Imminent Decision Support

Abstract

In the global economy era, organisational success has become a challenging objective. Contemporary organisations increasingly become susceptible to and are directly or indirectly influenced by events and developments taking place in remote parts of the world. Unfortunate events, such as terrorist attacks, as well as fortunate events, such as positive progress in science and technology around the world, progressively (and sometimes rapidly) have global effects. Such events affect markets worldwide, concurrently or serially. For instance, consider the tragic events and aftermath of September 11, 2001, and the, since then, ‘war on terror.’ Similarly consider ‘Dolly’ the successful sheep-clone, the World Wide Web, mobile phones, dot-com organisations, and the single European Currency. They are prime examples of events that assert a (progressive or immediate) global influence. From a decision support and operational research perspective, this global setting is ceaselessly (re)shaped along four generic headings: Political, Economic, Social and Technical trends ([Ormerod, 1997).