abhishreshthaa
Abhijeet S
MARKETING DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
(1) Routine comparison of current performance against past trends on each of the key measures of effectiveness
(2) Periodic exception reports to assess which sales territories or accounts have not matched previous tears’ purchases and
(3) Special analyses to evaluate the sales impact of particular marketing programs and to predict what would happen if changes were made.
Characteristics of a MDSS
A good MDSS should have the following characteristics
A typical MDSS is assembled from four components
1. Database
2. Reports and displays
3. Analysis capabilities
4. Models
- A typical marketing manager regularly receives some or all of the following data: factory shipments or orders; consumer panel data; scanner data; demographic data; and internal cost and budget data.
- Managers don’t want data. They want, and need, decision-relevant information in accessible and preferably graphical form for
(1) Routine comparison of current performance against past trends on each of the key measures of effectiveness
(2) Periodic exception reports to assess which sales territories or accounts have not matched previous tears’ purchases and
(3) Special analyses to evaluate the sales impact of particular marketing programs and to predict what would happen if changes were made.
- In addition, different divisions would like to be linked to enable product managers, sales planners, market researchers, financial analysts and production schedules to share information.
- The purpose of a marketing decision support system (MDSS) is to combine marketing data from diverse sources into a single database which line managers can enter interactively to quickly identify problems and obtain standards, periodic reports, as well as answers to analytical questions.
Characteristics of a MDSS
A good MDSS should have the following characteristics
- 1. Interactive. The process of interaction with the MDSS should be simple and direct. With just a few commands the user should be able to obtain the results immediately. There should be no need for a programmer in between.
- 2. Flexible. A good MDSS should be flexible. It should be able to present the available data in either discrete or aggregate form. It should satisfy the information needs of the managers in different hierarchical levels and functions.
- 3. Discovery oriented. The MDSS should not only assist managers in solving the existing problems but should also help them to probe for trends and ask new questions. The managers should be able to discover new patterns and be able to act on them using the MDSS.
- 4. User friendly. The MDSS should be user friendly. It should be easy for the managers to learn and use the system. It should not take hours just to figure out what is going on. Most MDSS packages are menu driven and are easy to operate.
A typical MDSS is assembled from four components
1. Database
2. Reports and displays
3. Analysis capabilities
4. Models