Management Support Systems Development - Essay Example

Do information systems matter on a business enterprise What are the benefits of developing a management support system (MSS) in the organization How would the system increase the competitive advantage of the organization in today's extremely competitive marketplace and highly connected world These may be some of the questions that managers face today. The Internet Age has created new opportunities as well as challenges for businesses especially in the area of business intelligence and knowledge management.

Organizational knowledge management has become a more significant foundation of corporate competitive advantage for business (Buchanan et al, 1999). Knowledge management has become a management fad today ever since knowledge became a competitive advantage. It has become a significant capital, both for organizations and employees. Business knowledge is a re-usable, renewable as well as imperative asset of significance to business that augments in worth by means of knowledge worker and administrative life.

Knowledge well-established in the organizational dealing procedures and the knowledge worker's abilities are advantages usually firm to distinguish, build up and duplicate through market competitors (Dennis et al., 2005). Developments of management support systems have become essential in an organization in order to grow or sustain its existence. Management Support Systems enlarges the orga. Management Support Systems enlarges the organizational data and information recovery capacities of the system end-users by means of investigation actions and query for searching of information in the organizational database, turning out 'what if' situations, and other similar functions (Dennis et al., 2005). The purpose of MSS is to manage the information that is available to everyone and control the flow so that the content can be analyzed and results examined for the improvement of the organization.

MSS are frequently designed to handle multifarious conditions, and few are available right off the shelf. Although online analytical processing (OLAP) software has assisted decision support development, many MSS make use of some custom design, development, and implementation for each specific application (Dennis et al., 2005). MSS are designed to be used on a recurring basis by many employees, several of them were not computer literate. The system continues to grow because its accomplishment has led managers and the team members to make out new traditions to apply the ideas developed with this system to other decision-making situations (Buchanan et al, 1999).

Development of an MSS, particularly a large one, is a complicated practice especially when it is built in-house. It requires a specialized team that focuses on the interpretation of the business processes of the organization and transforming such processes into an IT enabled support system framework. It encompasses problems varying from technical (e.g., hardware variety, networking) to behavioral (e.g., user interfaces, training, the potential impact on individuals, groups, and the entire organization) (Dennis et al., 2005). There exists no single and best one-way approach in developing an MSS