the problem and its description are as follows:

• specifying the content of the problem;
• localization of the problem location;
• determining when a problem occurs;
• establishing trends in the development of the problem from the moment of its occurrence to its identification;
• determining the need to take action to eliminate the problem before determining the causes of its occurrence.

The main ways to distribute the causes of the problem:

• identifying changes in the control object and the external environment that precede the occurrence of the problem;
• identifying objects similar to the one under consideration, where a similar problem did not arise, and establishing differences in objects;
• constructing a cause-and-effect diagram;
• drawing up a map of opinions.

Problems may be caused by the following factors:

• incorrect principles on which the activity of the enterprise is based;
• overestimated or underestimated criteria;
• mistakes made during current activities;
• unforeseen circumstances.

Basic conditions for ensuring high quality and efficiency of management decisions:

• application of scientific management approaches to the development of management solutions;
• studying the influence of economic laws on the effectiveness of management decisions;
• supplying the decision maker with quality information;
• application of methods of functional cost analysis, forecasting, modeling and economic justification for each decision;
• structuring the problem and building a tree of goals;
• ensuring comparability of solution options;
• ensuring multiple solutions;
• legal validity of the decision;
• automation of the process of collecting and processing information, the process of developing and implementing solutions;
• development and operation of a system of responsibility and motivation for high-quality and effective solutions;
• the presence of a mechanism for implementing the solution.

Types of management decisions

Reflecting the versatility and complexity of the interaction of objective and subjective factors operating in production systems, management decisions are distinguished by a variety of forms. The classification of management decisions allows you to systematize information and situations (Table 6.1)

Typically, in making a management decision, three elements are present to varying degrees: intuition, judgment and rationality.

A method of making management decisions based only on judgment is not very reliable, since common sense is quite rare, although the method will be quite cheap and fast.

Judgment very often cannot be correlated with a situation that has previously occurred, and the manager strives to act as he acted before in another situation, and therefore risks missing a good result in a new situation, consciously or unconsciously refusing its detailed analysis.

Intuitive solutions based on the feeling that a person’s choice is correct. Characteristic for operational management.

Table 6.1

At the core decisions based on judgment lies knowledge, meaningful experience of the past and common sense. Characteristic for operational management.

Rational solutions based on methods of economic analysis, justification and optimization. Characteristic for strategic and tactical management.

A manager who is guided only by intuition becomes a hostage to chance, and his chances of choosing the right solution are not very high.

Management decisions are made by people, and therefore their nature largely depends on the personality of the manager directly involved in their development.

Balanced Solutions accepted by a manager who is attentive and critical to their actions, put forward hypotheses and their testing.

Impulsive decisions characteristic of a manager who easily generates a wide variety of ideas in unlimited quantities, but is unable to properly test, clarify, and evaluate them.

Inert solutions- the result of a careful search for a manager. In them, clarifying and controlling actions prevail over the generation of ideas, where originality, innovation, and brilliance are difficult to detect.

If the manager does not need to thoroughly substantiate their hypotheses and is confident in himself, he may not be afraid of any difficulties and accept risky decisions.

Careful decisions will be when the manager carefully evaluates all options and approaches the matter critically. The solutions are not new and original.

Requirements for a management decision

The management decision made by the manager must meet the following requirements:

• be scientifically sound, competent;
• be adopted on the basis of reliable, complete and timely information with analysis and assessment of possible alternatives;
• be consistent;
• have a clear focus and targeting;
• differ in timeliness and speed;
• have precision and clarity;
• to be controlled;
• be complex;
• have authority;
• be economical and efficient.

The process of preparing and implementing a management decision involves performing a number of works in a certain sequence, including the adoption phase and the implementation phase of the management decision (Fig. 6.1)

Figure No. 6.1. Algorithm for preparing and implementing management decisions

When developing a management decision, it is very important to choose the right criteria – indicators characterizing decision options and used for assessment and selection.

