Which option best demonstrates the use of databases to support decision making by speeding up information retrieval?

• A. Databases can improve the speed of decision-making by making it easy to search for information using queries and sort functions.
• B. Spreadsheets improve the accuracy of calculations.
• C. Video conferencing reduces travel costs.
• D. Email can be used to communicate information to many employees.

Answer: (A)

Databases speed up decision making by enabling fast access to the right data through structured storage and powerful querying. They organize information so you can quickly fetch exactly what you need using search criteria and then sort or filter the results, often with indexing that makes lookups very fast. This rapid retrieval of relevant data is what supports timely decisions, such as pulling all customers in a region with recent purchases and ordering them by value to spot opportunities.

Other tools provide efficiency in different ways—spreadsheets help with calculations, video conferencing reduces travel costs, and email spreads information to many people—but none focus on delivering fast, targeted data from a centralized store the way a database query and sort does.