Enterprise Management Systems provide Enterprise software, also known as enterprise software application (ESA), ... billing systems, security, enterprise content management, IT service management.....
3. INDEX
Enterprise Information Management
Business Intelligence
Enterprise Content Management
Business Process Management
Business Performance Management
Executive Information System
Enterprise Resource Planning
4. ENTERPRISE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Enterprise Information Management (EIM) is a particular field of interest within information
technology area. It specializes in finding solutions for optimal use of information within organizations,
for instance to support decision-making processes or day-to-day operations that require the availability
of knowledge. It tries to overcome traditional IT-related barriers to managing information on an
enterprise level.
Definition:
Enterprise information management combines business intelligence (BI) and enterprise content
management (ECM). Enterprise information management takes these two approaches to managing
information one step further, in that it approaches information management from an enterprise
perspective. Where BI and ECM respectively manage structured and unstructured information, EIM does
not make this "technical" distinction. It approaches the management of information from the
perspective of enterprise information strategy, based on the needs of information workers. ECM and BI
in a sense choose a denominationalised approach, since they only cover part of the information within
an organization. This results in a lack of available information during decision-making processes, market
analysis or procedure definition.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Business intelligence (BI) is the ability of an organization to collect, maintain, and organize data. This
produces large amounts of information that can help develop new opportunities. Identifying these
opportunities, and implementing an effective strategy, can provide a competitive market advantage and
long-term stability.[1]
BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive views of business operations. Common
functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data
mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance
management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics.
The goal of modern business intelligence deployments is to support better business decision-
making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS).[2]
Though the term business
intelligence is sometimes a synonym for competitive intelligence (because they both support decision
making), BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data
and business processes while competitive intelligence gathers, analyzes and disseminates information
with a topical focus on company competitors. If understood broadly, business intelligence can include
the subset of competitive intelligence.
5. ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Enterprise content management (ECM) is a formalized means of organizing and storing an
organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes. The term
encompasses strategies, methods, and tools used throughout the lifecycle of the content
Definition:
The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) International, the worldwide
association for enterprise content management, defined the term Enterprise Content Management in
2000. AIIM has refined the abbreviation ECM several times to reflect the expanding scope and
importance of information management:
Late 2005
Enterprise content management is the technologies used to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve, and
Deliver content and documents related to organizational processes.
Early 2006
Enterprise content management is the technologies used to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve, and
Deliver content and documents related to organizational processes.
ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information,
wherever that information exists.
Early 2008
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage,
store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and
strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that
information exists.[1]
Early 2010
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage,
store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM covers the
management of information within the entire scope of an enterprise whether that information is in the
form of a paper document, an electronic file, a database print stream, or even an email.
The latest definition encompasses areas that have traditionally been addressed by records
management and document management systems. It also includes the conversion of data between
various digital and traditional forms, including paper and microfilm.
ECM is an umbrella term covering document management, web content management, search,
collaboration, records management, digital asset management (DAM), work-flow management, capture
and scanning. ECM is primarily aimed at managing the life-cycle of information from initial publication or
creation all the way through archival and eventually disposal. ECM applications are delivered in three
ways: on-premise software (installed on the organization’s own network), software as a service (SaaS)
(web access to information that is stored on the software manufacturer’s system), or a hybrid solution
composed of both on-premise and SaaS components.
ECM aims to make the management of corporate information easier through simplifying storage,
security, version control, process routing, and retention. The benefits to an organization include
improved efficiency, better control, and reduced costs. For example, many banks have converted to
storing copies of old checks within ECM systems versus the older method of keeping physical checks in
massive paper warehouses. Under the old system a customer request for a copy of a check might take
6. weeks, as the bank employees had to contact the warehouse to have someone locate the right box, file
and check, pull the check, make a copy and then mail it to the bank who would eventually mail it to the
customer. With an ECM system in place, the bank employee simply searches the system for the
customer’s account number and the number of the requested check. When the image of the check
appears on screen, they are able to immediately mail it to the customer—usually while the customer is
still on the phone.
7. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
Business process management (BPM) has been referred to as a "holistic management"
approach[1]
to aligning an organization's business processes with the wants and needs of clients. It
promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration
with technology. BPM attempts to improve processes continuously. It can therefore be described as a
"process optimization process." It is argued that BPM enables organizations to be more efficient, more
effective and more capable of change than a functionally focused, traditional hierarchical management
approach.
An empirical study by Kohlbacher (2009) indicates that BPM helps organizations to gain
higher customer satisfaction, product quality, delivery speed and time-to-market speed.[2]
An empirical
study by Vera & Kuntz (2007) conducted in the German hospital sector indicates that BPM has a positive
impact on organizational efficiency
A business process comprises a "series or network of value-added activities, performed by their
relevant roles or collaborators, to purposefully achieve the common business goal."[4]
These processes
are critical to any organization as they can generate revenue and often represent a significant
proportion of costs. As a managerial approach, BPM sees processes as strategic assets of an organization
that must be understood, managed, and improved to deliver value-added products and services to
clients. This foundation closely resembles other Total Quality Management or Continuous Improvement
Process methodologies or approaches. BPM goes a step further by stating that this approach can be
supported, or enabled, through technology to ensure the viability of the managerial approach in times
of stress and change. In fact, BPM offers an approach to integrate an organizational "change capability"
that is both human and technological. As such, many BPM articles and pundits often discuss BPM from
one of two viewpoints: people and/or technology.
BPM or Business Process Management is often referred to as 'Management by Business Processes'.
The term "business" can be confusing as it is often linked with a hierarchical view (by function) of a
company. It is therefore preferable to define BPM as "corporate management through processes". By
adding BPM the second meaning of 'Business Performance Management' used by Pr Scheer in his article
"Advanced BPM Assessment",[6]
BPM can therefore be defined as "company performance management
through processes". And it's this resolutely performance-oriented definition which is chosen here.
Dominique Thiault, in Managing Performance through Business Processes defines BPM as a
management-through-processes method which helps to improve the company's performance in a more
and more complex and ever-changing environment. Management through processes is a management
method based on two logical levels: process governance and process management:
Process governance is all of the company's governance activities which, by way of allocating on
the processes, work towards reaching its objectives, which are both operational and progress-
related.
Process management is all the management activities of a given process which work towards
reaching the objectives allocated for this process.
Roughly speaking, the idea of business process is as traditional as concepts
of tasks, department, production, and outputs. The management and improvement approach as of
2010, with formal definitions and technical modeling, has been around since the early 1990s
(see business process modeling). Note that the IT community often uses the term "business process" as
synonymous with the management of middleware processes; or as synonymous with
integrating application software tasks. This viewpoint may be overly restrictive - a limitation to keep in
8. mind when reading software engineering papers that refer to "business processes" or to "business
process modeling".
Although BPM initially focused on the automation of business processes with the use of information
technology, it has since been extended to integrate human-driven processes in which human interaction
takes place in series or parallel with the use of technology. For example (in workflow systems), when
individual steps in the business process require deploying human intuition or judgment, these steps are
assigned to appropriate members within the organization.
More advanced forms such as human interaction management are in the complex interaction between
human workers in performing a workgroup task. In this case, many people and systems interact in
structured, ad-hoc, and sometimes completely dynamic ways to complete one to many transactions.
BPM can be used to understand organizations through expanded views that would not otherwise be
available to organize and present, such as relationships between processes. When included in a process
model, these relationships provide for advanced reporting and analysis. BPM is regarded by some[who?]
as
the backbone of enterprise content management.
Because BPM allows organizations to abstract business process from technology infrastructure, it goes
far beyond automating business processes (software) or solving business problems (suite). BPM enables
business to respond to changing consumer, market, and regulatory demands faster than competitors
creating competitive advantage.