It is very important to determine the weight (significance) of the criterion - a quantitative expression of the relative importance of each criterion used for evaluation and selection in comparison with other criteria.

The effectiveness of the managerial decision made by the manager significantly depends on the correct choice of the degree of participation of subordinates in the adoption and implementation of the decision. With this, it is possible both complete non-participation of subordinates (the decision is made by the manager alone), and joint development and adoption of a decision with the manager (collective decision)

The main factors in choosing the degree of participation are the qualifications of subordinates, their conscientiousness and responsibility.

In the management decision-making system, a management operation and a management procedure are distinguished.

– technologically indivisible process of processing management information entering a given structural unit(Fig. 6.2)

Figure No. 6.2. Management operation

– a set of management operations and documents interconnected in a certain order, aimed at achieving a fixed goal(Fig. 6.3)

The complexity and interdependence of technical, organizational, socio-economic and other aspects of management have led to the need to develop special methods that facilitate the justification and selection of management decisions under conditions of uncertainty.

To eliminate uncertainty, the cause of which will be the presence of many criteria, use the experience and intuition of the decision maker.

Uncertainty refers to the incompleteness or inaccuracy of information about the conditions for implementing a decision, including the associated costs and results. The uncertainty associated with the possibility of adverse situations and consequences arising during the implementation of a solution is characterized by the concept of risk.

Figure No. 6.3. Management procedure

The value and timeliness of a management decision largely depend on the manager’s ability to collect, analyze and interpret information at the right time.

Information support– one of the most important supporting functions, the quality of which will be a determining factor in the validity of the decision made and the effectiveness of the management system. In dynamics, information support as a process is included in the concept of “communication”.

Communication – the process of exchanging information between two or more people.

Communication goals:

• ensuring effective exchange of information between the object and the subject of management;
• improving interpersonal relationships in the process of information exchange;
• creation of information channels for the exchange of information between individual employees and groups, to coordinate their tasks and actions;
• regulation and rationalization of information flows.

Considering the dependence on the method of information exchange, they distinguish:

• interpersonal, or organizational, communications based on oral communication (Fig. 6.4);
• communications based on written exchange of information.
  It is worth noting that informal communications play a special role. The presence of informal communications is associated with the desire of employees to know the information that they cannot obtain through formal organizational communications.

Information transmitted through informal communication channels primarily relates to new punitive measures, changes in the structure of the organization, conflicts in the leadership of the organization, etc. The informal communication system can create rumors, which can negatively affect the effectiveness of communications.

When organizing communication networks in an enterprise, it is extremely important to take into account the specifics of various types and channels of communication at each of the following stages of the communication process:

• generation of an idea or selection of information;
• selection of information transmission channel;
• message transmission;
• interpretation of the message.

There are four basic elements in the communication process:

• sender;
• message;
• channel or means of transmitting information;
• recipient.

Communication is considered successful if the recipient of the information understands its content adequately to the meaning that the sender (manager) puts into it.

Figure No. 6.4. Interpersonal communications

Anything that has the potential to reduce uncertainty should be considered information. Information – facts, assessments, forecasts, generalization of communications, rumors, etc.

Basic requirements for information quality:

• complexity of the information system;
• ϲʙᴏtimeliness;
• reliability (with a certain probability);
• adequacy;
• reliability;
• targeting;
• legal correctness;
• reusability;
• high speed of selection, processing and transmission;
• coding capability;
• relevance.

Today, information is viewed as a global process associated with fundamental changes in the structure and nature of global economic and social development, with the transition to new generations of high-tech technologies, systems of equipment and materials and new types of information exchange, which decisively change the nature of work and human living conditions.

Informatization – a unified and natural stage through which every society that has embarked on the path of intensive development must go through in one form or another.

