Explain the concept and purpose of a marketing decision support system. A decision support system (DSS) makes data instantly available to marketing managers and allows them to manipulate the data themselves to make marketing decisions. Four characteristics make DSSs especially useful to marketing managers: They are interactive, flexible, discovery oriented, and accessible.

That is, they give managers access to information immediately and without outside assistance; they allow users to manipulate data in a variety of ways and to answer "what if" questions; and they are accessible to novice computer users.

1. In the absence of company problems, is there any reason to develop a marketing DSS?

2. Explain the difference between marketing research and a DSS.