Profile distance method – a multi-attribute decision making approach for information system investments

This article addresses the area of decision making for information systems (IS). We recognize the great demand for methods and techniques that can be of practical help by presenting a new, conceptual approach, the profile distance method, to support the IS selection problem. This approach combines the merits of two prominent concepts individually applied in decision making: the utility ranking method (URM) and the data envelopment analysis (DEA). In addition, the method involves calculating distances between the desired system profile defined in the additive multi-attribute utility model and the individual alternative profiles calculated by the DEA derived optimization process. The results can be visualized to support the decision maker in justifying and communicating the model outcomes. The proposed method is illustrated within a real-life case study concerning an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software selection problem.