Information Logistics as a Conceptual Foundation for Enterprise-Wide Decision Support

Traditional decision support approaches (data warehousing or business intelligence) are limited because they focus on certain analysis techniques, user groups, or usage scenarios. This reduces their potential as integrated foundation for enterprise-wide decision support. The concept of information logistics (IL) is proposed to overcome these shortcomings. IL involves planning, implementing, and controlling cross-unit data flows and storing and providing decision-relevant data. It covers strategy, process organisation and IS implementation in an integrated manner, and focuses on enterprise-wide information delivery. In this paper, the concept of IL is presented. An action research project documents the formulation, implementation, and roll-out process of an IL framework in a large company over several years. The applicability, feasibility, and utility of the IL concept is demonstrated.