Information, The Decision-Making Traffic Jam Of the 21st Century- A Management Perspective

Increasingly, the value of a business today is measured in terms of what it knows, rather than what it owns. Even so, whilst knowledge exists in most organisations it is regularly difficult to access. This paper addresses the question of whether - now that we exist in the much heralded information era - the information needs of those engaged in management are being satisfied. With interest in the Internet, as a global communications medium burgeoning, we now understand how things might be in the future concerning the sheer volume of information available to the decision taker. However, a question remains as to whether this information is collected and presented in a form - at a level of specificity and depth - that makes for better decision taking. In this paper, the authors argue that there are seven issues that need addressing in order to ensure that the information needs of management are being satisfied.