Download From Executive to Enterprise Information System: The Challenge of the 90s

From Executive to Enterprise Information Systems:
the Challenge of the 90s
Ian Meiklejohn
Director
Business Intelligence
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+44815441830)
17
A review of EIS experience: 1987-93
Executive information systems as we know them emerged in the mid 80s in response to a
real need by senior managers for improved information in the area of corporate control.
Most senior executives were struggling to manage increasingly complex and volatile
businesses using the paper-based reports produced by the. batch-oriented so-called
"management information systems" (MIS).
The primary problem was data overload. Most organisations had no shortage of computer
systems; the problem was that their output was not useful to managers. The main
drawbacks were their lack of relevance to managerial concerns, and their inflexibility not least because of the reliance on paper. As one chief executive, Keith Humphreys of
Rhone Poulenc UK, pungently put it: "If you asked the computer department you got half
a mile of toilet paper."
What EIS did was to make it possible for executives to use computers directly, ending
their reliance on a reporting process that was fixed in terms of its frequency, its format
and its content. Key to this breakthrough was the provision of a user interface and other
design factors which provided an order of magnitude improvement in ease of learning
and use.
The software products which emerged to support EIS market were characterised initially
by high price - typically in excess of £100,000 - and by the fact they were integrated or
monolithic, in other words they provided all the functional elements on an EIS system,
including the graphical user interface, executive database, application development tools, and so on.
The lessons from early EIS use
If summarises the lessons learnt from the use of EIS over the past 5-6 years then a
number of important points stand out. The first and perhaps most important is that EIS
proved to be very different to traditional types of IT system. They posed special
challenges - which in some cases organisations failed to meet - and demanded a different
approach to system design, development and project managenient. The users of the
system - senior executives - had the prerogative to decline to use it, so the system had to
meet not just their needs, but their expectations.
Another important issue is that EIS often proved highly disruptive to the organisation's
status quo. They threaten existing patterns of information ownership, and the personal
position of those who rely on information for influence or status. However, the most
important lesson to emerge from EIS projects has been that, in the case of senior
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481544 1830)
18
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executives, identifying and capturing a set of information requirements in order to embed
these in a system is extraordinarily difficult. The reason is two fold ..
First, the information needs of very senior managers are much wider, and much more
volatile than those of other business professionals. For this reason the conventional
approach to systems analysis and development - indeed the entire systems life cycle - of
an EIS is different. Second, the executives themselves find it extraordinarily hard to
articulate their requirements. For the managers concerned, an EIS project is a learning
experience. Through the very fact of using such a system, the executives unde~standing of
its potential, and their requirements will significantly change.
For this reason an EIS has to be developed in an evolutionary and iterative way,
principally through the use of prototyping to elicit and test users' requirements. An EIS
never goes into a maintenance phase in the way that other corporate systems do. To a
large extent it remains in a state of ongoing development and evolution, as it is modified
to meet the changing concerns and requirements of the executives.
An EIS therefore is not primarily a technical project. It centres on the challenge of
identifying information requirements of managers, and embedding the resulting system in
the management process, so that it becomes as natural and indispensable as the telephone.
To a large extent it is a change management project - changing the working practices of
executives, and hopefully the management process of the organisation.
The growth of EIS: from executive to 'enterprise' use
A growing number of organisations are recognising that the concepts and the technology
of EIS are enormously valuable, and that they have widespread application. The result is
that, over the last 12-18 months a growing number of organisations have begun to
significantly extend the scope and role of EIS technology. Instead of restricting its use to
a small number of senior managers, companies are beginning to deploy it on a much
wider scale - to line managers, other business professionals, and even - in some cases - to
their customers.
