Much interest has shifted from business-toconsumer to business-to-business electronic
commerce, with a recent white paper proclaiming
that “early consumer-focused eCommerce winners
created the Internet business model, but it will be
their B2B successors that realize the full potential of
the new electronic economy” [2]. While the
business-to-business sector certainly seems exciting,
consumer decision support systems offer new
opportunities in the business-to-consumer arena.
Unlike business-to-business technologies, which are
just emerging and will require substantial corporate
change, data warehousing technologies are rapidly
evolving and have been successfully applied in
many organizations. Consumer decision support
systems represent an outward focus and a concern
for the usability of data warehousing technologies.
These consumer-focused data warehouses are high
valued-added assets with significant investments and
expertise required for design and development [3].
In addition, these same capabilities may find
application in the business-to-business procurement
process.