• Identify supply chain problems requiring decision support and analysis in the enterprise
• Identify and use appropriate mechanisms and tools for problem solving in supply chains
• Use cutting-edge IT tools to analyze supply chain problems and utilize this information in decision-making processes
• Identify and reflect on the challenges of organizational decision-making in supply chains
• Reflect on how to make supply chain decisions involving multiple stakeholders, uncertainty and ambiguity

The aim of this course is to develop the students’ understanding of the organizational challenges when making and implementing organizational decisions in a supply chain context, as well as improve their skills in using IT tools to support their decision-making processes in terms of collecting and analyzing data.

To make good decisions fast is becoming ever more important in a world where information is ubiquitous and technologies change at an incredible pace. This class will provide the students with information technology (IT) tools and the conceptual framework to approach these situations with clarity and confidence and improve their decision making skills. Most firms have reached a point where the utilization of IT to support strategic/tactical/ operational decision-making surfaces as more vital than ever. Thus, the course will provide the students with the opportunity to have hands-on experience with cutting-edge software tools and learn how to analyse data and solve supply chain problems. Yet, leveraging benefits from IT systems and tools depends less on possessing and using the technology and more on the ability to best utilize the information in decision-making processes. Therefore, it is important the students understand how decisions happen in organizations and are able to reflect on theories of decision-making and their limitations in practice.

Which supplier should a company select for a specific order?  Should a company outsource its operations or not? Should a company launch an aggressive marketing campaign that will require substantial resources with no guarantee of success? Which business model is most suited to support the long-term survival of our supply chain? What information technology will best serve the needs of our customer service department? Managers face many important and far-reaching decision situations in their professional life.  Situations where substantial resources need to be committed, where many different stakeholder groups are involved in or affected by the decisions that they make, and where a variety of potential consequences are at stake. Although pure rational models give a simple prescriptive solution to reaching optimal solutions, most decisions to be made in real life, involve humans and their subjective considerations. The aim of this course is to especially bring these considerations out. 

This course is a part of the minor in: Supply Chain Intelligence - An applied perspective

Changes in course schedule may occur

Main mandatory course book:

• Goodwin P, Wright G.  Decision Analysis for Management Judgment, 5th Edition

Additional articles:

• Davenport, T.H. 2010, Business Intelligence and Organizational Decisions, International Journal of Business Intelligence Research, 1: 4, pp.1-10.
• ​Sahay, B.S., J. Ranjan, 2008. Real time business intelligence in supply chain analytics, Information Management & Computer Security, (16:1), 28–48.
• Trkman, P., McCormack, K., Valadares de Oliveira, M., & Ladeira, M. 2010. The impact of business analytics on supply chain performance. Decision Support Systems, 49, 318-327.
• Vaidyanathan, Ganesh & Sabbaghi, Asghar, (2010), “Supply Chain Intelligence and Value Creation: A Framework”. Issues in Information Systems, (9: 1) pp. 570-576.
• Wixom B., and Watson H., 2010. The BI-Based Organisation. International Journal of Business Intelligence Research (IJBIR) (1:1), pp. 13-28.