Executive Support Systems (ESS)

9. Executive Support Systems (ESS) Definition of ESS An Executive Support System (ESS) is software that allows users to transform enterprise data into quickly accessible and executive-level reports, such as those used by billing, accounting and staffing departments. An ESS enhances decision making for executives. An Executive information system (EIS), also known as an Executive support system (ESS), 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. An Executive Support System (ESS) is software that allows users to transform enterprise data into quickly accessible and executive-level reports, such as those used by billing, accounting and staffing departments. An ESS enhances decision making for executives. An Executive Support System (ESS) is software that allows users to transform enterprise data into quickly accessible and executive-level reports, such as those used by billing, accounting and staffing departments. An ESS enhances decision making for executives. ESS is also known as Executive Information System (EIS). Executive support systems (ESS) help managers with unstructured and semistructured problems by focusing on the information needs of senior management. Combining data from internal and external sources, ESS create a generalized computing and communications environment that can be focused and applied to a changing array of problems. ESS help senior executives monitor organizational performance, track activities of competitors, spot problems, identify opportunities, and forecast trends. 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 needs. 1 The Role of Executive Support Systems in the Firm Contemporary ESS can bring together data from all parts of the firm and enable managers to select, access, and tailor them as needed using easy-to-use desktop analytical tools and online data displays. Use of the systems has migrated down several organizational levels so that the executive and any subordinates are able to look at the same data in the same way. Today’s systems try to avoid the problem of data overload so common in paper reports because the data can be filtered or viewed in graphic format (if the user so chooses). ESS have the ability to drill down, moving from a piece of summary data to lower and lower levels of detail. The ability to drill down is useful not only to senior executives but also to employees at lower levels of the firm who need to analyze data. OLAP tools for analyzing large databases provide this capability. A major challenge of building executive support systems has been to integrate data from systems designed for very different purposes so that senior executives can review organizational performance from a firmwide perspective. In the traditional firm, which typically had hundreds or even thousands of incompatible systems, pulling such information together and making sense out of it was a major task. Today, properly configured and implemented enterprise systems can provide managers with timely, comprehensive, and accurate firmwide information. ESS based on such data can be considered logical extensions of enterprise system functionality. External data, including data from the Web, are now more easily available in many ESS as well. Executives need a wide range of external data, from current stock market news to competitor information, industry trends, and even projected legislative action. Through their ESS, many managers have access to news services, financial market databases, economic information, and whatever other public data they may require. Contemporary ESS include tools for modeling and analysis. With only a minimum of experience, most managers find they can use these tools to create graphic comparisons of data by time, region, product, price range, and so on. (Whereas DSS use such tools primarily for modeling and analysis in a fairly narrow range of decision situations, ESS use them primarily to provide status information about organizational performance.) ESS must be designed so that high-level managers and others can use them without much training. One area that merits special attention is the determination of executive information requirements. ESS need to have some facility for environmental scanning. A key information requirement of managers at the strategic level is the ability to detect signals of problems in the organizational environment that indicate strategic threats and opportunities. 2 The ESS need to be designed so that both external and internal sources of information can be used for environmental scanning purposes. Features of Executive Information System Characteristics of the Executive support system 1. Informational characteristics i. Flexibility and simple use. ii. Provides the timely info with the short reaction time and additionally with the short retrieval. iii. Produces the proper info. iv. Produces the relevant info. v. Produces the valid info. 3 2. User interface/orientation characteristics i. Consists of the subtle self facilitate. ii. Contains the user friendly interfaces consisting of the graphic user. iii. will be used from several places. iv. Offers secure reliable, confidential access in conjunction with the access procedure. v. is extremely abundant made-to-order. vi. Suites the management form of the individual executives. 3. Social control / govt characteristics i. Supports the over all vision, mission and also the strategy. ii. Provides the support for the strategic management. iii. typically helps to manage the things that have a high degree of risk. iv. Is coupled to the worth accessorial business processes. v. Supports the need/ access for/ to the external data/ databases. vi. is extremely abundant result headed within the nature. Advantages of ESS It is easy for senior most executive to use Ability to analyze trends Augmentation of managers' leadership capabilities Enhancement of personal thinking and decision-making Contribution to strategic control flexibility Broadened the 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 Reduction in time to find information Early identification of company performance Detailed examination of critical success factor Better understanding Time management Increased communication capacity and quality 4 Disadvantages of ESS Functions are limited Very tough to quantify benefits Executive may encounter information overload System may become slow Difficult to keep current data May lead to less reliable and insecure data Highly expensive for small company 5