br />Information processes for organisational decision-making
In a business environment, it is important to have a good quality and quantity of
information available while making a business decision. However, this information does
not come easily; we need to understand the full process of information gathering and how
to apply it to our individual businesses.
Firstly we will look into assessing the information we need. It must be specific for the
situation and specific for the users. An example is the case of a restaurant manager
thinking about increasing the profit of his business. He can introduce more dishes to attract
more customers, introduce takeaway or home delivery, renting the next door shop and
increase the seats available, extending the working hour, improve the current service to the
customers, giving special meal deals at certain times of the day or days of the week that
the business is usually not very good, etc. With all these ideas, the managers need
information. For example, in introducing more dishes, he need to know what the restaurant
are capable of producing and what the customers like to eat; in introducing home delivery,
he need to know how feasible it is of actually doing it and the demand for it; in renting the
next door shop, he need to know how much the rent is, the demand, and expansibility of
the management to accommodate for the increase workload. Other than those information,
he also need to have good communication with the customers and staff. He need to know
about the customers in many ways to help with those decisions and communicate with
staff to make sure they are happy with the decisions. These communication need to happen
frequently and their feedbacks are also extremely important, as they are the people who are
also directly involved with the business.
Once a clear understanding is formed of what information will be needed, the next step is
to establish ways to collect them. There are many different sources of information for
different businesses. To demonstrate with an example, I have chosen a particular industry
that I am familiar with- food business (restaurant). I will try to point out the pros and cons
of each source of information. The right information source can provide an organisation
with valuable and reliable information that can help create an advantage within a particular
business environment.
Customerscan form a very valuable information source, as they are the number one
priority to the business. The information from customers can be gathered in many different
