An upper level for what-if analysis

Abstract

Living in a knowledge-based society, one of the most important tasks of decision makers is to know how to deal with information and knowledge that add value to their activities. Decision makers need to retrieve high-quality sets of information in order to gain competitive advantages in their business world. Otherwise, companies may struggle with several difficulties when it comes to market competition and business reputation. What-If analysis tools can help decision-makers in this matter. This technique allows for simulating hypothetical scenarios without harming the business and helping anticipate future events, by testing hypothesis. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a hybridization approach and develop a hybrid methodology, which aims at discovering the best recommendations for What-If analysis scenarios’ parameters using OLAP usage preferences. We also develop a software platform to illustrate the hybrid methodology with a specific case study. This hybridization process will help the user during the design and implementation of a What-If analysis process, overcoming the pitfalls of the conventional What-If analysis process.