For example at Frito-Lay America's largest snack food company, it is currently rolling
out an EIS to 1,000 managers. Unum Corporation, one of the US's leading insurers
already has nearly 400 users of its EIS, and is planning the infrastructure to equip almost
all its managers with EIS tools. In the UK, the same trend is now evident. At ICI the
number of users of its head office EIS has grown from 25 to almost 250. At BP Research
a system supports 200 managers and professionals. At Tesco, a SAS user, a system
initially developed for 40-50 senior managers is now being extended to 400 managers
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481 544 1830)
19
including all the buyers. Some companies are envisaging even more ambitious use. For
example at British Gas a project is underway to support 1200 users across the country.
There are a number of factors driving the spread of EIS down and outwards through
organisations. Many of these relate to organisational and business pressures as well as as
number of powerful technology drivers. Notably, the infrastructure for widespread
screen-based reporting is falling into place. The penetration of PCs among knowledge
workers is now high, and they are increasingly connected together in local and wide area
networks. Secondly, EIS tools are reaching new levels of ease of use, and are falling in
cost. Thirdly, EIS features are increasingly becoming available on other types of
software.
Key technology trends
Looking at the technology drivers in more detail, one can identify several related
developments which are both fuelling and reshaping EIS usage. They include:
•
The move to client-server architectures
•
•
Downsizing
The spread of industry standard graphical user interfaces
•
The 'unbundling' of EIS functionality
•
The emergence of low cost, "shrink-wrapped" EIS-like products
•
The growing impact of object-oriented concepts and tools
Client-server architectures
A key trend in the IT market in general is the shift towards client-server architectures,
with application functionality being split between workstation software (client) and
LAN or host-based database servers. In a growing number of organisations database
servers are providing a powerful intermediate layer between 'legacy' mainframe databases
and operational systems, and end users with PCs.
For EIS applications, client-server architecture provides improved ability to disseminate
information effectively across networks. A key factor is the growing importance of SQL
as the standard API for client-server communication. As SQL database servers spread, so
it becomes easier for client applications with SQL query capability, which includes a
growing number of EIS products, to request data from multiple, different sources.
Client-server environments provide an ideal platform on which to position the staging
and extract databases which many EIS products provide. By permitting certain tasks (eg
database management) to be offloaded to the server, they have also precipitated the
unbundling of EIS features (see below). However it should be appreciated that client© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481544 1830)
20
server technology remains immature, and considerable technical problems are frequently
encountered in integrating client application software, network communications software,
and database server applications.
In general, with client-server systems data is normally stored on LAN connected database
servers, where performance-intensive pre-processing tasks such as summarisation and
calculation of new views is also done. However the user interface, graphics and other
functions are performed locally. It is important to note however that vendors exploit LAN
architectures in very different ways, and have differing interpretations of the client-server
model. On the one hand are environments in which almost all the processing is done on
the server (eg in an X-Windows application) with only data presentation done on the
client. On the other hand are approaches where almost all the processing is done on the
client (PC), with only basic record retrieval performed on the server.
The issues involved in selecting and implementing client-server systems are highly
complex, and a full discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. However a number of
points should be considered. An EIS supplier claiming to provide a complete client-server
offering must be able to offer development tools for both client and server applications.
Currently some companies do not do so.
Another important issue is the extent to which a supplier provides 'open' client and server
components. In other words, how many servers can the supplier's client 'talk' to directly
(through eg program-level APIs), without relying on third party products. Conversely,
can other companies' client products (eg popular Windows applications) access data from
the supplier's server. In practice suppliers differ considerably in these areas, and in
general few have as yet have opened the server component of their product.
Finally, a number of vendors (such as SAS) emphasise the ability of their products to
develop 'configurable' client-server applications, in which the boundary between the
client and the server can be shifted so that application processing is performed on the
optimal platform.
Downsizing•.• and upsizing
The EIS market has reflected the strong downwards migration of host products to midrange platforms, especially UNIX and LAN database servers, which offer dramatically
lower costs. Host· and mid-range EIS products such as SAS have been ported off
proprietary architectures into the fiercely price-competitive Unix environment, which has
been the first platform of choice for new client-server products.
