The powerful triangle of marketing data, managerial judgment, and marketing management support systems

Conceptualizes the impact of information technology on marketing decision making. Argues that developments in information technology affect the performance of marketing decision‐makers through different routes. Advances in information technology enhance the possibilities of collecting data and of generating information for supporting marketing decision making. Potentially, this will have a positive impact on decision‐making performance. Managerial expertise will favor the transformation of data into market insights. However, as the cognitive capabilities of marketing managers are limited, increasing amounts of data may also increase the complexity of the decision‐making context. In turn, increased complexity enhances the probability of biased decision processes, thereby negatively affecting decision‐making performance. Marketing management support systems, also being the result of advances in information technology, are tools that can help marketers to benefit from the data explosion. The analysis leads to the expectation that the combination of marketing data, managerial judgment, and marketing management support systems will be a powerful factor for improving marketing management.