We can distinguish two stages of informatization in the 21st century. First stage informatization includes solving the following main problems:

• preparation, maintenance, adjustment of legal and economic norms that ensure the functioning of information as a product, taking into account generally accepted norms in world practice;
• formulation and introduction of basic standards regulating the form of presentation, methods of processing and transmitting information (exchange protocols, interfaces, etc.) taking into account international standards for similar purposes;
• ensuring computer literacy and information culture of the population; restructuring of the educational process and development of a network of retraining of personnel with the wide involvement of international training centers;
• creation and development of the main components of the informatization infrastructure: a national data transmission system, a state database system, a unified automated communications system;
• development and beginning of the formation of a market for information products and services participating in the global division of labor;
• the use of economic mechanisms of centralized planning, indicative management and the free market in order to ensure the priority development of the production of new generation materials, microelectronics and radio electronics.

On second stage development of informatization, the following tasks can be set:

• meeting the needs of all areas of socio-economic development in the use of distributed databases;
• implementation of full interaction of national information infrastructures through international communication networks with databases and knowledge;
• implementation of large-scale application of integrated information processing systems;
• use of systems of mass information services for the population via e-mail and the Internet;
• creation of competitive intellectual production of information products and services;
• development of fundamental research in the field of artificial intelligence, providing for the solution of many problems;
• creation of high-performance computing tools with non-traditional architecture (multiprocessor, neutron, optical, molecular, etc.);
• development of fundamental work in cooperation with international research centers, creation of open “science parks” in the field of creating artificial intelligence systems;
• active use of information multimedia technologies in open education.

In management practice it is used control technology, which is an interconnected set of technical means designed for mechanization and automation of information processes in the organization’s management system in order to develop rational decisions. There are means for collecting and registering, transmitting, inputting, accumulating, processing, outputting, displaying and reproducing information.

Information collection and registration tools carry out recording of primary information at the place of its origin on documentary or machine media (tapes, disks) with simultaneous receipt of the machine document on a printing device or display (monitor)

Means of information transmission carry out the transfer of information from the source of the message to the recipient via postal, telephone, telegraph, mobile, optical, radio or space communications over a considerable distance. It is worth noting that they can significantly reduce the time and speed of information transfer compared to courier and postal services.

Information input/output means are intended for inputting initial data into a computer from a person’s voice, manual documents, magnetic media and display screens, as well as for outputting effective information in the form of speech information, machine documents on paper, display screens or the same magnetic media.

Information storage means are intended for storing documentary information or systematized encoded information on machine media with erasable records (magnetic disks, floppy disks, tapes, cassettes)

Information processing tools perform arithmetic and logical operations on input information according to programs compiled in advance by humans. The processing program can be changed and improved, with the exception of the information processing program in calculators, in which it is strictly determined by the design of the machine.

Information display tools represent alphanumeric and graphic information on a mnemonic diagram, display screen or in the form of a drawing on a plotter. Information is displayed using computer commands or from an autonomous magnetic disk drive.

Media for reproducing information produce copies of documents and drawings with possible changes in their geometric dimensions. The means provide for the reproduction of information using special light-, photo- and heat-sensitive paper or film.

Situations for discussion

1. Comment on Hall’s Law: “The approach to a problem is more important than the solution.”

2. How relevant is the statement today? Do not forget that van Harpen: “The solution to a problem lies in finding people who will solve it.”

3. In the business world, there are two main types of decision making: through the market and through hierarchy. Explain.

4. Whoever owns the information has the right to success. Give examples confirming the correctness of this position.

5. What can be sources of information when collecting information about the market for certain products? Does the composition of information sources change if an enterprise operates in a foreign market?

Manage – means to decide.
Management Commandment

A good solution can be successfully applied to any problem.
Universal Law of Management

The essence of management decisions, their characteristics

In organizational management structures, decision-making processes are implemented constantly. Management decisions are made in situations:

• the emergence of new conditions and circumstances that disrupt the normal functioning of the organization in order to return it to the optimal level;
• the need to preserve the created conditions unchanged if the organization’s operating mode is optimal;
• the need to transfer the organization to a new mode of operation, determined by new goals.

Making a management decision involves actions aimed at:

• to restore control over the course of events;
• adjustment of standards for assessing business information in accordance with the situation;
• taking advantage of new opportunities.

