LECTURE – 15

(Executive Information System)

• What is Executive Information System?
• The emphasis of EIS is on graphical displays
and easy-to-use user interfaces
• Strong reporting and drill-down capabilities
• EIS/DSS
• Compare, highlight trends, monitor
performance and identify opportunities and
problems.
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)
• Purpose of an EIS
– Gives managers access to the data
– Promotes managerial learning
– Provides timely information
– Looking at the data leads to questions
– Identifies trends
– Measures performance
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)

• The components of an EIS can typically be

classified as:
• Hardware
• Software (Text, Graphical, Heterogeneous)
• User interface (scheduled reports,
questions/answers, menu driven, command
language, natural language)
• Telecommunication
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)
• Applications
– Manufacturing (Evaluation of vendors and
buyers, Material, Planning)
– Marketing (Sales forecast, Pricing, Trends)
– Financial (Budgeting, Financial Ratios,
Financial Trends
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)
• Types of EIS
– Corporate Management (Management functions,
human resources, financial data,
correspondence, performance measures, etc.
(whatever is interesting to executives)
– Technical Information Dissemination (Energy,
environment, aerospace, weather)
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)

• Structure of an EIS
– Presentation Graphics
– Tutorials
– Web Pages
– Internet Portals
– Intranet
– Database Queries and Reporting
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)
• Advantages of EIS
– Easy for upper-level executives to use,
extensive computer experience is not required
in operations
– Provides timely delivery of company summary
information
– Information that is provided is better
understood
– Filters data for management
– Improves to tracking information
– Offers efficiency to decision makers
 LECTURE – 15
(Executive Information System)
• Disadvantages of EIS
– System dependent
– Limited functionality, by design
– Information overload for some managers
– Benefits hard to quantify
– High implementation costs
– System may become slow, large, and hard to
manage
– Need good internal processes for data
management
– May lead to less reliable and less secure data