ABSTRACT
Back in the day, Decision Support Systems were small local databases with a single user interface. Joey from the second floor would bring a diskette up to the fourth floor to update the database. With that information and the ability to smell a shift in customer buying patterns, a manager would make the strategic and tactical decisions necessary to keep the business afloat. Since then, information has become a strategic weapon. The precision with which information is sliced and diced by all members of the enterprise has reached an art and science never seen by Joey from the second floor. The expansive use of information, shared with managers and workers on the line, has pervaded the enterprise to an extent not seen by Joey’s manager. This new world of information was partially created by Decision
Support Systems, growing and integrating, growing and integrating, until some of them became a warehouse holding the data of the enterprise.
