What companies have gained a competitive advantage by building a DSS?
The problem in answering this question is that firms want to maintain the advantage they gain and hence they are reluctant to release many details about strategic information systems. Also, DSS that provide an advantage at one point in time may seem dated or ordinary after only a few years has elapsed. The advantage can be fleeting and short-term (cf., Feeny and Ives, 1990).Porter and Millar (1985) provided a major theoretical perspective on how information could provide competitive advantage. A number of other theories related to competitive advantage suggest that deployment of resources like innovative decision support systems can provide a sustainable business advantage.DSS can be important and useful and necessary and yet not provide a competitive advantage. Many consulting firms and vendors focus on gaining competitive advantage from a data warehouse or a business intelligence system and that can happen. Many DSS projects don’t however deliver such results and they probably weren’
