The term decision support, if my knowledge of history of this area is correct, goes back to the 1970s when it was coined by some academics associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since then, many academic definitions have been offered. – My purpose in this essay is to provide a definition that may lend clarity to practitioners.
A decision support system or tool is one specifically designed to facilitate business end users performing computer generated analyses of data on their own.
I note that this definition is still fuzzy because what constitutes analyses and "on their own" are debatable points.
There are very few pure decision support tools.
That is, there are very few tools designed specifically for the business end users. Most business users who do analyses on their own use tools that IT people also use.
Business intelligence has become the vendors’ preferred synonym for decision support.
My guess is because decision support has an academic connotation and, as just mentioned, decision support systems do not necessarily support decisions. On the other hand, business intelligence systems do not necessarily make a business more intelligent. By the way, the consultant–coined term business intelligence goes back to the late 1950s, fell out of use, was revived by a DEC consultant, fell out of use again, and then was revived by the DW/DSS/BI world in the late 1990s. Confusingly, business intelligence is also used as a synonym for competitive intelligence (and is probably a more apt term for that area).
We cannot say that decision support systems or tools necessarily support the making of decisions.
What’s in a name? – As far as I know, cognitive researchers do not agree on how decisions are made. Therefore, saying that these tools support making decisions is not a provable statement. Nor, is it, in may opinion, an insightful way of defining these tools. It seems, though, that 99% of the definitions of BI say something about better decisions. My wish is that these defintions would include a cognitive model of how decisions are made and an explanation on how the tools fit into the model.
These tools do not analyze by themselves – rather they help a person analyze.
In other words, the tools facilitate analyses rather than perform analyses. If you want to learn more about how the tools facilitate analyses, see my essay on What Business Intelligence Tools are Used For.
Data warehousing and decision support systems and tools do not necessarily go hand in hand.
Many data warehouses are not used as decision support systems. And decision support systems or tools do not necessarily require the use of a data warehouse as a source for data. I assert that, by far, the most used decision support tools are spreadsheets not connected in any automated way with a data warehouse.
Actually there is relatively small amount of decision support going on.
Analyzing data, no matter what tool is being used, is difficult. Whatever the vendors do, it will remain difficult. But it is an activity, when done well, that can be quite beneficial.
You can be sure that there will be future synonyms for decision support.
Industry "experts" and marketeers always are on the prowl for ways of differentiating their expertise and products.