Chapter 6 • Managerial Support Systems 235without the assistance of intermediaries. An EIS uses
state-of-the-art graphics, communications, and data stor-
age methods to provide the executive easy online access to
current information about the status of the organization.
Dating only to the late 1980s in most cases, EISs
represent the first real attempt to deliver relevant summary
information to management in online form. Originally, EISs
were developed for just the two or three top executive levels
in the firm, but that caused many problems of data disparity
between the layers of management. The most important
internal data—dealing with suppliers, production, and
customers—are generated under the control of lower-level
managers, and they need to know what is being reported
higher up in the organization. As a result, today the user
base in most companies has been broadened to encompass
all levels of management in the firm—and sometimes even
managers in customer and supplier organizations. Largely
because of this broadening of the user base, today the EIS
label has often been replaced with the broader term
performance management(PM) software.
EISs employ transaction data that have been filtered
and summarized into a form useful for the executives in the
organization. In addition, many successful EISs incorpo-
rate qualitative data such as competitive information,
assessments, and insights. This emphasis on competitive
information has become so important in the last few years
that many organizations now call their EISs business
intelligence (BI) systemsorcompetitive intelligence
systems. In summary, an EIS is a hands-on tool that
focuses, filters, and organizes an executive’s information
so he or she can make more effective use of it.
Let us consider Infor PM as an example of a
software platform for developing a performance manage-
ment/business intelligence system. Infor PM has its roots
in an earlier product named Commander EIS, but it has
now moved beyond a relatively simple EIS that summa-
rizes data for top managers to a full-blown management
planning and control system. Infor PM incorporates six
core components: strategic management, planning, budg-
eting, forecasting, financial consolidation, and reporting
and analysis. Reporting and analysis, in turn, consists of
three modules—Infor PM Application Studio, which
provides business intelligence by accessing, filtering,
analyzing, and distributing information throughout the
organization; Infor PM OLAP, which permits querying
against a multidimensional database; and Infor PM
OfficePlus, which is a Microsoft Excel add-in designed
for analysts who need advanced financial reporting and
analysis capabilities. All of these core components and
modules may be deployed individually or as part of the
full suite. Also available from Infor is a performance
management solution designed for small to midsized
businesses named Infor PM Business Edition. The client
for Infor PM is simply a Web browser.
Infor PM permits customization of a large number of
easy-to-use and easy-to-interpret displays to present key
information to managers; the software package allows
business users to view information in whatever way makes
sense to them, including charts, dashboards, scorecards,
gauges, spreadsheets, and even early warning alerts when
results deviate from expected performance. In addition, it
provides an intelligent “drill-down” capability to identify
relevant detailed information, multiple business perspec-
tives (such as region or product), multiple scenarios for
planning (“what-if” analyses), and charting of cause/effect
linkages among plan elements. Examples of Infor PM
displays are shown in Figure 6.5.
Other EIS/PM products include Executive
Dashboard from Qualitech Solutions, Oracle Enterprise
Performance Management System, SAP BusinessObjects
Strategy Management, SAS/EIS, and SymphonyRPM
from Symphony Metreo. Business intelligence platforms,
which overlap considerably with EIS/PM products but
sometimes have a broader focus (including, for instance,
data mining) and sometimes a narrower focus (excluding
performance management reporting features), include
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, MicroStrategy
Intelligence Server, Oracle Business Intelligence Suite,
SAP BusinessObjects BI Solutions (including Advanced
Visualization, Dashboard Builder, and Voyager), and SAS
Business Intelligence.
Perhaps the earliest EIS described in print is the
management information and decision support (MIDS)
system at the Lockheed-Georgia Company (Houdeshel
and Watson, 1987). The sponsor for MIDS was the
Lockheed-Georgia President, and a special staff reporting
to the Vice President of Finance developed the system. An
evolutionary approach was used in developing MIDS, with
only a limited number of displays developed initially for a
limited number of executives. For example, a display
might show prospective customers for a particular type of
aircraft or might graphically depict both forecast and
actual sales over the past year.
Over time, more displays were developed and more
executives were added to the system. The initial version of
MIDS in 1979 had only 31 displays developed for fewer than
a dozen senior executives. By 1985, 710 displays had been
developed, 30 senior executives and 40 operating managers
were using the system, and the mean number of displays
viewed per user per day was up to 5.5. Many factors had to
come together for MIDS to be successful, but perhaps the
most important was that the system delivered the information
(based on quantitative and qualitative data) that senior execu-
tives needed for them and their company to be successful.