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481544 1830)
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Within the last 18 months the dramatic improvements in price performance of PCs has
driven the downsizing of products still further. Functionally rich EIS products are now
common on PC server platforms. PC-based products have also exploited the improved
performance provided by upwardly scalable operating systems such as Windows NT and
workstation UNIX environments (eg Motif) to be 'up-sized" and to compete with midrange based systems. In other words, the traditionally distinct markets of the host and PC
vendors are converging on the middle ground of LAN and UNIX database servers.
Unbundling of EIS
An equally significant development is the 'unbundling' of EIS functionality which has
taken place. A full-feature EIS typically included a number of components, including:
a graphical user interface (GUI)
a relational or multi-dimensional database manager
a modelling environment or custom application logic
business graphics engine
an application development environment (4GL, visual programming
environment, etc)
connectivity facilities (SQL query capability, program-level pipelines, etc)
Increasingly these component functions are available independently, in particular, the key
features of the graphical user interface, database, and connectivity tools. Moreover, they
are available as low cost, near commodity-priced PC products.
Many of these and similar products assume that the other components of an EIS - for
example the database management, modelling environment, host connectivity tools and
so on - can be provided by third party products. They exploit the growing market for a
range of 'middleware' and connectivity tools. 'Component' EIS are also critically reliant
on the existence of standards for the exchange of data with such products, notably via the
Windows DDE facility, SQL, database API standards such as ODBC (Microsoft)), or
IDAPI (Borland).
As are suit of the burgeoning market for low-cost 'shrink-wrapped' EIS, organisations are
starting to experiment with a 'DIY' approach to EIS by integrating a variety of off-theshelf - ie non-specialist, tools. This approach has been fuelled by the growing
convergence of EIS and other software, and in particular the appearance of EIS-like
features on other applications, most notably graphical user interfaces.
EIS features become commonplace
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481 544 1830)
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The unbundling of EIS andthe emergence of cheap, graphical delivery systems has been
paralleled by the rapid spread of windowed, graphical user interfaces (GUIs) across
almost every other kind of application. The driving factor has been the explosive growth
of Microsoft Windows user interface. This has fuelled not only the development of new
GUI-based corporate applications, but also a trend to front existing character-based host
applications with a user-friendly GUI layer.
It is interesting to note that one reason for the rapid growth of the client server model is
the ease with which graphical user interfaces can be built, compared to using traditional
3GLs. The result is that a rapidly growing range of GUI programming tools, strong on
window-creation or object management facilities is now available, such as Visual Basic
(Microsoft), Realizer (Computer Associates), Gupta SQL Windows, ObjectVision, Enfin
(Easel Corp), and so on.
Even more significantly, new mass market, commercial software products now
increasingly resemble EIS in their user interface and some aspects of functionality. PC
products such as Access, Quattro, 1-2-3 for Windows, or Lotus Notes, feature many of
the most visible EIS characteristics, for example: colour icons and hot spots; hypertextstyle menus; high quality data-driven graphics; communications scripting tools and
languages; visual programming facilities. The result is that 'EIS-like' interfaces are
becoming commonplace, even if the applications they front are mundane and used by
shop floor workers or secretaries.
The convergence of EIS and other software begs the question: in what ways do EIS
products continue to differ and add superior value, if features such as a graphical user
interface, database access, or integrated business graphics are widely available elsewhere.
Different vendors are seeking to answer this question in different ways. Most focus on
delivering superior quality and functionality of these features. There is also a widespread
emphasis on the robustness and 'industrial-strength' capability of their products, which
make them suitable for large-scale corporate applications in a way that PC-based 'snaptogether' approaches may not be. In addition, some of the key areas in which EIS vendors
seek to differentiate themselves are:
•
Superior functionality of the underlying development environment, for
example a richer programming language, or support for object-oriented
programming concepts. Vendors emphasise the benefits in terms of speed
of application development, and maintainability of the resulting systems.
