Overview: An Evolution to Proactive Management

The difference between static reporting and reporting using decision support technology is important to understand. They are two distinct ways of providing information to end-users who make management decisions. Static reports gave rise to decision support technology and the move has had an important impact on how organizations manage--moving them from reactive management to proactive management.

For years and to this day, public and private industries have relied on static reports for analyzing organizational data in order to direct management decisions. Static reports are typically generated from IT or MIS departments or similar gatekeepers of organizational information as a result of the need to centrally manage the large amounts of data generated and captured during organizational operations.

Static reports have and continue to work to inform management, but relying on static reports for management decisions is problematic. The time it takes to generate a report in one department to reach a decision based on the report in another is typically long (see typical reporting process in chart below for more detail). For the private sector, this "delay to decisions" is costly. It's inefficient and it's management after-the-fact, not the best prescription for improving a company and its profits.

To solve the problems associated with static reporting, new technologies and tools, primarily computer based, were developed to bring organizational data closer to the people that needed it, when they needed it and in ways that facilitated analysis. In the early 1970s these technologies and tools were coined with the name decision support. Today, the term is typically associated with software, as seen in the following definition from Webster's.

Decision Support- Software used to aid management decision making, typically relying on a decision support database.

Decision support software and many technologies over the past decade, such as the Internet and powerful desktop PCs, has allowed private-sector businesses to truly manage proactively by giving management and key decision makers, at all levels in an organization, access to information in ways never before imagined, when they want it and where. It has made them more nimble in their response to operational problem areas and made them more capable of making more informed, effective and timely decisions for continuous improvement. It has ultimately contributed to a more successful operation.

Inspired by the 20+ year successful migration from static reporting to decision support technology in the private sector and in reaction to pressures for greater government accountability, public sector organizations at all levels, are taking notice. More and more public sector organizations are adopting the technology and the mind set of proactive management, all with their sights set on better programs and services. If private sector successes are any indicator, their migration should be no different.