Intelligent support systems for marketing decisions. (Q1422053)

This book deals with the influences of multicriteria analysis, decision support systems and artificial intelligence approaches on marketing approaches. Special emphasis is given to the area of new product development and formation penetration strategies. The authors claim that this is the first book bringing all these aspects together. The book is divided into three parts containing in total 11~chapters. Part~1 contains three chapters and introduces to the different aspects of the book. In the first chapter decision support processes are addressed and multicriteria decision analysis as well as multiobjective mathematical programming is briefly described. Chapter~2 focusses on the structure of marketing decisions, which includes a review of marketing problems and decisions. Also basic marketing decision models, consumer behavior analysis and brand choice models are addressed. The last chapter of the first part is devoted to strategic marketing decisions. Here, the strategic planning process, the development process of a new product, the product life cycle and the marketing mix are discussed. In the second part of the book (with 6 chapters) intelligent support systems are introduced in detail. Chapter~4 addresses various aspects of information systems, including: the strategic role of information systems, the system life cycle, computer-based information systems, marketing information systems and electronic commerce. The decision aspect is the topic of Chapter~5, where decision support systems (DSS) are discussed. After a historical review, the characteristics, the architecture, the structure and the user interface of DSS are described. Also the connection to database systems, to multicriteria decision analysis and to marketing is investigated. In Chapter~6 the findings of Chapter~5 are extended to advanced decision support systems. Especially multicriteria decision support systems, distributed decision support systems, spatial decision support systems and data warehouses are considered. Chapter~7 goes one step further by addressing intelligent decision support systems which are tightly connected to expert systems. Also related topics, like knowledge engineering, machine learning, neural nets and data mining are treated in detail. How to design intelligent decision support systems in marketing is the topic of Chapter~8. In addition examples of such systems are discussed. Chapter~9 concludes the second part of the book by looking in detail at the new product development methodology. Part~3 of the book concentrates in two chapters on the intelligent decision support system MARKEX and its applications. Chapter~10 is devoted to the analysis and design of MARKEX. Chapter~11 reviews applications of MARKEX. The real-world applications include the design of a new flour product for a Greek flourmill company market and surveys of the Cretan olive oil in different European markets. The book contains more than 500 pages and lists 1287 references. It is well written and clearly structured. However, due to the various topics addressed in the book, the reader can not always expect an in-depth discussion of all aspects.