Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence, Second Edition

PREFACE

Information is a crucial component of today's society. With a smaller world, faster communications, and greater interest, information relevant to a person's life, work, and recreation has exploded. However, many believe this is not all good. Richard S. Wurman (in a book entitled Information Anxiety) notes that the information explosion has backfired, leaving us stranded between mere facts and real understanding. Similarly, Peter Drucker noted in a Wall Street Journal (December 1, 1992, p. A16) editorial entitled "Be Data Literate—Know What to Know" that, although executives have become computer literate, few of them have mastered the questions of what information they need, when they need information, and in what form they need information. On that backdrop enters the awakening of business intelligence and analytics to provide a structure for harnessing the information to be a tool to help companies be more competitive.

This is both good news and bad news for designers of decision support systems (DSS). The good news is that if, as Drucker claims, the future success of companies is through the astute use of appropriate information, then DSS have a bright future in helping decision makers use information appropriately. The bad new is that where DSS are available, they may not be providing enough support to the users. Too often the DSS are designed as a substitute for the human choice process or an elaborate report generator.

Decision support systems, by definition, provide ...