Technology and Policy in Decision Support Systems

Overview

Data warehousing, data marting, online analytical processing (OLAP) -- these terms dominate discussions of enterprise decision support systems (DSS). At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that none of these product categories has a particularly stellar track record for improving the quality or quantity of commercial decisions. This is so because none of the technological answers to the commercial decision-making problem focuses on decision-making processes themselves--on the entirety of the decision-making problem -- which are as much matters of policy as they are of technology. This white paper discusses the evolution of the data warehousing marketplace from data infrastructure to enterprise decision support systems, focusing on the decision-making process as the design center for effective DSS environments.