AN EVALUATION OF STYLES OF IT SUPPORT FOR MARKETING PLANNING Professor

IT support for marketing planning can aid in the use of marketing tools, facilitate group planning, and support moves towards continuous planning based on a live marketing model of the business. But amongst other factors, achieving these benefits depends on the style of support provided by the system. In the context of a review of schools of decision support system (DSS) development, we describe here the influence of a qualitative evaluation of a system named EXMAR on the style of support provided by subsequent versions. Our findings support Little’s (1970) classic rules of ‘decision calculus’, such as the importance of ensuring that managers understand and can control the system, rather than the management science influenced objective of prescribing an optimal recommendation. We also emphasise the role of systems in enhancing mutual understanding in a cross-functional planning team, and hence in building commitment to the resulting plan.