Expert Systems for Marketing Decision Support—The Case of the Portuguese Mountain Olive Oil

In the present economic and technological context, decisions must be made quickly, and some business planning processes do not comply with the needed velocity. At an entrepreneurial level, new business start-ups and in some sectors, like the agrifood industry, not only need speed decisions, but also the companies do not have the capacity and knowledge to make those decisions. Particularly in the case of marketing, it is possible to observe a greater difficulty since it is difficult to have the knowledge, technique, and tools to analyse the market and design the adequate strategy to fulfil and satisfy the market needs. The expert decision support system in marketing (ESM) presented here was built to allow the mountain olive oil producers and distributors in Portugal to speed up their decision ability, overcoming the time-consuming process embodied in rigorous business analysis. An ESM is built based on knowledge and allows diagnosis and development of marketing scenarios that boost opportunities detection and market corrections. In industries characterised by micro-business and for new business creation, this technology is important and can be the first consultation service to offer to the companies to improve their performance.