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+44 81544 1830)
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•
Superior capability of the database component of their product. Several
vendors emphasise the need for database storage and manipulation
facilities which go beyond those offered by standard SQL databases~
Multi-dimensional 'slice-and-dice', sophisticated time-series manipulation,
or superior text management are examples.
•
Superior connectivity to multiple data sources, including legacy systems.
•
Superior ability to manipulate and add value to the data returned from
queries, as opposed to the ad hoc query facilities themselves
W her e to s to r eEl S d a t a ?
For most organisations a critical issue is the ability to access a wide variety of data held
in legacy environments such as IDMS, or proprietary databases such as Supra, Adabas,
etc. The growing corporate standardisation on SQL rdbms is leading all EIS vendors to
develop dynamic links to corporate SQL databases. It should be noted however that the
degree of integration offered varies from product to product. Some can interrogate the
SQL databases directly, tYPically by embedding SQL queries in their own language, or by
providing language-level interfaces, while others rely on middleware products.
The spread of SQL is encouraging suppliers and user organisations to question the need
for a separate EIS staging database. Why not work directly off operational databases or
the standard corporate repositories? However, there are strong arguments why a
dedicated EIS staging database is necessary.
The first reason is that operational data is likely to be held at too low a level of detail.
Executives are concerned with aggregated, summarised or trend information. To generate
these dynamically means that significant processing is required, resulting in poor,
unpredictable performance. Also, operational systems are not designed to provide the
kind of data views and the 'slice and dice facilities that executives typically require. An
instance is the importance of historic, time-series data. Operational systems typically
hold limited history for transaction data, and rarely store this in time periods. In
executive support systems the opposite is true, and several products often support time
series as native variables.
Drawbacks of SQL
,\
\
\..
The emergence of SQL as a universal query standard presents a powerful argument for its
adoption as a database standard. However it should be recognised that SQL database
schemas are not well-suited for many of the kinds of application involved in management
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+44 81544 1830)
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support. In particular they do not naturally reflect the multi-dimensional perspective of
information which executives require. Their approach is to normalise data into a large
number of simple two-dimensional tables which destroy the real-world relationships
which executive users understand and wish to use. In order to create differently
dimensi9ned views of data, it is usually necessary to join many tables together, a task
which is processing-intensive, and more importantly, foreign to users.
Thus a number of major EIS vendors including SAS emphasise the benefits of
alternative, proprietary database management systems which provide~ for example, multidimensional manipulation of data, or other facilities such as complex summarisation,
merging of different time series data, ability to handle large objects, and so on.
Future trends and directions
One of the most interesting and important trends for management support systems will be
to expand their scope beyond purely numeric information, and beyond the single-use
paradigm. One of the driving forces for this
tre~d
is the rapidly growing interest in so-
called 'groupware' concepts and tecln!ologies.
Groupware is interesting precisly because it is highly complementary to current EIS
concepts and tools in terms of functionality and task domain. Conventional EIS software
comprise tools that are primarily:
•
numeric - providing tabular and graphic display of data that is essentially
quantitative;
•
individual - most applications are intended for personal use; few .EIS
systems have interfaces or output designed for collective use, let alone any
group-enabling features;
•
well-structured - indeed this clarity of structure is normally essential to
enable navigation using techniques such as drill-down;
•
read-only - few executives have the abilitY to add their own input whether
it be numeric - in the form of personal revised forecasts - or textual commentaries etc.
One of the key roles of an EIS has been to impose the simplicity of structure (through eg
summarisation) to improve ease of access and rapid assimilation of numeric information.
On the other hand it has long been recognised that much management activity centres on
'softer', less structured information in the form of news, ideas, proposals, explanations,
opinions, etc. For EIS developers, meeting this requirement has proven a major
challenge, especially as EIS have increasingly become more widely targeted at. middle
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+44 81544 1830)
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managers and business professionals. Groupware offers the potential to redress a major
area of weakness in existing executive and management support systems.
