Decision Support Systems and Business Intelligence

There is no single agreed definition of the term Decision Support System (DSS) but according to
Turban et al. (2007) it is an umbrella term to describe any computerized system that supports
decision making in an organization. Another traditional definition by Keen and Scott- Morton
(1978) is that DSS couple the intellectual resources of individuals with the capabilities of the
computer to improve the quality of the decisions. DSS have primarily been created to help
managers in the organizations to make better decisions in semi/unstructured problems. DSS
today are found in a wide range of applications and includes spreadsheet, goal seeking and
scenario analyses, geographical information system, executive information systems and
knowledge management systems. The five components of a DSS are Data, Models, Knowledge,
Users and User interface. However Business Intelligence (BI) is a relatively new phenomenon
that has also different meanings for different people. BI is a set of concepts, methods and
processes to improve business decisions using information from multiple sources and applying
experience and assumptions to develop an accurate understanding of business dynamics. It is the
gathering, management and analysis of data to provide information that is distributed to people
throughout the organization to improve strategic and tactical decisions (Brackett, 1999).
According to Negash & Gray (2003), BI area is a subset of DSS that came forward as a natural
outgrowth of previous decision support systems. It provides tools that business managers and
analysts need to conduct analysis. This is performed through interactive access to current as well
as historical data, situations and performances, which all provide insight in the organization thus
enables informed decision making. BI turns information into intelligence, intelligence into
knowledge, and knowledge into business insights. By combining advanced techniques such as
data warehousing, data mining, and decision support, business intelligence systems offer the
ability to transform information into powerful customer relationship management that can help in
create stronger, more profitable relationships, identify new business opportunities and predict
customer demands. BI has four major components that are a data warehouse, business analytics,
business performance management (BPM) and a user interface. Data warehouse serves as a
source of data where as business analytics is a collection of tools for manipulating, mining and
analyzing the data in the data warehouse. Business performance management (BPM) is used for
monitoring and analyzing performance.

There are many similarities between BI & DSS since both works on information retrieval but
Turban et al (2007) outlines some of the differences between these two. One is that DSS usually
has a more direct purpose for decision making while BI serves more of a support function and
indirectly support decisions. BI tools are also more focused towards executives and strategists
while DSS has a more analytical purpose. However, according to Turban et al. (2007), this view
is to some extent changing thus creating additional similarities between the two. BI also implies
the use of a data warehouse while DSS may or might not use such a function. Another main
difference between BI and traditional EIS and DSS is that the use of BI is not limited to firms’

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leaders and decision makers, but is extended to all people throughout business organizations,
including users such as general managers, department staff, and users out-of- enterprises, such as
customers, suppliers and partners. There is also a tendency that DSS methodologies and tools
have been developed in the academic society while BI tools have emerged in the business world.
Most BI tools are constructed with commercially available tools and components that are fitted
to the needs of organizations. On the other hand DSS are built while keeping in mind to solve the
unstructured problems that requires more programming to customize the solutions. There is a no
agreement among the researchers that whether BI should be called DSS/part of DSS or not.
Elena (2011) says BI can be called DSS whereas Turban et al. (2007) does not equate BI with
DSS at the present. Watson (2005) believes that BI is an original element of DSS and resulted
from continuous revolution of it. In Negash & Gray (2003)’s point of view BI is a sub set DSS,
as mentioned earlier.

Social Media in Business Processes

Social media is a combination of content, user communities and social media technologies.
Content is user-created and it has different kinds of forms (text, photos, videos, tags).
Communities enable the social activities and communication between people either directly or
indirectly through media objects. Social media technologies and applications enable creation and
sharing of content in these communities (Ahlqvist, Bäck, Halonen & Heinonen 2008, 13). Social
media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. The
emergence & popularity of social media has affected the mode organizations communicate. The
internet provides ways that enable people to build social and business connections, share
information and collaborate on projects online. Consumers react less to conventional media and
advertising, and are moving towards consumer-to-consumer communication such as blogging,
mobile messaging, comparison shopping sites, word-of-mouth marketing, and peer-to-peer
networks. Organizations carry out their marketing communications via social media to improve
customer understanding, advertise products and services and to increase brand awareness.

A business process is a series of steps designed to produce a product or service (Rummler &
Brache, 1995). Social media is being used in business primarily as a marketing and public
relations tool, while to some extent it is also utilized in sales support and collaborative work.
Social media is swiftly becoming a new power in businesses around the globe, allowing the
organizations to interact with consumers as never before. But as social media provides new
opportunity, it also calls for a change in thinking about business. Those companies who are most
effective in social media now are creating tools to measure impact and also to understand
customer psyche. In the future, those organizations will lead that are able to use social media
effectively for building new relationship with customers, employees, and other companies. As an
example, Internetnews.com reported in December 2008 that Dell has produced $1 million in
revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts via Twitter. People who sign up to
follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available at the

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company’s Home Outlet Store. Dell has gone further ahead using twitter by offering discounts
exclusively to the 11,844 people who follow @DellOutlet.

Conventional marketing tactics such as advertising, referrals, and public relations are still very
important, but social media have emerged as a giant force and need to be considered at the
strategic level of your business decision-making process. So, rather than deciding that one should
or should not use Facebook or Twitter, the question is: “How can Facebook and Twitter help one
achieve his business objectives?”

