************************************************************ DSS News by D. J. Power May 6, 2001 -- Vol. 2, No. 10 A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM ************************************************************ Subscribe and join the DSSResources.COM community ************************************************************ Featured: * DSS Wisdom * Ask Dan! -- What companies have gained a competitive advantage by building a DSS? * What's New at DSSResources.COM * DSS News Stories ************************************************************ Each week, we have about 3000 unique visitors at DSSResources.COM. This newsletter has more than 550 subscribers from 50 countries. Please forward this newsletter to people interested in Decision Support Systems. ************************************************************ DSS Wisdom Keen and Scott-Morton (1978) stated: "Decision Support Systems couple the intellectual resources of individuals with the capabilities of the computer to improve the quality of decisions. It is a computer-based support system for management decision makers who deal with semi-structured problems." Keen, P. G. W. and M. S. Scott-Morton. Decision Support Systems: An Organizational Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978. ************************************************************ Ask Dan! What companies have gained a competitive advantage by building a DSS? The problem in answering this question is that firms want to maintain the advantage they gain and hence they are reluctant to release many details about strategic information systems. Also, DSS that provide an advantage at one point in time may seem dated or ordinary after only a few years has elapsed. The advantage can be fleeting and short-term (cf., Feeny and Ives, 1990) Porter and Millar (1985) provided a major theoretical perspective on how information could provide competitive advantage. A number of other theories related to competitive advantage suggest that deployment of resources like innovative decision support systems can provide a sustainable business advantage. DSS can be important and useful and necessary and yet not provide a competitive advantage. Many consulting firms and vendors focus on gaining competitive advantage from a data warehouse or a business intelligence system and that can happen. Many DSS projects don't however deliver such results and they probably weren't intended to create competitive advantage. In a now classic study, Kettinger et al. (1994) identified a number of companies that had gained an advantage from Information Systems. Some of those systems were Decision Support Systems, but most were Transaction Processing Systems. The following DSS examples are from their paper: Air Products -- vehicle scheduling system Cigna -- risk assessment system DEC -- expert system for computer configuration First National Bank -- asset management system IBM -- marketing management system McGraw Hill -- marketing system Merrill Lynch -- cash management system Owens-Corning -- materials selection system Proctor & Gamble -- customer response system Time and technology have had a negative impact on how some of the above systems are perceived. A major lesson learned is that a company needs to continually invest in a Strategic DSS to maintain any advantage. INTERFACES Volume 13, No. 6 Nov-Dec 1983 had a number of DSS Case studies that have since then become classics. For example, Distribution of Industrial Gases at Air Products and Chemicals, the ASSESSOR Pre-Test Market Evaluation System, Southern Railway's Computer Aided Train Dispatching system. Chapter 2 of my DSS Hyperbook furher explores the question of gaining competitive advantage from DSS. In the chapter, my examples include decision support systems at Frito-Lay, L.L. Bean, Lockheed-Georgia, Wal-Mart and Mrs. Field's Cookies. If a company is trying to develop a Decision Support System that provides a competitive advantage, managers and analysts should ask how the proposed DSS affects company costs, customer and supplier relations and managerial effectiveness. Managers should also attempt to assess how the proposed strategic system will impact the structure of the industry and the behavior of competitors. ----------------- Clemons, E.K. and Weber, B.W., "Strategic information technology investments: Guidelines for decision making," Journal of Management Information Systems, 1990, 7(2), 9-28. Feeny, D.F. and Ives, B., "In search of sustainability: Reaping long-term advantage from investments in information technology," Journal of Management Information Systems, 1990, 7(1), 27-46. Kettinger, W., Grover, V., Guha, S., and Segars, A., "Strategic Infornmation Systems Revisited," MIS Quarterly, 1994, pp. 31-55. Porter, M.E. and Millar, V.E., "How information gives you competitive advantage," Harvard Business Review, 1985, July-August. ************************************************************ What's New at DSSResources.COM 05/05/2001 Published case example by Nucleus Research Staff, "Return on Investment Profile: Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server", Nucleus Research, April 2001, URL DSSResources.COM/cases/raremedium.html. 04/30/2001 Published case example by arcplan Staff, "Bayer's unique planning wizard system cures budgeting headaches", arcplan, Inc., January 2000, URL DSSResources.COM/cases/bayer.htm. 04/28/2001 Published Lotito, J. "Concepts of Database Design and Management" Tutorial. ************************************************************ DSS News Stories - Apr. 21 to May 4, 2001 05/04/2001 Call for papers: DS I-AGE 2002, IFIP TC8/WG 8.3 Open Conference, University College of Cork, Ireland, 4-7 July 2002. Due November 30, 2001. Check call. 05/04/2001 SGI showcases visualization systems at American Association of Museums Meeting, May 6-10. 05/02/2001 eEye Digital Security announced major vulnerability in Microsoft® Windows 2000 IIS 5.0 Web Server Software. 05/02/2001 Business Objects announced availability of its Business Intelligence Portal Integration Kit for Microsoft SharePoint Server. 05/01/2001 ESRI is now shipping ArcGIS 8.1, a single, integrated Geographic Information System. 05/01/2001 Michigan implements Executive Information System to enhance management of healthcare services. 04/30/2001 Procter & Gamble implements Polycom system for worldwide video communications. 04/30/2001 Provident Central Credit Union selects Sagent for better customer service. 04/27/2001 Ferris Research reports problems with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. 04/26/2001 Iowa Health System selects Allscripts for wireless prescribing and dictation. 04/26/2001 Fair, Isaac announced new decision technology to help company's maximize profit. 04/26/2001 Three Business Objects customers win awards for decision support applications. 04/25/2001 IBM buys database business of Informix Corp. 04/24/2001 Risk Management firm chose Business Objects to simplify Workers' Compensation programs via e-BI Extranet. 04/24/2001 IBM and Ascential Software form global strategic alliance to market Business Intelligence and Information Asset Management solutions. 04/23/2001 Microsoft and Hyperion published open XML for Analysis specification. ************************************************************ This newsletter is available online at http://dssresources.com/newsletters/ . ************************************************************ DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2001 by D. J. Power. Please send your email to power@dssresources.com. You have previously subscribed to the DSS News Mailing List. To unsubcribe, send an email to dssresources-unsubscribe@topica.com . |