Computers in the Boardroom

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 77

The final session of the conference was given by David Preedy, Development Director of Metapraxis - the developers of the RESOLVE Executive Information System. David described the background to the development of RESOLVE, which is currently being used by directors of about 60 major organisations both in the U.K. and America.

In the introduction, the talk explained some of the unique challenges presented by work directly for senior executives. These included the need to design an easy-to-use system, the problems of working under little direct guidance from the ultimate user, and the over-riding importance of focusing the project on the current business needs of the directors rather than being side-tracked by the technical issues, however interesting they might be.

The talk then described some of the main issues related to the range of data coverage most appropriate to senior executives and of Metapraxis' experience that their users are looking primarily for a "what-is" rather than a "what-if" system.

The RESOLVE system itself was then shown in action, including a pre-recorded "management presentation" describing a typical monthly financial report, followed by live access to a corporate database controlled by a member of the audience using a special infra-red control system designed for use in corporate Boardrooms.

Following this presentation of an artificial corporation, the versatility of the RESOLVE approach was demonstrated by switching to the output from "Mandate" - a joint project between Metapraxis and the London Business School. This has combined certain key economic trends from the government's CSO database with the LBS econometric forecasts, presented using RESOLVE graphics. The result was a brief but enlightening summary of many of the key economic trends currently making the national headlines.