Scenario planning can be a useful and attractive tool in strategic management. In a rapidly changing environment it can avoid the pitfalls of more traditional methods. Moreover, it provides a means of addressing uncertainty without recourse to the use of subjective probabilities, which can...

This paper focuses upon the status and prevalence of expert systems in life insurance in the UK today and reports the results of a widescale survey conducted by the authors. About 90% of the companies who responded are undertaking some form of activity in the field, with 59% expected to have...

The financial services industry and, in particular, the insurance industry has emerged as an important user of expert systems. In the following review we examine evidence of the spread of such systems in insurance, and focus more particularly upon life insurance, where the greatest amount of...

Demand forecasting to support supply chain planning is a critical activity, recognized as pivotal in manufacturing and retailing operations where information is shared across functional areas to produce final detailed forecasts. The approach generally encountered is that a baseline statistical...

Restrictiveness and guidance have been proposed as methods for improving the performance of users of support systems. In many companies computerized support systems are used in demand forecasting enabling interventions based on management judgment to be applied to statistical forecasts. However,...