Managing textual information
An area of particular importance for the future development of EIS will therefore be
improved management of textual information. A major difficulty for management support
currently involves linking stored text documents with numeric reports which are created
by EIS tools. Current EIS do not provide the tools or the right metaphor for handling text.
They work on the basis of well-defined rules; drill down is only possible because the
structure of the information is known ahead of time. The interfaces do not let you browse.
Moreover few executives if any can predict what they want. Most do not know what they
want until they see it.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a growing number of companies are looking at linking
their EIS with a tool such as Notes which can act as a vehicle for information collection,
or even turning to groupware products such as Notes as the primary tool for
communication between distributed executive(s) teams.
One example is the UK
consultancy Price Waterhouse, which has followed its US arm in adopting Notes as the
primary executive reporting vehicle, In 1991 a major reorganisation converted a regional
organisation structure to one managed nationally, based on business sectors. The need to
manage an extended geographic business led it to introduce Notes for all senior
management's review information, as well as to manage marketing and project
management activities.
Developing a strategy for Enterprise EIS
At first sight enterprise information systems would appear to have more in common with
the MIS (management information systems) of the 70s and early 80s. However this
perception is flawed. The lessons of those organisations to have successfully developed
large-scale enterprise information systems is that many if not most of the success factors
for EIS are directly applicable to larger enterprise systems.
Among the common success factors are:
•
•
The need for a committed business sponsor - or multiple sponsors
•
•
Adopting an evolutionary development approach
Treating the system as a series of related modules and applications, rather
then a monolithic, single application whole
The need to continue to develop and change the system in line with
changing business need
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481 544 1830)
26
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Adding value to information - data access alone is not enough.
Precisely because an enterprise information may grow to become very large it is
necessary to avoid the dangers which caused largely caused MIS to fail in the 70s and
early 80s. In particular it is important to escape from supply side thinking, which focuses
on assembling as wide and as detailed a range of information as possible. Despite their
large scale, most of enterprise information systems in use today have not been designed
an integrated, monolithic systems. Instead they have grown up as a series of related but
separate applications or modules. And they have been developed on the basis of an
evolutionary development approach which has ensured that the users' real requirements
are being met, and to allow them to contribute meaningfully to the system's design.
However it is clear that enterprise information systems pose a technical and project
management challenge which is
an order of magnitude greater than those of EIS. Indeed
many of the issues involved remain unclear or poorly understood. The demands of larger
user populations for access to large volumes of operational data tests the robustness and
accessibility of the available technology. Many of the earlier versions of EIS products
were stretched to the limit and beyonc;l by organisations which dramatically expanded the
number of users into the hundreds .. Particularproblems which have arisen are:
•
Lack of integration of EIS platform with operational systems
•
Maintaining synchronisation of operational systems and EIS databases
•
•
Excessive maintenance costs
Inability of EIS tools to support specific requirements
As mentioned above, EIS technology has been based on the paradigm of creating separate
staging databases to hold selected key performance indicators for executive use. However
as the number of users and EIS databases have grown, this has become an increasingly
onerous activity. A frequent consequence is that organisations find the number of
support staff needed to maintain the EIS system - whether within the EIS project team or
the IS department - has grown to worrying levels. In response to this challenge a number
of organisations believe that large scale EIS must be more highly integrated with the
mainstream information systems environment. According to Unum Corporation's CIO,
~
John Alexander, for example: "Unum clearly sees an absolute requirement to have its EIS
integrated with the developmen~ and production process in the information systems
themselves. As we make the transition from mainframe-centric to PC and LAN
production systems, organised round client server design, EIS has to be integrated with
that."
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+44 81544 1830)
27
,
.
The decision as to the kind of information architectures needed to support large-scale
enterprise information systems is a complex one. It is clear however that in the future
EIS and enterprise information systems must fit into a model of distributed computing.
