1. Background (history)
Traditionally, executive information systems were mainframe computer-based programs. The
purpose was to package a company's data and to provide sales performance or market
research statistics for decision makers, such as, marketing directors, chief executive officer,
who were not necessarily well acquainted with computers. The objective was to develop
computer applications that highlighted information to satisfy senior executives' needs. Typically,
an EIS provides only data that supported executive level decisions, not all company data.
Today, the application of ESS is not only in typical corporate hierarchies, but also at lower
corporate levels. As some client service companies adopt the latest enterprise information
systems, employees can use their personal computers to get access to the company's data and
identify information relevant to their decision making. This arrangement provides relevant
information to upper and lower corporate levels.
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2. The definition of executive support system(ESS):
An Executive support system (ESS), also known as an Executive information
system (EIS), is a type of management support system that facilitates and supports senior
executive information and decision-making needs. It provides easy access to internal and
external information relevant to organizational goals. It is commonly considered a specialized
form of decision support system (DSS).
ESS emphasizes graphical displays and easy-to-use user interfaces. They offer strong reporting
and drill-down capabilities. In general, ESS 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.
ESS
and data
warehousing technologies are converging in the marketplace.
The term ESS lost popularity in favor of business intelligence (with the sub areas of
reporting, analytics, and digital dashboards).
An ESS facilitates access to organized enterprise and departmental data while providing analysis
utilities and performance assessment predictors.
Also provides potential outcomes and quick statistical data that are applied to decision making
Processes.
Executive support systems are intended to be used by the senior managers directly to provide
support to non-programmed decisions in strategic management.
Ultimately ESS reporting tools & results are so contingent on developer and industry
application
Example:
Cambridge systematic,INC.Built an ESS that is integrated with the investment plan for the
ministry of transportation in Canada.This ESS version includes features that contrast the
version used by medical information technology,INC(MEDITECH)
These information are often external, unstructured and even uncertain. Exact scope and
context of such information is often not known beforehand.
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This information is intelligence based −

Market intelligence

Investment intelligence

Technology intelligence
Examples of Intelligent Information
The following are some examples of intelligent information, which is often the source of an ESS:

External databases

Technology reports like patent records etc.

Technical reports from consultants

Market reports

Confidential information about competitors

Speculative information like market conditions

Government policies

Financial reports and information
3. Components of ESS
EIS components can typically be classified as:

Hardware

Software

User interface

Telecommunications
3.1 Hardware
When talking about computer hardware for an EIS environment, we should focus on the
hardware that meets the executive's need. The executive must be put first and the executive's
needs must be defined before the hardware can be selected. The basic 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
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2. The central processing unit (CPU), which is the most important because it controls the
other computer system components
3. Data storage file, The executive can use this part to save useful business information,
and this part also helps 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 EIS information access to more company users.
3.2 Software
Choosing the appropriate software is vital to an effective EIS. Therefore, the software
components and how they integrate the data into one system are important.
A typical EIS includes four software components:
1. Text: handling software—documents are typically text-based
2. Database: heterogeneous databases 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—EIS: models contain routine and special statistical, financial, and other
quantitative analysis
3.3 User interface
An EIS must 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.
3.4 Telecommunication
As decentralizing is becoming a trend in companies, telecommunications plays a pivotal role in
networked information systems. Transmitting data from one place to another has become
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crucial for establishing a reliable network. In addition, telecommunications within an EIS can
accelerate the need for access to distributed data. It can be both by scientific and business
management means.
4. Applications
EIS helps executives find 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.
4.1 Manufacturing
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.
4.2 Marketing
In an organization, marketing executives' 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 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.
4.3 Financial
Financial analysis is one of the most important steps to companies today. Executives needs to
use financial ratios and cash flow analysis to estimate the trends and make capital investment
decisions. An EIS integrates planning or budgeting with control of performance reporting, and it
can be extremely helpful to finance executives. EIS focuses on financial performance
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accountability, and recognizes the importance of cost standards and flexible budgeting in
developing the quality of information provided for all executive levels.
5. Characteristics of ESS
 Summarizing
 Filtering and
 obtaining detailed data.
EIS created to display graphs and reports from the business processes of an organization or
company. Where the data is used as a material consideration for future decision making.
Provides trend analysis, exception reporting and drill-down capabilities.
6. Advantages and disadvantages of ESS
6.1. Advantages of ESS
ESS has many advantages like:

Easy for upper level executive to use.

Ability to analyze trends.

Augmentation of managers' leadership capabilities.

Enhance personal thinking and decision-making.

Contribution to strategic control flexibility.

Enhance organizational competitiveness in the market place.

Instruments of change.

Increased executive time horizons.

Better reporting system.

Improved mental model of business executive.

Help improve consensus building and communication.

Improve office automation.

Reduce time for finding information.

Early identification of company performance.

Detail examination of critical success factor.

Better understanding.

Time management.

Increased communication capacity and quality.
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
Easy for upper-level executives to use, extensive computer experience is not required in
operations.

Provides strong drill-down capabilities to better analyze the given information.

Information that is provided is better understood.

EIS provides timely delivery of information.

Management can make decisions promptly.








External databases.
Technology reports like patent records etc.
Technical reports from consultants.
Market reports.
Confidential information about competitors.
Speculative information like market conditions.
Government policies.
Financial reports and information.

Improves tracking information.

Offers efficiency to decision makers.
6.2. Disadvantage of ESS

Functions are limited (Limited functionality, by design)

Hard to quantify benefits

Executive may encounter information overload

Difficult to keep current data

May lead to less reliable and insecure data

Excessive cost for small company

System dependent

Information overload for some managers

High implementation costs

System may become slow, large, and hard to manage

Need good internal processes for data management
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7. Future trends
This trend frees executives from learning different computer operating systems, and
substantially decreases implementation costs. Because this trend includes using existing
software applications, executives don't need to learn a new or special language for the EIS
package.
Interactive visualizations are trending. 3D visualizations in a VR/AR environment looks like a
possibility already. Also, predictive analytics open the doors for (machine) learning what is going
to be next based on data from the past. While the data processing can be done in many ways,
learning is not completely unsupervised. There is still a good deal of classification using expert
personnel analysis. In near realtime scenarios, latencies while doing ML can be a barrier.
Optimizing data models, size and processing path/time are ongoing work. As more data is
captured at different data stages in not only EIS apps but also other enterprise apps, audio and
video tagging can catalyse data discovery.
Generally, ESS is a very usefull system that facilitates and supports senior executive information
and decision-making needs.
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The above picture explains advantages of EIS(ESS).
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References
 https://www.tutorialspoint.com/management_information_system/executive_support_sy
stem.htm
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_information_system
 https://www.techopedia.com/definition/executive-support-system-ess
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