As of 2010 technology has allowed the coupling of BPM to other methodologies, such as Six Sigma.
BPM tools allow users to:
vision - strategize functions and processes
define - baseline the process or the process improvement
model - simulate the change to the process
analyze - compare the various simulations to determine an optimal improvement
improve - select and implement the improvement
control - deploy this implementation and by use of user-defined dashboards monitor the
improvement in real time and feed the performance information back into the simulation model
in preparation for the next improvement iteration
re-engineer - revamp the processes from scratch for better results
This brings with it the benefit of being able to simulate changes to business processes based on real-
life data (not just on assumed knowledge). Also, the coupling of BPM to industry methodologies allows
users to continually streamline and optimize the process to ensure that it is tuned to its market need.[8]
As of 2012 research on BPM has paid increasing attention to the compliance of business processes.
Although a key aspect of business processes is flexibility, as business processes continuously need to
adapt to changes in the environment, compliance with business strategy, policies and government
regulations should also be ensured.[9]
The compliance aspect in BPM is highly important for
governmental organizations. As of 2010 BPM approaches in a governmental context largely focus on
operational processes and knowledge representation.[10]
Although there have been many technical
studies on operational business processes both in the public and in the private sector, researchers have
rarely taken legal compliance activities into account, for instance the legal implementation processes in
public-administration bodies.
BPM Life Cycle
Business process management activities can be grouped into six categories: vision, design, modeling,
execution, monitoring, and optimization.
9. Functions are designed around the strategic vision and goals of an organization. Each function is
attached with a list of processes. Each functional head in an organization is
responsible for certain sets of processes made up of tasks which are to be
executed and reported as planned. Multiple processes are aggregated to
function accomplishments and multiple functions are aggregated to achieve
organizational goals.
Design
Process Design encompasses both the identification of existing processes and
the design of "to-be" processes. Areas of focus include representation of the
process flow, the factors within it, alerts & notifications, escalations, Standard
Operating Procedures, Service Level Agreements, and task hand-over mechanisms.
Good design reduces the number of problems over the lifetime of the process. Whether or not existing
processes are considered, the aim of this step is to ensure that a correct and efficient theoretical design
is prepared.
The proposed improvement could be in human-to-human, human-to-system, and system-to-system
workflows, and might target regulatory, market, or competitive challenges faced by the businesses.
Modeling
Modeling takes the theoretical design and introduces combinations of variables (e.g., changes in rent
or materials costs, which determine how the process might operate under different circumstances).
It also involves running "what-if analysis" on the processes: "What if I have 75% of resources to do the
same task?" "What if I want to do the same job for 80% of the current cost?".
Execution
One of the ways to automate processes is to develop or purchase an application that executes the
required steps of the process; however, in practice, these applications rarely execute all the steps of the
process accurately or completely. Another approach is to use a combination of software and human
intervention; however this approach is more complex, making the documentation process difficult.
As a response to these problems, software has been developed that enables the full business process (as
developed in the process design activity) to be defined in a computer language which can be directly
executed by the computer. The system will either use services in connected applications to perform
business operations (e.g. calculating a repayment plan for a loan) or, when a step is too complex to
automate, will ask for human input. Compared to either of the previous approaches, directly executing a
process definition can be more straightforward and therefore easier to improve. However, automating a
process definition requires flexible and comprehensive infrastructure, which typically rules out
implementing these systems in a legacy IT environment.
Business rules have been used by systems to provide definitions for governing behavior, and a
business rule engine can be used to drive process execution and resolution.
Monitoring
Monitoring encompasses the tracking of individual processes, so that information on their state can be
easily seen, and statistics on the performance of one or more processes can be provided. An example of
the tracking is being able to determine the state of a customer order (e.g. order arrived, awaiting
delivery, invoice paid) so that problems in its operation can be identified and corrected.
In addition, this information can be used to work with customers and suppliers to improve their
connected processes. Examples of the statistics are the generation of measures on how quickly a
customer order is processed or how many orders were processed in the last month. These measures
tend to fit into three categories: cycle time, defect rate and productivity.
