Lecture
The process of making a business decision differs from the analogous process in the scientific or social sphere in that transforming a working hypothesis into a decision is complicated by two objective circumstances. First, the accumulation of personal experience by businesspeople in the course of everyday activity lags behind the rapid change in the economic situation (which is especially characteristic of present-day Russia). Second, in entrepreneurial activity under free-market conditions there is practically no possibility of conducting purposeful experiments that would make it possible to check the correctness of a working hypothesis. Thus, the decision-making process as applied to business activity undergoes a break at least twice: at the stage of putting forward hypotheses and at the stage of experimental verification of models.
These breaks are helped to be eliminated by the actively developing field of information technology known as Fast Analysis of Shared Multidimensional Information {Fast Analysis of Shared Multidimensional Information — FASMI).
Here the best known and most widely used in practice is multidimensional data analysis by means of On-Line Analytical Processing {On-Line Analitycal Processing — OLAP). The value of multidimensional data analysis technology for business is determined by the fact that it makes it possible to extract and use, in the decision-making process, useful information and new knowledge from weakly structured data.
Another direction implementing FASMI technology is dynamic simulation {Dynamic Simulation — DS), by means of which an analyst, following a certain scenario, builds a model of a business situation that develops over time. The result can be several new business situations, generating a tree of possible decisions with an assessment of the probability and promise of each.
Another currently rapidly developing field is business intelligence {Business Intelligence — BI). In addition to the traditional OLAP service, it includes intelligent tools for organizing the shared use of information arising in the course of users' work. In particular, it provides electronic exchange of reporting documents, differentiation of user rights, and access to analytical information from the Internet and Intranet networks.
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