What are the content of the information and the source of the information required for effective decision making?

Content of information required for decision making will depend very much on the decision to be taken, and the source of the information will depend on the content. If you want to take decision on the place to travel during your next information, you will look for information on places for holidaying, and perhaps you will consult travel agents and tourism guide books for information. You may also speak to your friends who have visited some of the places that interest you. However, if you need to decide the subjects you need to choose for your further studies, the type of information and their sources will be quite different.

However, for the purpose of understanding the nature of information used in business for the nature of information and their source can be classified according to different criteria. For example, some authors describe the nature of information for different levels of management like operational management and strategic management. Similarly information may be classified according to management function such as planning, monitoring and controlling. Yet another way of classifying information is by business functions like marketing, manufacturing, design, finance, and HRM. Finally information may be classifies according to the subject matter like, design competition, demographic, weather, economic environment, and so on.

Similarly sources of information may be classified in different ways. Perhaps the most broad system of such classification is to classify the sources as internal sources. The internal source refers to the information that is generated within an organization, while external information need to be collected from other organization and environment. Then information sources are frequently classified as primary and secondary sources. This classification is most commonly used in business research. Primary sources refers to the information collected by direct observation, or field research, while secondary information refers to information collected in the past and available through mediums like publications and past records. Another way of classifying sources of information, is according to the direction of flow of information within the organizational hierarchy of the company. Thus information flow can be fro up to down, down to up, or sideways.