10. The degree of monitoring depends on what information the business wants to evaluate and analyze
and how business wants it to be monitored, in real-time, near real-time or ad-hoc. Here, business
activity monitoring (BAM) extends and expands the monitoring tools generally provided by BPMS.
Process mining is a collection of methods and tools related to process monitoring. The aim of process
mining is to analyze event logs extracted through process monitoring and to compare them with an a
priori process model. Process mining allows process analysts to detect discrepancies between the actual
process execution and the a priori model as well as to analyze bottlenecks.
Optimization
Process optimization includes retrieving process performance information from modeling or
monitoring phase; identifying the potential or actual bottlenecks and the potential opportunities for
cost savings or other improvements; and then, applying those enhancements in the design of the
process. Overall, this creates greater business value.[11]
Re-engineering
When the process becomes too noisy and optimization is not fetching the desired output, it is
recommended to re-engineer the entire process cycle. BPR has become an integral part of organizations
to achieve efficiency and productivity at work.
Practice:
While the steps can be viewed as a cycle, economic or time constraints are likely to limit the process
to only a few iterations. This is often the case when an organization uses the approach for short to
medium term objectives rather than trying to transform the organizational culture. True iterations are
only possible through the collaborative efforts of process participants. In a majority of organizations,
complexity will require enabling technology (see below) to support the process participants in these
daily process management challenges.
To date, many organizations often start a BPM project or program with the objective to optimize an
area that has been identified as an area for improvement.
In the financial sector, BPM is critical to make sure the system delivers a quality service while
maintaining regulatory compliance.
Currently, the international standards for the task have limited BPM to the application in the IT sector,
and ISO/IEC 15944 covers the operational aspects of the business. However, some corporations with the
culture of best practices do use standard operating procedures to regulate their operational
process.[15]
Other standards are currently being worked upon to assist in BPM implementation
(BPMN, Enterprise Architecture, and Business Motivation Model).
BPM technology
Some define the BPM System or Suite (BPMS) as "the whole of BPM." Others relate the important
concept of information moving between enterprise software packages and immediately think of Service
Oriented Architecture (SOA). Still others limit the definition to "modeling" (see Business modeling).
BPM is now considered a critical component of Operational Intelligence (OI) solutions to deliver real-
time, actionable information. This real-time information can be acted upon in a variety of ways - alerts
can be sent or executive decisions can be made using real-time dashboards. OI solutions use real-time
information to take automated action based on pre-defined rules so that security measures and or
exception management processes can be initiated.
These are partial answers and the technological offerings continue to evolve. The BPMS term may not
survive. Today it encompasses the concept of supporting the managerial approach through enabling
technology. The BPMS should enable all stakeholders to have a firm understanding of an organization
and its performance. The BPMS should facilitate business process change throughout the life cycle
11. stated above. This assists in the automation of activities, collaboration, integration with other systems,
integrating partners through the value chain, etc. For instance, the size and complexity of daily tasks
often requires the use of technology to model efficiently. These models facilitate automation and
solutions to business problems. These models can also become executable to assist in monitoring and
controlling business processes. As such, some people view BPM as "the bridge between Information
Technology (IT) and Business.". In fact, an argument can be made that this "holistic approach" bridges
organizational and technological silos.
There are four critical components of a BPM Suite:
Process Engine – a robust platform for modeling and executing process-based applications,
including business rules
Business Analytics — enable managers to identify business issues, trends, and opportunities
with reports and dashboards and react accordingly
Content Management — provides a system for storing and securing electronic documents,
images, and other files
Collaboration Tools — remove intra- and interdepartmental communication barriers through
discussion forums, dynamic workspaces, and message boards
BPM also addresses many of the critical IT issues underpinning these business drivers, including:
Managing end-to-end, customer-facing processes
Consolidating data and increasing visibility into and access to associated data and information
Increasing the flexibility and functionality of current infrastructure and data
Integrating with existing systems and leveraging emerging service oriented architecture (SOAs)
Establishing a common language for business-IT alignment
Validation of BPMS is another technical issue that vendors and users need to be aware of, if regulatory
compliance is mandatory. The validation task could be performed either by an authenticated third party
or by the users themselves. Either way, validation documentation will need to be generated. The
validation document usually can either be published officially or retained by users.
12. BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Business performance management is a set of management and analytic processes that enable the
management of an organization's performance to achieve one or more pre-selected goals. Synonyms for
"business performance management" include "corporate performance management
(CPM)"[1]
and "enterprise performance management".
Business performance management is contained within approaches to business process
management.[4]
Business performance management has three main activities:
selection of goals,
consolidation of measurement information relevant to an organization’s progress against these
goals, and
Interventions made by managers in light of this information with a view to improving future
performance against these goals.
Although presented here sequentially, typically all three activities will run concurrently, with
interventions by managers affecting the choice of goals, the measurement information monitored, and
the activities being undertaken by the organization.
Because business performance management activities in large organizations often involve the
collation and reporting of large volumes of data, many software vendors, particularly those
offering business intelligence tools, market products intended to assist in this process. As a result of this
marketing effort, business performance management is often incorrectly understood as an activity that
necessarily relies on software systems to work, and many definitions of business performance
management explicitly suggest software as being a definitive component of the approach.
This interest in business performance management from the software community is sales-driven.
"The
biggest growth area in operational BI analysis is in the area of business performance management."
Since 1992, business performance management has been strongly influenced by the rise of the balanced
scorecard framework. It is common for managers to use the balanced scorecard framework to clarify the
goals of an organization, to identify how to track them, and to structure the mechanisms by which
interventions will be triggered. These steps are the same as those that are found in BPM, and as a result
balanced scorecard is often used as the basis for business performance management activity with
organizations.
In the past, owners have sought to drive strategy down and across their organizations, transform these
strategies into actionable metrics and use analytics to expose the cause-and-effect relationships that, if
understood, could give insight into decision-making.
Definition
Business performance management consists of a set of management and analytic processes,
supported by technology, that enable businesses to define strategic goals and then measure and
manage performance against those goals. Core business performance management processes
include financial planning, operational planning, business modeling, consolidation and reporting,
analysis, and monitoring of key performance indicators linked to strategy.
Business performance management involves consolidation of data from various sources, querying, and
analysis of the data, and putting the results into practice.
Methodologies
Various methodologies for implementing business performance management exist. The discipline
gives companies a top-down framework by which to align planning and execution, strategy and tactics,
13. and business-unit and enterprise objectives. Reactions may include the Six Sigma strategy, balanced
scorecard, activity-based costing (ABC), Total Quality Management, add, integrated and Theory of
Constraints.
The balanced scorecard is the most widely adopted performance management methodology.
Methodologies on their own cannot deliver a full solution to an enterprise's CPM needs. Many pure-
methodology implementations fail to deliver the anticipated benefits due to lack of integration with
fundamental CPM processes
Metrics & Key Performance Indicators
Some of the areas from which bank management may gain knowledge by using business performance
management include:
customer-related numbers:
new customers acquired
status of existing customers
attrition of customers (including breakup by reason for attrition)
turnover generated by segments of the customers - possibly using demographic filters
outstanding balances held by segments of customers and terms of payment - possibly using
demographic filters
collection of bad debts within customer relationships
demographic analysis of individuals (potential customers) applying to become customers, and
the levels of approval, rejections and pending numbers
delinquency analysis of customers behind on payments
profitability of customers by demographic segments and segmentation of customers by
profitability
campaign management
real-time dashboard on key operational metrics
overall equipment effectiveness
click stream analysis on a website
key product portfolio trackers
marketing-channel analysis
sales-data analysis by product segments
call center metrics
Though the above list describes what a bank might monitor, it could refer to a telephone company or
to a similar service-sector company.
