Using a DSS to incorporate expert opinion in strategic product development funding decisions

Research investigating Decision Support Systems (DSS) suggests they provide support to decision makers confronted with unstructured problems. Strategic decisions are often characterized as unstructured: they address external markets, new products, and changing competitors. This paper examines the development and adaptive implementation of a multicriterion DSS, which captured the expertise of recognized experts in different functional groups of an organization, for use in allocating product development funds to new programs. The DSS increased the number of factors considered by decision makers and provided a method for ranking competitors using a discrete set of criteria. The study demonstrates the use of DSS as a vehicle for incorporating of expert opinion in group decision processes, and illustrates specific DSS benefits that include information aggregation and problem structuring.