Executive Support System (ESS) is a reporting tool (software) that allows you to turn your organization's data into

useful summarized reports. These reports are generally used by executive level managers for quick access to reports coming from all company levels and departments such as billing, cost accounting , staffing, scheduling, and more. In addition to providing quick access to organized data from departments, some Executive Support System tools also provide analysis tools that predicts a series of performance outcomes over time using the input data. This type of ESS is useful to executives as it provides possible outcomes and quick reference to statistics and numbers needed for decision-making. The exact reporting tools and outcome of an Executive Support System completely depends on the ESS developer and it's intended industry use. For example, Cambridge Systematics has ESS to support the investment planning process for the Ministry of Transportation. The features and functions of this Executive Support System are entirely different from the Executive Support System developed by Meditech, which is useful to health care organizations. Several companies offer pre-designed Executive Support System packages (usually suited to one particular industry), while others offer packages which can be customized your your organization's nee

An executive information system (EIS) is a type of management information system intended to facilitate and support the information and decision-making needs of senior executives by providing easy access to both internal and external information relevant to meeting the strategic goals of the organization. It is commonly considered as a specialized form of decision support system (DSS).[1] The emphasis of EIS is on graphical displays and easy-to-use user interfaces. They offer strong reporting and drill-down capabilities. In general, EIS are enterprise-wide DSS that help top-level executives analyze, compare, and highlight trends in important variables so that they can monitor performance and identify opportunities and problems. EIS and data warehousing technologies are converging in the marketplace. In recent years, the term EIS has lost popularity in favor of business intelligence (with the sub areas of reporting, analytics, and digital dashboards).

Contents
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1 History

2 Components o 2.1 Hardware o 2.2 Software o 2.3 User interface o 2.4 Telecommunication 3 Applications o 3.1 Manufacturing o 3.2 Marketing o 3.3 Financial 4 Advantages and disadvantages o 4.1 Advantages of EIS o 4.2 Disadvantages of EIS 5 Future trends 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] History
Traditionally, executive information systems were developed as mainframe computer-based programs. The purpose was to package a companys data and to provide sales performance or market research statistics for decision makers, such as financial officers, marketing directors, and chief executive officers, who were not necessarily well acquainted with computers. The objective was to develop computer applications that would highlight information to satisfy senior executives needs. Typically, an EIS provides data that would only need to support executive level decisions instead of the data for all the company. Today, the application of EIS is not only in typical corporate hierarchies, but also at personal computers on a local area network. EIS now cross computer hardware platforms and integrate information stored on mainframes, personal computer systems, and minicomputers. As some client service companies adopt the latest enterprise information systems, employees can use their personal computers to get access to the companys data and decide which data are relevant for their decision makings. This arrangement makes all users able to customize their access to the proper companys data and provide relevant information to both upper and lower levels in companies.

[edit] Components
The components of an EIS can typically be classified as:

[edit] Hardware
When talking about hardware for an EIS environment, we should focus on the hardware that meet the executives needs. The executive must be put first and the executives needs must be

defined before the hardware can be selected. The basic computer hardware needed for a typical EIS includes four components: 1. Input data-entry devices. These devices allow the executive to enter, verify, and update data immediately 2. The central processing unit (CPU), which is the kernel because it controls the other computer system components 3. Data storage files. The executive can use this part to save useful business information, and this part also help the executive to search historical business information easily 4. Output devices, which provide a visual or permanent record for the executive to save or read. This device refers to the visual output device such as monitor or printer In addition, with the advent of local area networks (LAN), several EIS products for networked workstations became available. These systems require less support and less expensive computer hardware. They also increase access of the EIS information to many more users within a company.

