Managing Decision Making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Managing Decision Making - Essay Example The result is that decision makers will have better grasp of factors bearing on company performance. Business Intelligence (BI) tools, especially in the form of spreadsheets, can be highly complementary to EUD systems, for they both lend themselves for use by non-specialists. An extension of BI is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which aims to minimize human interference in the preliminary and intermediate stage of data selection and processing. Expert Systems are an even advanced vision of AI, that aim to make the sort of sophisticated decision making and recommendations that only experts were thought capable of doing. In sum, EUD is a promising avenue for business operation. It has wide scope and application within an enterprise, affecting employees from all domains to the top managers. Introduction The practice of End User Development (EUD) was not thought of as viable in the early days of the Information Technology revolution. But in recent years, with storage, processing and progra mming technology having grown at a rapid pace, EUD is given consideration by many business enterprises. All employees, irrespective of their proficiency in IT and programming, can participate and benefit through EUD. Sophisticated software tools with intuitive user interfaces and integration capabilities help create new applications through the study and improvement of existing systems. (Luthy 2002, pg. 69) Hence, the report will cover various ways in which employees can adapt to EUD and increase both individual and overall productivity. Decision making is one area where EUD has had impact. If end users merely point to what comprises relevant data for the company, the powerful IT system can create salient reports for the top management. Spreadsheets are a great aid in this process, but the key is in identifying valuable information from the vast amounts of data that a company generates. EUDs also changes the role and responsibility of regular IT staff, in that, they now coordinate w ith non-specialists in fine-tuning the system. A company would also need lesser number of IT staff, leading to cost efficiency. Each employee will bring his/her domain knowledge to the information system, making it a multi-dimensional tool. With the incorporation of Knowledge Management (KM) features into EUD, the IT system can prove to be focussed and yet flexible. The key to successful KM lies in understanding where important data lies and in devising ways of tapping into it. (Lindvall &Rus, 2002) The report speculates on the potential of KM to offer a competitive edge for the business. Business Intelligence (BI) tools, especially the ubiquitous spreadsheet, can be a great ally for EUD systems. The simplicity of working a spreadsheet makes it accessible to non-IT personnel. When aligned with sophisticated data mining principles, a spreadsheet can be programmed to produce the most relevant reports, future trends and estimates. Expert Systems and related Artificial Intelligence tech nology are going to be at the centre of business functioning in the future. (Rao, David 2004. 779) The pros and cons of these cutting edge technologies are explored in the report. Finally, the importance of EUD is analyzed in light of rampant growth in the services industry, which is more data intensive compared to manufacturing industries. The report outlays various aspects of EUD and analyzes how much this nascent technology can transform business operations

ASSESS THE CURRENT MOVE TOWARDS COMPETITION AND CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE Essay

ASSESS THE CURRENT MOVE TOWARDS COMPETITION AND CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE IN TERMS OF THE EFFICIENCY VS. EQUITY TRADEOFF - Essay Example It has been a key concern for policy makers to promote choice and competition, so as to increase productivity and responsiveness to consumers in healthcare. The western countries in Europe and the United States have embarked on renovating their healthcare services, to allow patient choice through availing price competition between the health care providers that customers can choose from. In the past, healthcare service had been a government dominated area, and in most developing countries it enjoyed a monopolistic position, with ability to provide a variety of services and capture the customer surplus in the market. However, today there are many private organizations that venture in the healthcare service as hospitals and pharmaceuticals, which are highly relying on modern technology to offer the customers quality service. As a result, this has made the cost, quality, and healthcare accessibility a legislative and policy issue that ought to be managed, due to the rising variation. Th e economic benefit of promoting competition and choice is to enhance competition pressure, so that private firms become more efficient, causing them to reduce costs of service and improve their services and products as a way of attracting clients, which is generally healthy and an improvement of the economy (Propper, 2010). New forms of health care financing and delivery have developed as a result of the competitive pressure for cost containment, to slow health care inflation and encourage clients to choose from the available relatively lower cost health care. Hospitals and physicians have been each forming mergers and joint ventures with their partners in the healthcare industry, hence influencing costs and bargaining power as they improve the quality of health care and its distribution to ensure equity in the society (Federal trade commission, 2004). Competition, Patient Choice, and Equity In health care, improving patient and user choices are perceived different in accomplishment of healthcare systems objectives. However, it has become a key concern for most nations so that they get to direct their future in health and public services in regard to patients wants. According to Fotaki, offering patient choice in England is viewed as an attempt to address the failure of the pre-existing policies that had been operational in providing equitable and high quality services to the population, while it is perceived as a way to achieve other desirable goals, for example reducing the waiting lists, hence not an explicit policy objective on its own merit (2007). There are numerous patient choice policies being developed in health care industries, but how efficient and effective they will be will depend on the adjustments they would have made from the past policies, and how attractive it would be to the customers in the already competitive market. The transition made so far is that the patient or user choice policies are been made based on the learned experiences in the previous policies. The health systems of most developing and developed countries are still been challenged in responding to the needs of the less privileged members of the society; therefore creating inequality when it comes to choice in healthcare and its delivery. Although the mergers and consolidation of health facilities and physicians have improved, it does not mean that the service being provided to some people, especially in the marginalized areas are similar to those being delivered in urban parts. The networks being formed have been effective to ensure equitable health outcomes, but the efficiency in health