The flood of data, faster cycle times and the adoption of analytics are rapidly increasing awareness of the importance of the decision-making process, which IDC calls “decision management.” The narrow application of the concept of decision management is changing as organizations begin to recognize the need to shift from the “art of the decision” to the “science of the decision,” and as technology evolves to provide greater support of decision-making as a management science.

“Convergence of intelligent devices, social networking, pervasive broadband networking and analytics is ushering in a new economic system that is redefining relationships among producers, distributors, and consumers,” says Dan Vesset, program vice president, Business Analytics Solutions.

In this intelligent economy the need to gain greater visibility into intra- and intercompany business processes is driving accelerating demand for decision management solutions.

IDC forecasts the decision management software market – which comprises project-based and transactional decision management applications, platforms and components – will reach $10.8 billion by 2014, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.8 percent.

Today, in most cases, organizations have a choice to either purchase pre-built applications or use components to build and deploy decision management applications. IDC expects dedicated platforms to appear that integrate these components. Although starting from a small base, decision management platforms are expected to grow at a CAGR of 236 percent to $834 million for 2009-2014. Decision management components are forecast to grow at a CAGR of 16.8 percent to $6.2 billion during the same period, while applications will grow 10.2 percent to $3.8 billion.

“Enterprises succeed or fail based on the decisions made by executives. They compete effectively or lose market share based on the operational decisions made by their managers. And they are more or less profitable based on the day-to-day decisions of various knowledge and line workers who make up most of the workforce,” says Maureen Fleming, vice president, Business Process Management and Enterprise Middleware.

There has been a long-time interest in the business analytics fields on decision support and in the business process management field on process automation. But neither field has placed enough emphasis on the decision-making process itself – be it strategic, operational or tactical. IDC’s research into the use of decision management software indicates that it can have a profound impact on creating competitive advantage in commercial transactions, enabling sustainable management of communities and promoting appropriate distribution of social, healthcare and educational services.