Management decisions are made at all levels of the hierarchical structure of the enterprise. At the same time, goals, forms of activity, resources, opportunities, difficulties and ways to overcome them are determined. All these moments are formed in the form of a management decision.

Management decision – creative, volitional action of a management subject based on knowledge of the objective laws of functioning of the managed subsystem, analysis of information about its state, consisting in choosing a goal, program and methods of action of the team to resolve the problem.

A management decision is characterized by:

• focus;
• strong-willed character;
• directiveness;
• concreteness.

A problem is a situation characterized by such a difference between the desired and existing state of the controlled subsystem, which prevents its development and normal functioning.

The identification of the problem and its description are as follows:

• specifying the content of the problem;
• localization of the problem location;
• determining when a problem occurs;
• establishing trends in the development of the problem from the moment of its occurrence to its identification;
• determining the need to take action to eliminate the problem before determining the causes of its occurrence.

The main ways to distribute the causes of the problem:

• identifying changes in the control object and the external environment that precede the occurrence of the problem;
• identifying objects similar to the one under consideration, where a similar problem did not arise, and establishing differences in objects;
• constructing a cause-and-effect diagram;
• drawing up a map of opinions.

Problems may be caused by the following factors:

• incorrect principles on which the enterprise’s activities are based;
• overestimated or underestimated criteria;
• mistakes made during current activities;
• unforeseen circumstances.

Basic conditions for ensuring high quality and efficiency of management decisions:

• application of scientific management approaches to the development of management solutions;
• studying the influence of economic laws on the effectiveness of management decisions;
• supplying the decision maker with quality information;
• application of methods of functional cost analysis, forecasting, modeling and economic justification for each decision;
• structuring the problem and building a tree of goals;
• ensuring comparability of solution options;
• ensuring multiple solutions;
• legal validity of the decision;
• automation of the process of collecting and processing information, the process of developing and implementing solutions;
• development and operation of a system of responsibility and motivation for high-quality and effective solutions;
• the presence of a mechanism for implementing the solution.

Types of management decisions

Reflecting the versatility and complexity of the interaction of objective and subjective factors operating in production systems, management decisions are distinguished by a variety of forms. The classification of management decisions allows you to systematize information and situations (Table 6.1).

Typically, in making a management decision, three elements are present to varying degrees: intuition, judgment and rationality.

A method of making management decisions based only on judgment is not very reliable, since common sense is quite rare, although the method is quite cheap and fast.

Judgment very often cannot be correlated with a situation that previously occurred, and the manager tends to act as he acted before in another situation, and therefore risks missing a good result in a new situation, consciously or unconsciously refusing its detailed analysis.

Intuitive solutions based on the feeling that a person’s choice is correct. Characteristic for operational management.

Table 6.1

At the core decisions based on judgment lies knowledge, meaningful experience of the past and common sense. Characteristic for operational management.

Rational solutions based on methods of economic analysis, justification and optimization. Characteristic for strategic and tactical management.

A manager who is guided only by intuition becomes a hostage to chance, and his chances of choosing the right solution are not very high.

Management decisions are made by people, and therefore their nature largely depends on the personality of the manager directly involved in their development.

Balanced Solutions accepted by a manager who is attentive and critical to his actions, the hypotheses put forward and their testing.

Impulsive decisions characteristic of a manager who easily generates a wide variety of ideas in unlimited quantities, but is unable to properly test, clarify, and evaluate them.

Inert solutions- the result of a careful search for a manager. In them, clarifying and controlling actions prevail over the generation of ideas, where originality, innovation, and brilliance are difficult to detect.

If a manager does not need to thoroughly substantiate his hypotheses and is confident in himself, he may not be afraid of any difficulties and accept risky decisions.

Careful decisions appear when the manager carefully evaluates all options and approaches the matter critically. The solutions are not new and original.

