Marketing Decision Making and Decision Support: Challenges and Perspectives for Successful Marketing Management Support Systems

Marketing management support systems (MMSS) are computer-enabled devices that help marketers to make better decisions. Marketing processes can be quite complex, involving large numbers of variables and mostly outcomes are the results of the actions of many different stakeholders (e.g., the company itself, its customers, its competitors). Moreover, a large number of interdependencies exist between the relevant variables and the outcomes of marketing actions are subject to major uncertainties. Given the complexities of the market place, marketing management support systems are useful tools to help the marketing decision makers carry out their jobs. Marketing management support systems can only be effective when they are optimally geared toward their users. We, therefore, deal with decision making in marketing (which generates the need for marketing management support systems). We discuss how marketing decisions are made, how they should be made, and the relative roles of analytical versus intuitive cognitive processes in marketing decision making. We also discuss the match between marketing problem-solving modes and the various types of marketing management support systems. Finally we discuss how the impact of MMSS can be improved. This is important, given the current under-utilization of MMSS in practice. We discuss the conditions for the successful implementation and effective use of marketing management support systems. The issue ends with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges for marketing management support systems as we foresee them.