Information management
Even more important than the information delivery infrastructure are the organisational
and information-related issues. Where enterprise information systems are deployed in
support of corporate processes a critical issue is the need for common measures of
business performance and their corresponding data definitions. The close integration
with operational systems, and the larger amounts of data involved mean that the process
of intermediate adjustments common in the production of summarised management
reports is unlikely to be feasible. Significant redesign or modification of the previous
measures and definitions may be required to harmonise them with other departments or
divisions.
One of the most interesting challenges for organisations in the future is to develop
standards to accommodate the growing number of non-traditional and especially nonfinancial measures of business performance. As EIS is used increasingly to monitor
indicators such as product quality, customer service, process quality benchmarks, and so
on, it becomes important to ensure that these are defined in common ways. If they are to
be implemented in a trans-enterprise fashion, then they must also be compatible at a
system level, and capable of communication and comparison.
A symptom of this growing need is the proposal by one consulting firm of an 'enterprise
knowledge standard', as a means of representing .knowledge about an organisation's
corporate structure, information and performance measurement systems in a format
which is enterprise-independent.
Adding value to data
The expanding user population for EIS is also influencing the nature of applications, and
making fresh demands on the functionality of EIS products. Beyond the ability to
integrate better with core operational systems, a key issue is the extent to which they can
support the specific requirements of many different middle level managers, analysts and
planners. In practice this creates a demand for a wide range of user interfaces and of
different tools and applications: for example forecasting, modelling, visual data analysis,
and so on
Thus currently a growing number of organisations are adopting products which provide
an integrated EIS and DSS platform. In the future however EIS products will have to
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481 544 1830)
28
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provide a still widener range of specialist features to meet users' needs. These will include
the above mentioned area of text management, as well as other infonnation types such as
image and video.
Conclusions
It is a mistake therefore to assume that there is a 'right' and 'wrong' size for an EIS. It is
likely that large-scale enterprise EIS· can deliver far greater value to the business as a
whole, through support for flatter structures, improved management control ('what gets
watched gets done), and responsiveness (the 'quick-thinking' company). However much
will inevitably depend on the particular circumstances of the organisation: the specific
needs of its senior executives; the extent of its ability to deploy and absorb a major new
corporate system. For some organisations a relatively small scale EIS may provide the
focus and degree of tailored support to senior executives that is needed and which cannot
be achieved in a large system.
While at any given time there is no 'right' size for an EIS, such a system must succeed in
embedding itself in the organisation. It must link into the organisation's working
practices and processes For this to happen it must be used by a significant number of
senior executives. As long as the system remains peripheral to the regular processes of
management review, control and planning it is unlikely to have a long or successful
future.
As EIS-like systems spread to a widening community of managers and knowledge
workers it is clear that a critical challenge lies in balancing the need for common
corporate applications with specific, tailored applications which meet diverse
requirements of specific individuals and business areas.
This paper is based. on the Business Intelligence report Selecting an EIS, a
comprehensive guide to all leading EIS products and their evaluation. For further
infonnation contact Business Intelligence on +4481 544 1830.
© Business Intelligence 1993 (+4481544 1830)
29
I.
From Executive to Enterprise
Information Systems:
The Challenge of the 190s
Ian Meiklejohn
Director
Business Intelligence Ltd.
The information in the following presentation Is based on original research
undertaken by Business Intelligence, Including material from the report,
Succeeding with EIS.
I
Business Intelligence Limited
I
From Executive to
Enterprise Information Systems:
Overview
• EIS 1987 - 1992: a review of experience
• EIS 1993: Key Trends
• From Executive to Enterprise information systems:
- Business Drivers
- Technology Drivers
• Developing a strategy for enterprise information
systems: key issues and success factors
I
30
Business Intelligence Limited
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EIS use 1987 - 1992:
a review of experience
• Met a real need among senior managers to improve the
timeliness, relevance and intelligibility of information
• Key benefits were:
- a quantum improvement In the user interlace
- dynamic access to selected, summarised indicators
- integrated graphics
.