Requirements for a management decision

The management decision made by the manager must meet the following requirements:

• be scientifically sound, competent;
• be adopted on the basis of reliable, complete and timely information with analysis and assessment of possible alternatives;
• be consistent;
• have a clear focus and targeting;
• be distinguished by timeliness and speed;
• have precision and clarity;
• to be controlled;
• be complex;
• have authority;
• be economical and efficient.

The process of preparing and implementing a management decision involves performing a number of works in a certain sequence, including the adoption phase and the implementation phase of the management decision (Fig. 6.1).

Rice. 6.1. Algorithm for preparing and implementing management decisions

When developing a management decision, it is very important to choose the right criteria – indicators characterizing decision options and used for assessment and selection.

It is very important to determine the weight (significance) of the criterion - a quantitative expression of the relative importance of each criterion used for evaluation and selection in comparison with other criteria.

The effectiveness of the managerial decision made by the manager significantly depends on the correct choice of the degree of participation of subordinates in the adoption and implementation of the decision. In this case, it is possible both complete non-participation of subordinates (the decision is made by the manager alone) and joint development and adoption of a decision with the manager (collective decision).

The main factors in choosing the degree of participation are the qualifications of subordinates, their conscientiousness and responsibility.

In the management decision-making system, a management operation and a management procedure are distinguished.

– technologically indivisible process of processing management information entering a given structural unit(Fig. 6.2).

Rice. 6.2. Management operation

– a set of management operations and documents interconnected in a certain order, aimed at achieving a fixed goal(Fig. 6.3).

The complexity and interdependence of technical, organizational, socio-economic and other aspects of management have led to the need to develop special methods that facilitate the justification and selection of management decisions under conditions of uncertainty.

To eliminate uncertainty, which is caused by the presence of many criteria, the experience and intuition of the decision maker are used.

Uncertainty refers to the incompleteness or inaccuracy of information about the conditions for implementing a decision, including the associated costs and results. The uncertainty associated with the possibility of adverse situations and consequences arising during the implementation of a solution is characterized by the concept of risk.

Rice. 6.3. Management procedure

The value and timeliness of a management decision largely depend on the manager’s ability to collect, analyze and interpret information at the right time.

Information support– one of the most important supporting functions, the quality of which is a determining factor in the validity of the decision made and the effectiveness of the management system. In dynamics, information support as a process is included in the concept of “communication”.

Communication – the process of exchanging information between two or more people.

Communication goals:

• ensuring effective exchange of information between the object and the subject of management;
• improving interpersonal relationships in the process of information exchange;
• creation of information channels for the exchange of information between individual employees and groups, to coordinate their tasks and actions;
• regulation and rationalization of information flows.

Depending on the method of information exchange, there are:

• interpersonal, or organizational, communications based on oral communication (Fig. 6.4);
• communication based on written exchange of information. Informal communications play a special role. The presence of informal communications is associated with the desire of employees to know information that they cannot obtain through formal organizational communications.

Information transmitted through informal communication channels primarily relates to new punitive measures, changes in the structure of the organization, conflicts in the leadership of the organization, etc. The informal communication system can create rumors, which can negatively affect the effectiveness of communications.

When organizing communication networks at an enterprise, it is necessary to take into account the specifics of various types and channels of communication at each of the following stages of the communication process:

• generation of an idea or selection of information;
• selection of information transmission channel;
• message transmission;
• interpretation of the message.

There are four basic elements in the communication process:

• sender;
• message;
• channel or means of transmitting information;
• recipient.

Communication is considered successful if the recipient of the information understands its content adequately to the meaning that the sender (manager) puts into it.

Rice. 6.4. Interpersonal communications

Anything that has the potential to reduce uncertainty should be considered information. Information is facts, estimates, forecasts, generalizations of communications, rumors, etc.

Basic requirements for information quality:

• complexity of the information system;
• timeliness;
• reliability (with a certain probability);
• adequacy;
• reliability;
• targeting;
• legal correctness;
• reusability;
• high speed of selection, processing and transmission;
• coding capability;
• relevance.

