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Computers, Decentralization, and Corporate Control
Wagner, L. G.
9/2  (Winter 1966): 25-32

Any corporation can achieve continuous, efficient monitoring of its decentralized operations by orienting its systems to processing on high-speed computers. The data used in daily operations plus the procedure with which the information is used become a part of the computer processing. For the operating unit, this normally means greater efficiency and lower operating costs. For the corporate staff, however, it means that the basic condition for effective corporate control has been established. The computer has immediate, ready access to every hit of data about every significant operation. As a consequence, the corporate staff also has access to this data bank; information can be extracted from it, processed, analyzed, interpreted, evaluated and dissected in any manner without interfering with decentralized operations. Decentralized units reap the advantages of automating a process and the corporate staff unit gains the information it needs to measure the effectiveness of programs throughout the corporation. Couple this with exception reporting where the computer does the monitoring and even the number of reports can be reduced.

 

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