• Used monolithic, proprietary tools from specialist
vendors - created a niche supplier market
• Rapid uptake among Fortune and Times 1000 co·s
• Use largely restricted to senior executives
.
I,....,B:-usl-:-ness~I:""'!'DteI':::"ugence-.LI~mI":':"'ted':'"ll
EIS use 1987 - 1992:
key lessons from experience
• EIS are different to MIS
• Many EIS failed; some EIS were successful ·DSS·
• An EIS is NOT a technical project
• EIS involve a steep learning· curve for executives
• Despite the failures, EIS are increasingly recognised as
a key management concept
• EIS concepts,·software and·development methods are
influencing many other types oUT application
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Business Intelligence Limited
I
EIS are different to
traditional IS projects
EIS
Trad'IIS
• Director-level sponsor/champion
Yes
No
• IS in control
No
Yes
• Rigidly specified
No
Yes
• Rapid delivery
• Designed for frequent change
Yes
No
Yes
No
• Users can reject
Yes
No
Yes
No
. • 'Political' impacts (changes culture
information privileges, etc)
I
Business Intelligence Limited
I
EIS use 1987 - 1992:
key lessons from experience
• EIS are different to MIS
• Many EIS failed; some EIS were successful'DSS'
• An EIS is NOT a technical project
• EIS involve a steep learning curve for executives
• Despite the failures, EIS are increasingly recognised as
a key management concept
• EIS concepts, software and development methods are
influencing many other types of IT application
I
32
Business Intelligence Limited
I
EIS in 1993:
From IExecutive to IEnterprise
l
l
• The number of users is increasing, and the focus is
shifting to line managers and business professionals.
• EIS products are being downsized and re-architected for
client-server environments.
• The costs of EIS are falling sharply. 'Shrink-wrap' data
access and presentation products are proliferating.
• The EIS market is converging with mainstream
applications. EIS features are appearing on all software.
• EIS are unbundling; 'snap-together' EIS development is
becoming common.
I
Business Intelligence Limited
From IExecutive to IEnterprise
l
1
f
I
l
"Today EIS is simply an information system. You
certainly have a need for an executive component, but
it's difficult to draw the line between 'exclusive' and
what's needed to run the business efficiently. "
Mark Jankowski, CIO, Pepsico Foods International
"The company is moving in the direction of EIS
becoming an every manager's information system. We
anticipate the time in the future when it will be an every
employee's information system. "
John Alexander, CIO, Unum Corporation
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Business Intelligence Limited
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EIS in 1993:
From IExecutive to IEnterprise
l
l
• The number of users is increasing, and the focus is
shifting to line managers and business professionals.
• EIS products are being downsized and
client-server environments.
re~architected
for
• The costs of EIS are falling sharply. 'Shrink-wrap' data
access and presentation products are proliferating.
• The EIS market is converging with mainstream
applications. EIS features are appearing on all software.
• EIS are unbundling; 'snap-together' EIS development is
becoming common.
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Business Intelligence Limited
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Business Drivers: The Role of IT
• Enterprise-wide sharing of information to support the
extended organisation and devolved management
"All employees and suppliers must become privy to virtually all the
firm's information" Tom Peters
• New organisation structures: self-directed, 'virtual'
teams to manage across the value chain and geographic
boundaries
.. Team working will become a reality. It will not be an option., it will
be about survival." Mike Johnson, Head of IT Unilever
• Widening scope of performance measurement - to
include the future value drivers
"The classical cost accounting, budgeting, and planning systems
are not able to handle the requirements of the organisation of the
19909." Jack Rockart, MIT.