Items of generic importance include:
consistent and correct KPI-related data providing insights into operational aspects of a company
timely availability of KPI-related data
KPIs designed to directly reflect the efficiency and effectiveness of a business
information presented in a format which aids decision-making for management and decision-
makers
ability to discern patterns or trends from organized information
Business performance management integrates the company's processes with CRM or[
ERP. Companies
should become better able to gauge customer satisfaction, control customer trends and influence
shareholder value
14. Application Software Types
People working in business intelligence have developed tools that ease the work of business
performance management, especially when the business-intelligence task involves gathering and
analyzing large amounts of unstructured data.
Tool categories commonly used for business performance management include:
OLAP — online analytical processing, sometimes simply called "analytics" (based on dimensional
analysis and the so-called "hypercube" or "cube")
score carding, dash boarding and data visualization
data warehouses
document warehouses
text mining
DM — data mining
BPO — business performance optimization
EPM — enterprise performance management
EIS — executive information systems
DSS — decision support systems
MIS — management information systems
SEMS — strategic enterprise management software
Design & Implementation
Questions asked when implementing a business performance management program include:
Goal-alignment queries
Determine the short- and medium-term purpose of the program. What strategic goal(s) of
the organization will the program address? What organizational mission/vision does it relate to?
A hypothesis needs to be crafted that details how this initiative will eventually improve results /
performance (i.e. a strategy map).
Baseline queries
Assess current information-gathering competency. Does the organization have the capability
to monitor important sources of information? What data is being collected and how is it being
stored? What are the statistical parameters of this data, e.g., how much random variation does
it contain? Is this being measured?
Cost and risk queries
Estimate the financial consequences of a new BI initiative. Assess the cost of the present
operations and the increase in costs associated with the BPM initiative. What is the risk that the
initiative will fail? This risk assessment should be converted into a financial metric and included
in the planning.
Customer and stakeholder queries
Determine who will benefit from the initiative and who will pay. Who has a stake in the
current procedure? What kinds of customers / stakeholders will benefit directly from this
initiative? Who will benefit indirectly? What quantitative / qualitative benefits follow? Is the
specified initiative the best or only way to increase satisfaction for all kinds of customers? How
will customer benefits be monitored? What about employees, shareholders, and distribution
channel members?
15. Metrics-related queries
Information requirements need operationalization into clearly defined metrics. Decide which
metrics to use for each piece of information being gathered. Are these the best metrics and
why? How many metrics need to be tracked? If this is a large number (it usually is), what kind of
system can track them? Are the metrics standardized, so they can be benchmarked against
performance in other organizations? What are the industry standard metrics available?
Measurement methodology-related queries
Establish a methodology or a procedure to determine the best (or acceptable) way of
measuring the required metrics. How frequently will data be collected? Are there any industry
standards for this? Is this the best way to do the measurements? How do we know that?
Results-related queries
Monitor the BPM program to ensure that it meets objectives. The program itself may require
adjusting. The program should be tested for accuracy, reliability, and validity. How can it be
demonstrated that the BI initiative, and not something else, contributed to a change in results?
How much of the change was probably random?
16. EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM
An executive information system (EIS) is a type of management information 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).
EIS emphasizes 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).
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 financial officers, marketing directors, andchief executive officers,
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 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 company’s data and identify information relevant to their decision
making. This arrangement lets all users customize their access to company data, and provides relevant
information to upper and lower corporate levels.
Components
EIS components can typically be classified as:
Hardware
Software
User interface
Telecommunications
Hardware
When talking about computer hardware for an EIS environment, we should focus on the hardware
that meet the executive’s needs. 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:
Input data-entry devices. These devices allow the executive to enter, verify, and update data
immediately
The central processing unit (CPU), which is the kernel because it controls the other
computer system components
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
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
17. 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.
