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Cha P ter
1

An Overview of Business Intelligence,

Analytics, and Decision Support

Learning Objectives
■ Understand today’s turbulent business ■ Learn the conceptual foundations of
1
environment and describe how the decision support systems (DSS )
organizations survive and even excel in methodology
such an environment (solving problems ■ Describe the business intelligence (BI)
and exploiting opportunities) methodology and concepts and relate
■ Understand the need for computerized them to DSS
support of managerial decision making ■ Understand the various types of analytics
■ Understand an early framework for ■ List the major tools of computerized
managerial decision making decision support

he business environment (climate) is constantly changing, and it is becoming more
and more complex. Organizations, private and public, are under pressures that
T force them to respond quickly to changing conditions and to be innovative in the
way they operate. Such activities require organizations to be agile and to make frequent
and quick strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, some of which are very complex.
Making such decisions may require considerable amounts of relevant data, information,
and knowledge. Processing these, in the framework of the needed decisions, must be
done quickly, frequently in real time, and usually requires some computerized support.
This book is about using business analytics as computerized support for manage-
rial decision making. It concentrates on both the theoretical and conceptual founda-
tions of decision support, as well as on the commercial tools and techniques that are
available. This introductory chapter provides more details of these topics as well as an
overview of the book. This chapter has the following sections:
1.1 Opening Vignette: Magpie Sensing Employs Analytics to Manage a Vaccine
Supply Chain Effectively and Safely 33
1.2 Changing Business Environments and Computerized Decision Support 35

1 The acronym DSS is treated as both singular and plural throughout this book. Similarly, other acronyms, such
as MIS and GSS, designate both plural and singular forms. This is also true of the word analytics.
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