6533b85afe1ef96bd12b952b

RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Advantage of Digital Decision Making for Strategic Decisions – Proofed by a Supply Chain Case

Steffen Hossfeld

subject

0209 industrial biotechnologyDecision support systemProcess managementComputer scienceProcess (engineering)media_common.quotation_subjectSupply chain02 engineering and technologyComputer-assisted web interviewing010501 environmental sciences01 natural sciencesBusiness studies020901 industrial engineering & automationCommerceBusiness caseFunction (engineering)Decision model0105 earth and related environmental sciencesmedia_common

description

This paper will discuss the advantage of decision making supported by a digital system and will provide an overview of an empiric analysis researched on this topic. Decision making in organizations is a significant system implied task of managers and therefore a broad area in scientific research, not only in the disciplines management or business studies – even from technical to humanistic disciplines. Nowadays the trend of digitalization captures all areas of life especially in business, as well as the typical management task of decision making. Triggered by the digitalization trend business will move toward an autonomous decision making of machines or cyber systems. The important step toward autonomous decisions or decision support (cyber systems will prepare a decision, but finally executed by a human) will be the next development step for decision making. Designed algorithmic models for these decisions will use the content of classical decision models to reach maximum utility. Hence, a view on classical decision making will illuminate the basis for these models, from researchers like von Neumann/Morgenstern or Bernoulli. Furthermore, digitalization changes the process of decision making, especially focussing on the behavioral part of decisions, discussed from Simon, Selten or Tversky/Kahneman. Due to reason that today the human aspect of decision making is sustainable in organizations. The hypothesis that the digital set up for decision making in organizations will increase the efficiency of strategic decisions will be proofed by an empiric study. The research method for the empirical part of this paper is a questionnaire. It is online questionnaire which will be answered by professionals and scholars. As a typical example of a strategic decision, the author explains a business case in the supply chain function of organizations. A section of the well-known SCOR model will be tested on digitalization characteristics. The research findings of the questionnaire will illustrate that the digitalization of supply chain processes is in the scope of managers and consultants, to reach higher efficiency by increased turnover or by reducing costs. The result of this paper verifies an improved decision process by usage of digital features, but the capability of the entire digital possibilities is not fully achieved yet

https://doi.org/10.18775/ijmsba.1849-5664-5419.2014.35.1001