Today, information is viewed as a global process associated with fundamental changes in the structure and nature of global economic and social development, with the transition to new generations of high-tech technologies, systems of equipment and materials and new types of information exchange, which decisively change the nature of work and human living conditions.

Informatization – a unified and natural stage through which every society that has embarked on the path of intensive development must go through in one form or another.

We can distinguish two stages of informatization in the 21st century. First stage informatization includes solving the following main problems:

• preparation, maintenance, adjustment of legal and economic norms that ensure the functioning of information as a product, taking into account generally accepted norms in world practice;
• formulation and introduction of basic standards regulating the form of presentation, methods of processing and transmitting information (exchange protocols, interfaces, etc.) taking into account international standards for similar purposes;
• ensuring computer literacy and information culture of the population; restructuring of the educational process and development of a network of retraining of personnel with the wide involvement of international training centers;
• creation and development of the main components of the informatization infrastructure: a national data transmission system, a state database system, a unified automated communications system;
• development and beginning of the formation of a market for information products and services participating in the global division of labor;
• the use of economic mechanisms of centralized planning, indicative management and the free market in order to ensure the priority development of the production of new generation materials, microelectronics and radio electronics.

On second stage development of informatization, the following tasks can be set:

• meeting the needs of all areas of socio-economic development in the use of distributed databases;
• implementation of full interaction of national information infrastructures through international communication networks with databases and knowledge;
• implementation of large-scale application of integrated information processing systems;
• use of systems of mass information services for the population via e-mail and the Internet;
• creation of competitive intellectual production of information products and services;
• development of fundamental research in the field of artificial intelligence, providing for the solution of many problems;
• creation of high-performance computing tools with non-traditional architecture (multiprocessor, neutron, optical, molecular, etc.);
• development of fundamental work in cooperation with international research centers, creation of open “science parks” in the field of creating artificial intelligence systems;
• active use of information multimedia technologies in open education.

In management practice it is used control technology, which is an interconnected set of technical means designed for mechanization and automation of information processes in the organization’s management system in order to develop rational decisions. There are means for collecting and registering, transmitting, inputting, accumulating, processing, outputting, displaying and reproducing information.

Information collection and registration tools carry out recording of primary information at the place of its origin on documentary or machine media (tapes, disks) with simultaneous receipt of a machine document on a printing device or display (monitor).

Means of information transmission carry out the transfer of information from the source of the message to the recipient via postal, telephone, telegraph, mobile, optical, radio or space communications over a considerable distance. They can significantly reduce the time and speed of information transfer compared to courier and postal services.

Information input/output means are intended for inputting initial data into a computer from a person’s voice, manual documents, magnetic media and display screens, as well as for outputting effective information in the form of speech information, machine documents on paper, display screens or the same magnetic media.

Information storage means are intended for storing documentary information or systematized encoded information on machine media with erasable records (magnetic disks, floppy disks, tapes, cassettes).

Information processing tools perform arithmetic and logical operations on input information according to programs compiled in advance by humans. The processing program can be changed and improved, with the exception of the information processing program in calculators, in which it is strictly determined by the design of the machine.

Information display tools represent alphanumeric and graphic information on a mnemonic diagram, display screen or in the form of a drawing on a plotter. Information is displayed using computer commands or from an autonomous magnetic disk drive.

Media for reproducing information produce copies of documents and drawings with possible changes in their geometric dimensions. The means provide for the reproduction of information using special light-, photo- and heat-sensitive paper or film.

Situations for discussion

1. Comment on Hall’s Law: “The approach to a problem is more important than the solution.”

2. How relevant is Van Harpen’s statement today: “The solution to a problem is to find people who will solve it.”

3. In the business world, there are two main types of decision making: through the market and through hierarchy. Explain.

4. Whoever owns the information has the right to success. Give examples confirming the correctness of this position.

5. What can be sources of information when collecting information about the market for certain products? Does the composition of information sources change if an enterprise operates in a foreign market?