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:
Text-handling software—documents are typically text-based
Database—heterogeneous databases on a range of vendor-specific and open computer
platforms help executives access both internal and external data
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)
Model base—EIS models contain routine and special statistical, financial, and other quantitative
analysis
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.
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.
APPLICATION:
EIS helps executives 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.
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.
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
18. 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.
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. EIS focuses on financial
performance accountability, and recognizes the importance of cost standards and flexible budgeting in
developing the quality of information provided for all executive levels.
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
EIS provides timely delivery of information. Management can make
Decisions made promptly.
Improves tracking information
Offers efficiency to decision makers
Future Trends
The future of executive info systems is not bound by mainframe computer systems. This trend free
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.
19. ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate internal and external management
information across an entire organization—embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and
service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an
integrated software application. The purpose of ERP is to facilitate the flow of information between all
business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside
stakeholders.[1]
ERP systems can run on a variety of computer hardware and network configurations, typically employing
a database as a repository for information
Functional Areas:
The following are common functional areas covered in an ERP System. In many ERP Systems these
are called and grouped together as ERP Modules:
Financial Accounting
General Ledger, Fixed Asset, Payables, Receivables, Cash Management, Financial Consolidation
Management Accounting
Budgeting, Costing, Cost Management, Activity Based Costing
Human Resources
Recruiting, Training, Payroll, Benefits, 401K, Diversity Management, Retirement, Separation
Manufacturing
Engineering, Bill of Materials, Work Orders, Scheduling, Capacity, Workflow Management, Quality
Control, Manufacturing Process, Manufacturing Projects, Manufacturing Flow, Product Life Cycle
Management
Supply Chain Management
Supply Chain Planning, Supplier Scheduling, Order to Cash, Purchasing, Inventory, Product
Configurator, Claim Processing
Project Management
Project Planning, Resource Planning, Project Costing, Work Break Down Structure, Billing, Time and
Expense, Performance Units, Activity Management
Customer Relationship Management
Sales and Marketing, Commissions, Service, Customer Contact, Call Center Support - CRM systems
are not always considered part of ERP systems but rather BSS systems . Specifically in Telecom scenario
Data Services
Various "self–service" interfaces for customers, suppliers and/or employees
Access Control
Management of user privileges for various processes
COMPONENTS:
20. Transactional database
Management portal/dashboard
Business intelligence system
Customizable reporting
External access via technology such as web services
Search
Document management
Messaging/chat/wiki
Workflow management
Advantages
The fundamental advantage of ERP is that integrating myriad businesses processes saves time and
expense. Management can make decisions faster, and with fewer errors. Data becomes visible across
the organization. Tasks that benefit from this integration include:
Sales forecasting, which allows inventory optimization
Chronological history of every transaction through relevant data compilation in every area of
operation.
Order tracking, from acceptance through fulfillment
Revenue tracking, from invoice through cash receipt
Matching purchase orders (what was ordered), inventory receipts (what arrived),
and costing (what the vendor invoiced)
ERP systems centralize business data, bringing the following benefits:
They eliminate the need to synchronize changes between multiple systems—consolidation of
finance, marketing and sales, human resource, and manufacturing applications
They bring legitimacy and transparency in each bit of statistical data.
They enable standard product naming/coding.
They provide a comprehensive enterprise view (no "islands of information"). They make real–time
information available to management anywhere, any time to make proper decisions.
They protect sensitive data by consolidating multiple security systems into a single structure.
Benefits
ERP can greatly improve the quality and efficiency of a business. By keeping a company's internal
business process running smoothly, ERP can lead to better outputs that benefit the company such
as customer service, and manufacturing.
ERP provides support to upper level management to provide them with critical decision making
information. This decision support allows the upper level management to make managerial
choices that enhance the business down the road.
ERP also creates a more agile company that can better adapt to situations and changes. ERP
makes the company more flexible and less rigidly structured in an effort to allow the different
parts of an organization to become more cohesive, in turn, enhancing the business both internally
and externally
ERP Extension…