Decision makers are beginning to understand that is not just a byproduct of conducting business, but a critical factor in determining the success or failure of a business.

Answer is information.

Explanation:

Decision makers are the people that make decision. And in business world, most of these decision makers are entrepreneur or board of directors.

These group of people have come to realized that for a business to be successful or not , typically based on the information that is available and what is done about the information.

Information has been described as power, because most of the successful people became successful because of the information they have and acted upon, while those that failed were so, because they didn't have the necessary information.

It should be noted that, information is a fact provided or knowledge of an event or situation.

In this case, people with the knowledge of a situation will know how to go about it and become a success, while without the fact or knowledge will fail.