[edit] Software
Choosing the appropriate software is vital to design an effective EIS.[citation needed] Therefore, the software components and how they integrate the data into one system are very important. The basic software needed for a typical EIS includes four components: 1. Text base software. The most common form of text are probably documents 2. Database. Heterogeneous databases residing on a range of vendor-specific and open computer platforms help executives access both internal and external data 3. Graphic base. Graphics can turn volumes of text and statistics into visual information for executives. Typical graphic types are: time series charts, scatter diagrams, maps, motion graphics, sequence charts, and comparison-oriented graphs (i.e., bar charts) 4. Model base. The EIS models contain routine and special statistical, financial, and other quantitative analysis

[edit] User interface

An EIS needs to be efficient to retrieve relevant data for decision makers, so the user interface is very important. Several types of interfaces can be available to the EIS structure, such as scheduled reports, questions/answers, menu driven, command language, natural language, and input/output.

[edit] Telecommunication
As decentralizing is becoming the current trend in companies, telecommunications will play a pivotal role in networked information systems. Transmitting data from one place to another has become crucial for establishing a reliable network. In addition, telecommunications within an EIS can accelerate the need for access to distributed data.

[edit] Applications
EIS enables executives to find those data according to user-defined criteria and promote information-based insight and understanding. Unlike a traditional management information system presentation, EIS can distinguish between vital and seldom-used data, and track different key critical activities for executives, both which are helpful in evaluating if the company is meeting its corporate objectives. After realizing its advantages, people have applied EIS in many areas, especially, in manufacturing, marketing, and finance areas.

[edit] Manufacturing
Basically, manufacturing is the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale, or intermediate processes involving the production or finishing of semi-manufactures. It is a large branch of industry and of secondary production. Manufacturing operational control focuses on day-to-day operations, and the central idea of this process is effectiveness and efficiency.

[edit] Marketing
In an organization, marketing executives role is to create the future. Their main duty is managing available marketing resources to create a more effective future. For this, they need make judgments about risk and uncertainty of a project and its impact on the company in short term and long term. To assist marketing executives in making effective marketing decisions, an EIS can be applied. EIS provides an approach to sales forecasting, which can allow the market executive to compare sales forecast with past sales. EIS also offers an approach to product price, which is found in venture analysis. The market executive can evaluate pricing as related to competition along with the relationship of product quality with price charged. In summary, EIS software package enables marketing executives to manipulate the data by looking for trends, performing audits of the sales data, and calculating totals, averages, changes, variances, or ratios.

[edit] Financial
A financial analysis is one of the most important steps to companies today. The executive needs to use financial ratios and cash flow analysis to estimate the trends and make capital investment decisions. An EIS is a responsibility-oriented approach that integrates planning or budgeting with control of performance reporting, and it can be extremely helpful to finance executives. Basically, EIS focuses on accountability of financial performance and it recognizes the importance of cost standards and flexible budgeting in developing the quality of information provided for all executive levels.

[edit] Advantages and disadvantages

[edit] 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 tracking information Offers efficiency to decision makers

[edit] 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

Executive Support System?

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What's a ESS? A ESS (or DSS more in general) is a software system under control of one of many decision-makers that assists in their activity of decision making by providing and organised set of tools intended to impart structure to portions of the decision making situation and to improve the ultimate effectiveness of the decision outcome". Sharing the same concepts of a DSS, an ESS focuses more in the end-user requirements of maximum interactivity and user-friendlyness. An ESS can be understood as a friendly, fully customised and interactive DSS to be mostly used by top executives and policy-makers to get permanent and updated assessment in relation to key questions (information and knowledge). While a complete DSS will have efficient links to external large databases and advanced models, an ESS focuses only on interactive and executive assessment tools, those which can be used personally by end-users. An ESS requires a previous expert work filtering information and knowledge into meaningful indicators and tools. Because of ESS definition, its design and implementation must integrate future users as much as feasible, since a ESS represents both a challenge and an opportunity to improve their working processes. Although software development play an integral role in any Executive Support System design (and more in general in the Decision Support System world) the analysis of ESS and DSS is about how people think and make decisions Anyway a ESS will induce organisational changes which can not be succesful in complex institutions unless they are clearly preceived and desired since the begining. Recent developments on ESS and DSS tend to integrate the multiple decisions being taken by the institution, so they become Organisational DSS. An ODSS is therefore a participative process, instead of a mandatory product. In the figure, the green circle represents the domain area of a typical Executive Support System.