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access.
Increased communication via social media nurtures brand consciousness and often, improved
customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a comparatively inexpensive medium for
organizations to carry out business campaigns. With emergence of social media channels like
Twitter, the entry in social media is eased a great deal. When used properly, social media can be
a great tool to help businesses reach untargeted potential customers and stay connected to current
ones. When it comes to really new ways of reaching people, social media has much more to
offer.

References:

Ahlqvist, Toni – Bäck , Asta – Halonen , Minna & Heinonen , Sirkka (2008 ) Social Media Roadmaps.
Exploring the futures triggered by social media. VTT Tiedotteita – Research Notes: 2454. Espoo. 78 p..
http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/tiedotteet/2008/T2454.pdf.

Elena, C. 2011. Business Intelligence. Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information
Technology

Keen, P.G.W., and M.S. Scott Morton. (1978). Decision Support Systems: An Organizational
Perspective, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Michael H.Brackett, “Business Intelligence Value Chain”, DM Review, 1999.3

Negash, S. & Gray, S., 2003. Business Intelligence. The 9th Americas Conference on Information Systems

Rummler & Brache (1995). Improving Performance: How to manage the white space on the
organizational chart. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

Turban, E. Aronson, J.E. Liang, T-P. & Sharda, R., 2007. Decision Support and Business Intelligence
Systems. 8th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education

Watson, H. J. (2005). Sorting out what’s New in Decision Support. Business Intelligence Journal

www. internetnews.com

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Research Topic (Suggested): Social Media in Business Processes: Benefits and
Threats
Possible Organization (s) where research will be conducted: IKEA, VOLVO, SCANIA

Background:

Social media is a combination of content, user communities and social media technologies.
Content is user-created and it has different kinds of forms such as text, photos, videos, tags.
According to a study conducted by Burson-Marsteller (2010) revealed that of the Fortune Global
100 companies, 65 percent have Twitter accounts, 54 percent have Facebook fan pages, 50
percent have YouTube channels and 33 percent have blogs. Business units such as research and
development, marketing, human resource, and finance are realizing the potential for utilizing
social media tools to encourage innovation, create brand recognition, hire and retain employees,
generate revenue, and improve customer satisfaction. By utilizing social media, the enterprises
have witnessed not only a return on investment (ROI) on their products and services, but also
profits increase. This is just one side of this phenomenon but the other side requires carefulness
in using such platforms since it brings risks such as of privacy, losing product/service popularity,
and defamation of the company.

Purpose:

Organizations are increasingly using social media for their business activities and many
companies claim that their revenues have increased through increasing brand recognition and
sales. Besides this the use of social media also brings negative aspects for businesses, this leads
to need of investigating these issues to justify the claims and to discover the potential threats to
the organizations in this area. It will also be investigated that what changes social media brings
in business processes at organizational units that use social media.

Research Questions and Methods:

Based on purpose of the study, described above, two research questions were formulated and are
stated below:

 To what extent social media brings opportunities and threats for organizations?
 How social media is transforming business processes in concerned units?

According to Chisnall (1997), exploratory, descriptive and causal methods are most frequently
used research methods. Exploratory research helps in clarifying the understanding and assessing
the phenomenon that is new and especially in a case when the researcher not have a clear idea
about the research area. These methods involve exploring the literature, speaking with experts of
the subject, and conducting focus group interviews (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2003). While
descriptive research methods explain a situation or activity designed to measure an event and

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activity and used to test a hypothesis (Hair et al., 2003). In Cooper & Schindler (2003)’s point of
view goals of descriptive studies are descriptions of the characteristics related with the particular
population, estimation of the part of a population that includes these characteristics, and
determining the relations between the different variables. However causal research is used when
the research has to test whether one occasion caused another (Hair et al., 2007). This study will
employ an exploratory method which is a qualitative approach, since this research area is
relatively new. In particular, interviews will be conducted to collect the data in order to answer
the above research questions. Data will be analysed by following the patterns and theories of
information systems.

Contribution:

The proposed research will contribute at both the theoretical and empirical levels to enhanced
understanding of the topic. This topic has academic relevance because it has knowledge
contribution to the information system field. Besides this the outcome will add in new research
findings in the area of social media which is quite new area in research.

Delimitations:

Since every research has certain limitations, this will be the case in this study too. One major
limitation will be that phenomenon under study is relatively new and thus might have very
limited literature available. Other than this the time will be other big constraint since the
researcher has to perform administrative and teaching tasks in parallel with this research.

References:

Burson-Marsteller, The Global Social Media Check-up Insights: From the Burson-Marsteller Evidence-
based Communications Group, www.burson-marsteller.com/

Chisnall P.M., 1997. Marketing Research, 5th ed. McGraw-Hill

Cooper, D.R., & Schindler, P.S., 2003. Business Research Methods 8th edition, McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc.

Hair, J.F., Babin, B., Money, A.H., Samouel, P., (2003), Essentials of Business Research Methods, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Hair, J.F., Babin, B., Money, A.H., Samouel, P., (2007), Essentials of Business Research Methods, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A., (2003) Research Methods For Business Students, Second Edition,
UK, Financial Times, Prentice Hall

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