Business Information and the Management of Organisation - Essay Example

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Strategic decision making is one of the most critical tasks in organizations as it has became increasingly important to consider strategic decision making more from a transaction costs as well as behavioral point of view. (Papadakis, Lioukas and Chambers).
One of the strategic decisions which company might make is market development i.e. to enter into new markets such as Asia or South American market. Enter into a new market is a strategic decision because top management of the firm, considering the overall mission of the firm, may decide to exapnd into new markets in a bid to reduce costs and achieve differentiation in terms of cost.
It is also critical to know that in order to make strategic decisions, it is not necessary that the information required to make such decisions shall be coherent and complete in all respects as strategic decisions are often based on fuzzy information.
Tactical decisions involve the "How "of strategic decision making because by making tactical decisions, organizations basically decide how to materialize strategy. Tactical decisions need to support the strategy and are of medium term in nature with moderate level of consequences. A tactical decision for AstraZeneca might include deciding on how to enter into new market The question therefore would be directed in terms of whether a Greenfield project shall be started, whether the firm should enter through exporting, franchising etc. In terms making a strategic decision of entering into new market, taking tactical decisions would involve how to enter into those markets.
The information at this stage is more formalized however, information requirements are still not formalized in nature.
Operational Decisions
Operational decisions are the common and routine decisions which managers take in their day to day affairs. These decisions often require access to technical information and tend to support tactical decision making. For example, if AstraZeneca make a tactical decision of entering through a Greenfield project in one of the Asian Markets than operational decisions might involve the decision making process of how to acquire land, plant, machinery and hire labor to start production. Further, operational decisions are critical in the sense that they are the basic decisions which are taken to materialize or give shape to the overall strategic management decision making of the organization.
Overall, the specific dynamics of each category of decision making may vary as each level of decision making require different set of information and information needs vary.
Information required
As discussed above that the information requirements vary with each decision making category therefore the information needs as well as its form varies differ in each case.
Strategic Decisions
Strategic decision making process is dependent on behavioral decision theory as well as transaction cost economics (Papadakis, Lioukas and Chambers) therefore in order to clearly outline the information required to make strategic decisions would require consideration of above set of factors.
Considering the dynamics of the behavioral decision making, it is critical to mention that research studies have particularly concentrated on individual as well as group decision making processes. (Dean and Sharfman) therefore on individual level, strategic decisio ...Download file to see next pagesRead More