Supporting decision-making processes Rational decisions by "computers" Start with the data: Almost free from prejudicies. Rational formulation Large volums of information Inductive in-depth analysis Specialised: Sectorial analysis Large volums of calculations, slow conclusions Emotional decision-makers ("people") Start with a provisory solution to be validated and modified Adaptative behaviour Limited access to information Intuitive-deductive search for "patterns" Global: Multisectorial synthesis Rapid expression of personal perceptions

Optimisation strategy from all possible solutions

Satisfying strategy based on "acceptable" possibilitie

Decision-making approaches FUNCTIONAL-ECONOMIC economic efficiency stakes allocating scarce resources maximum marginal social paramount objective benefit-cost goals issues timing maximize users (travelers) utility and minimize externalities sectorial basically short-term short-term in most cases framework cost-benefit quantitative results multi-party negotiation and social mobilization maximize voters perception multi-sectorial long-term in theory, create social consensus political interest STRATEGIC-POLITICAL

period

transport projects

development paradigm Colonization Exogenous in National scale Exogenous International scale Close endogenous

decision-making goals

decision-making leadership Military-Religious imposition Private iniciative

Pre-Industrial 1800-1900 Early Industrialization 1900-1975 Mass Industrialization 1975-1985 Industrial Crisis >1985 Post Industrialization

Military Roads and Ports

Permanent territorial control

Firsts Canals and Railways Developing National Transportation Networks Managing the existing transport capacity International and Local Networks Development

Short-term private interest

Long-term development strategy Short-term social-economic rationality Permanent environmental and development negotiation

Political iniciative Bureaucratic rationality Social agreement

Open endogenous

SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS

EXPERT ANALYSIS

POLICY ANALYSIS

Evaluation Models (e.g. CBA, Multicriteria...) Explanatory Models Forecast Models (e.g. 4-Steps) Backcast Model Conceptual Models Statistic Models (e.g. Linear regression) Policy Indicators

Architectures

Conceptual structure of an DSS (implications for an ESS) Despite the particularities of each ESS, they share with more general DSS some fundamental elements: Information system: Databases with consistent structure -Models to generate unknown information (e.g. Impacts of alternative decisions). In an ESS model should ideally be interactive and their results linked to policy relevant indicators. -Knowledge basis to put in a political context information and model's outcomes, and evaluate them. Policy actions are the result of adding purposes and goals to knowledge. User-Interfaces The users of the ESS must ideally get friendly and customised access to information, models and knowledge (policy relevant indicators), according to their needs). Interactivity is a requirement to make "reinforcing learning" possible. Each module, and the links between them, require specific software and hardware solutions, which should be designed together by systems experts and end-users. Information component:

Giving structure to policy-relevant Data descriptors and indexes. Models component: Predicting impacts of policy actions in different overall scenarios to produce meaningful and consistent indicators to evaluate alternative policy actions. Knowledge component ESS knowledge-base could integrate few major elements: -Policy indicators monitoring the impacts and needs of EU policies (calculated in the model base) -Knowledge-based tools (e.g. Interactive models supporting policy evaluation). -All other fuzzy knowledge elements which can not be encapsuled within strict "scientific methods"

User-friendly interface component User-Interfaces must be adapted to end- users: -ESS for top decision makers (which require already-made analysis in a friendly manner, but as well proper connections to other elements in the DSS) -Experts (which requiere access to both data and models to carry on the analysis, but as well links to modelling tools and raw data in order to check and understand models formulation and data sources reliability). An ESS does not have "experts" as main target users.