ALTITUDE ONLINE: INFORMATION AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS

Altitude Online uses management information systems (MISs) in all of its functional areas. MISs are at the heart of its financial management, providing profit and loss reports and multiple views of transaction information over time to assist with auditing and financial planning. Managers and decision makers are provided with daily key indicator reports, as well as monthly and quarterly reports that compare current profits and earnings to those from previous years. Altitude Online uses MISs in its human resources department to manage employee records, insurance and benefits packages, salaries, and vacation time. The company also uses the systems to manage client and project data, keeping projects on schedule and on budget.

MISs and decision support systems (DSSs) also play an important role in Altitude Online’s product line. Altitude Online provides its clients with software tools that analyze traffic on their Web sites, providing useful information such as what pages capture the interest of visitors and which visitors are likely to make purchases. This is valuable information for a business because it supports decisions about what products to promote and what customers to pursue.

Altitude Online is integrating its MISs into the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Doing so allows Altitude Online to merge the MISs scattered across its locations and divisions into one cohesive system. After unifying these systems, the company’s top executives will be able to capture snapshots of the state of the enterprise at any given time. Such information is extremely valuable for steering the direction of the corporation to better meet its goals.

The systems that Altitude Online developed for its customers that provide Web analytics will be unaffected by the ERP.

Read about the Altitude Online case in attached document and answer the following questions.

Discussion Questions

1. What functional areas of Altitude Online are supported by MIS?

2. How do MIS and DSS provide a value add to Altitude Online’s products?

Critical Thinking Questions

3. How do you think MISs and DSSs assist Altitude Online’s top executives in guiding the direction of the company?

4. How can the quality of information systems affect Altitude Online’s ability compete in the online marketing industry?