About Us

Complexity forms the essence of strategic decision making. The process of strategic decision making involve so many dimensions such that solutions and simplifications in one dimension cause problems and complexities in another. Strategic decision making is by its nature ill-structured, complex and yet very important for the success and survival of an organization. It is often difficult to cope with large volume of potentially important information in a dynamic environment. D-cide consultants can help you make tough decisions and minimize the uncertainties inherent in strategic decision-making through the strategic use of information technology. We formulate the problem, evaluate options and present the potential outcomes using the latest tools and technologies.

D-cide consultants help you meet the challenge of achieving world-class quality and productivity in the production and delivery of goods and services through effective information management and the development of enhanced decision-making processes. We place special emphasis on economic analysis and formal modeling of operational and strategic control problems associated with the design, production, and distribution of goods and services. Our consultants help you:

• focus on the processes that define an organization's outputs and are central to its competitive performance, including services and traditional areas of manufacturing and logistics,

• focus on the analytical and information technology-based methods for managing complex organizations,

• focus on the processes by which choices are made when it is difficult to compare outcomes in the face of uncertainty and when there are conflicting views and motivations of the principal stakeholders, and

• focus on understanding the strategic aspects of data, information, and knowledge in your organization.

 

Madjid Tavana

Madjid Tavana, Ph.D.
President

tavana@d-cide.com

Madjid Tavana is Professor and Distinguished Chair of Business Analytics at La Salle University, where he serves as Chairman of the Business Systems and Analytics Department. He also holds an Honorary Professorship in Management Information Systems and Operations Research at the University of Paderborn in Germany. Dr. Tavana is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Kennedy Space Center, the Johnson Space Center, the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. He was recently honored with the prestigious Space Act Award by NASA. He holds an MBA, PMIS, and PhD in Management Information Systems and received his Post-Doctoral Diploma in Strategic Information Systems from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published 14 books and over 250 research papers in international scholarly academic journals. He is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, International Journal of Management and Decision Making, International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Data Mining, International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences, and International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems. Dr. Tavana has served as the President of Alpha Iota Delta (the International Honor Society for Decision Sciences and Information Systems). He has been a Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management and holds several Visiting Professorship positions in France, Switzerland, Korea, China, Ukraine, and Mexico. .

       
 

Kathryn Szabat , Ph.D.
Research Associate

szabat@d-cide.com

Dr. Szabat is the Chairperson of the Management Department at La Salle University and an Adjunct Lecturer of Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been a Visiting Professor at Ecole Supérieure de Commerce Et Management in France. Dr. Szabat holds an MS and Ph.D. in Statistics with cognate field in Operations Research, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; her area of specialization is Prediction Analysis of Cross Classifications. In addition, her experience includes applications of Survey Research Methodology, Experimental Design and Analysis, Multivariate Analysis, Model-Building, Decision Theory and Biostatistics. Dr. Szabat provides statistical advice to numerous businesses, non-business and academic communities. Her most recent involvement has been in the areas of education and medicine. Dr. Szabat has been involved in projects directed by the No Child Left Behind Act, namely, the evaluation of School Partnership Initiatives, and the design and evaluation of a Parent Resource Call Center; she has served as a consultant in Clinical Trial Research, designing Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III Clinical Trials as well as analyzing Phase I Clinical Trial data. Previous projects include applications of Statistics in the Transportation Industry, the accounting and finance fields and the non-profit sector. Dr. Szabat’s most recent collaborative applied research efforts include investigation of Academic Health Center strategic ventures, assessment of concept-mapping as an enabling technique for meaningful learning in accounting education, and evaluation of non-profit capacity building.

       
 
 

Dennis Kennedy, Ph.D.
Research Associate

kennedy@d-cide.com

Dr. Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems and Accounting at La Salle University. He has a Bachelor of Science from the Pennsylvania State University and a M.B.A. and Ph.D.from Temple University. Currently he teaches Information Technology: Systems and Strategies. He has also taught courses and given seminars in financial accounting, strategic planning, organizational analysis, and production and operations management. Dr Kennedy's area of specialization is earnings recognition and valuation in financial reporting, group decision making, group decision support system, distributed consensus building and the conceptual framework of accounting. He has published research in International Journal of Information Technology and Decision Making, Business Journal, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Information and Management, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Omega, Accounting Enquiries, Journal of Management Systems, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, and Interface. His consulting activities include strategic planning, the systems development life cycle, developing and reviewing IT systems budgets and metrics, the use of probabilistic phrases by financial strategy experts, and hiring executives and technical managers.