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Business Intelligence Limited
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Enterprise Information Systems:
Technology Drivers
• The spread of PCs and lANs: creating an affordable
infrastructure for 'screen-based reporting'
• Downsizing: lowering software costs and improving
scalability
• The GUI has become a commodity: offers integration at
the desktop (DOE, OLE; ODBC)
• Client-server:.fragmenting 11'l0n·olithic applications
(unbundling); .creating flexible corporate architectures
• Object oriented technology (interfaces, programming)
and other RAD tools: making development fast and easy
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Dusiness Intelligence L1m1t..d
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The Impact of Client-Server
• The IT infrastructure fragments into clients, data
servers and 'middleware'. Some vendors offer all
three, while others specialise in one market segment.
• 'Commoditisation' of clients and servers
• New focus on middleware tools and data stores.
• Encouraging users to mix and match different clients
and servers.
• SQl becomes the 'glue' that binds different
components together (SQl as an API, not a user tool)
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35
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UNBUNDLING OF EIS
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EXECUTIVE
DATABASE
EIS FUNCTIONALITY
PLUS SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION TOOLS
PROPRIETARY DSS
OR CORPORATE
'STANDARD'
(4GL TOOLS)
I .Business Intelligence Limited I
[:"
Enterprise Information Systems:
Supporting business change
The major pay-off from enterprise EIS will come from their
use in linking management strategy to measureable
actions and goals. EIS enable top management to
influence the organisation by:
• signalling what is important
• creating organisational alignment behind key goals
• identifying effective measures of performance
"Many companies have objectives such as developing a total
customer focus, or improving product quality. The problem is they
don't know how to conceive and build a flow of information that
complements the business. That is where an enterprise information
system comes in." Walt Dempsey, EIS Manager, Pratt & Whitney
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Business Intelligence Limited
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Enterprise Information Systems:
Key Challenges
• Developing an open, information architecture
• Managing the information deluge - developing
appropriate enterprise data models and 'knowledge
dictionaries'
• Appropriate tools and interfaces for different users .
• Adding value to raw data - data access is not enough
• Rapid application development and easy maintenance
• Integrating EIS with other applications
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Business Intelligence Umikd
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Developing an information
architecture forEIS
t·· .
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• Access to multiple data sources, platforms, files and
database formats (any data from anywhere)
• Scalable, cross-platform support for applications
• Rapid application development and maintenance will be
critical to meet changing needs.
• A key decision is where to hold management data: the
choice between corporate repositories, staging
databases, or direct access will be' critical
• Is SQl good enough?
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37
Business Intelligence Umikd
.'
I
Enterprise information
management strategy
• Increasing use of (enterprise) data dictionaries and
business models
• Common business definitions will be essential.
Increasingly enterprise 'knowledge' indexes will be
needed to enable users to find information.
• Information ownership: creating a culture of corporate
sharing of information will be essential.
I
Business intelligence Limited
I
Enterprise information:
Adding Value to Data
• Data access is not enough: users will seek added
value through application features:
- intelligent exception reporting
- modelling, multi-dimensional slice and dice
- visual data analysis
- vertical application features (Quality, HR, GIS)
• Different types of interface will continue to be
necessary for different types of users
• The trend will emerge for a single Imanager's desktop'
that integrates personal and corporate applications
and services.
I BusinesslntelllgenceLimited I
38
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Enterprise information:
beyond numbers - text and image
• Growing recognition that EIS addresses only a part of
management work.
• Major pay-offs in management productivity and
competitive impact from unstructured, non-numeric
applications: text, image, video (eg Ads on Desks)
• Groupware concepts will Increasingly impact traditional
management information systems.
i .. "
• Initially, specialist servers and applications will be
required; these must be integrated with EIS
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Dllllness IDteillge_ LimIted
I
The future pay-off from EIS
The real gains from EIS will come from •••
• Increasing the range of relevant information available to
managers, especially external, textual and Isoftl
information.
• Improving the intelligibility of the information
• Using the EIS to stimulate the developmentand use of
new performance indicators.
• Improving the integration of the EIS with other
management support and communication systems.
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Dllllness IntelUgen<e Limited
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