• Raimbaev Chatkalbay Keneybaevich, Candidate of Sciences, Professor, Rector
• Kyrgyz-Uzbek University
• Filatova Svetlana Vladimirovna, Candidate of Sciences, Associate Professor, Associate Professor
• Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation

• INFORMATION SUPPORT
• INFORMATION
• EFFICIENCY
• MANAGEMENT DECISION
• OPTIMALITY

The development of modern information technologies is becoming a paradigm of a market economy. The introduction of information tools to support management decisions can become the basis for increasing the efficiency of economic systems.

• Problems of forming an adaptive financial policy of the state in conditions of instability
• Using the capabilities of a mapping service in working with real estate agency clients
• Modeling the propagation and attenuation of acoustic waves in a porous medium
• Unsteady motion of a plate along the surface of a non-Newtonian fluid
• Prospects for the use of non-traditional sealing devices in fire equipment components

Information in modern economic conditions is one of the most important components of the development of any enterprise. And the ability to correctly process information is the key to the sustainable competitive functioning of an organization.

A distinctive property of information is its ability to cause change and transformation. When updated information appears, both people's perceptions and needs change, so adapting to changing needs is a prerequisite for ensuring “survival” in market conditions and maintaining competitiveness. . Information that supports decision-making makes a decisive contribution to the decision, becomes a factor of production and, similarly to labor, materials and capital, forms profit.

Collection, processing and provision of information for making management decisions is the main stage. Thus, we will consider methods for processing economic information according to the stages of the life cycle of the management decision-making mechanism (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Stages of the decision cycle

Information includes objective facts and assumptions that influence the decision maker's perception of the nature and degree of uncertainty associated with a problem or opportunity. The most important types of information are considered to be sources within the organization itself, specialized groups of employees, as well as their activities, periodic reports, published sources (scientific publications, journals, reference books and lists, etc.).

The approach to collecting information in the context of making a management decision is functional in nature and is characterized by the function of the information environment. In other words, there are certain databases of internal and external information used by functional services to make decisions.

There are certain requirements for the quality of information. First of all, it must be useful, i.e. satisfy users of information that is relevant, reliable, accessible and understandable, in certain cases confidential, etc. (Table 1).

Table 1. Fundamental requirements for information support of management decisions

Principles	Ensuring compliance
Relevance	Presenting real information at the right time
Credibility	Adequacy of information ensured by compliance with scientific principles of collecting and processing information, combating any bias
Relevance	Ensures that information is obtained in accordance with the assigned tasks
Display completeness	It is ensured by drawing up a research plan, identifying the essence of the phenomenon, its hierarchical structure and connections
Focus	Compliance of information with the general purpose of the study
Information unity	Subordination of data processing methodology to the requirements of computer science theory and statistical theory of observations

As noted earlier, information plays a fundamental role in the management decision-making process. Therefore, we distinguish three stages of management decision:

1. Preparation. At this stage, an economic analysis of the situation is carried out at various levels, which includes searching, collecting and processing information, problems that require solutions are also identified and formulated;
2. Making a decision. At this stage, the development and analysis of alternative solutions, the selection of the optimal solution, the selection and decision of the best solution are carried out;
3. Implementation of the solution. At this stage, measures are taken to clarify and communicate the decision to the executors, the progress of implementation is monitored, and amendments are made if necessary.

Since the information process covers the entire organization as a whole (all divisions and aspects of activity), therefore, the activity of the enterprise largely depends on the communication process. However, as part of the communication process, information can be distorted, misunderstood or perceived. Effective exchange of information occurs in the system of “transmission of information - correct perception.” In modern conditions, information flows are so great that a reboot of the information channel can occur. Often, in the process of simultaneous processing of information and the need to exchange information, the manager cannot always respond to all the information. Therefore, the volume of information flows must be adequately regulated by the heads of structural divisions.

Thus, we can conclude that information plays a significant role in the decision-making system, and the functioning of the organization as a whole depends on its quality, timeliness, adequacy, reliability, and correct processing.

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