The Impact of Information Technology on Organisations
The technology I have chosen to look at in this report is Executive Information Systems (EIS) and I will focus on its impact upon the automotive industry. I will firstly introduce EIS and the automotive sector, then assess the impacts that implementing EIS would have, try to recommend the best course of action when introducing EIS and finally try to sum up the implementation of this technology in an executive summary.
Introduction
The term "Executive Information System" was first coined in 1982 by Rockart and Treacy and is used to describe a flexible application that provides support needed for high level decisions to be made by executives of a company. It usually provides easy access to a wide range of up to date information, relevant to the strategic goals of the company on a simple graphical user interface. It is deliberately made simple to operate due to a perceived lack of advanced information technology skills in high-level management. The data for an EIS normally comes from a wide range of sources such as production systems, financial systems, sales systems and stock systems. It is important that data is kept online to make sure that multiple users accessing the data will be accessing exactly the same data and therefore ensuring that all decisions are based on the same up to date information.
To explain briefly the different ways of implementing EIS, there are four main methods used, firstly using a text based software such as Microsoft Word to compile a simple but labour intensive report, with this method the set up will be relatively cost free and simple but will require more effort for the user and to up date it.
The second is using a database for example Microsoft Excel, once again this method will be fairly labour intensive to update but less time and resource will be needed to set up the application.
The next step up is called Graphics base ' where visual media, such as time series charts, scatter diagrams, maps or
Introduction
The term "Executive Information System" was first coined in 1982 by Rockart and Treacy and is used to describe a flexible application that provides support needed for high level decisions to be made by executives of a company. It usually provides easy access to a wide range of up to date information, relevant to the strategic goals of the company on a simple graphical user interface. It is deliberately made simple to operate due to a perceived lack of advanced information technology skills in high-level management. The data for an EIS normally comes from a wide range of sources such as production systems, financial systems, sales systems and stock systems. It is important that data is kept online to make sure that multiple users accessing the data will be accessing exactly the same data and therefore ensuring that all decisions are based on the same up to date information.
To explain briefly the different ways of implementing EIS, there are four main methods used, firstly using a text based software such as Microsoft Word to compile a simple but labour intensive report, with this method the set up will be relatively cost free and simple but will require more effort for the user and to up date it.
The second is using a database for example Microsoft Excel, once again this method will be fairly labour intensive to update but less time and resource will be needed to set up the application.
The next step up is called Graphics base ' where visual media, such as time series charts, scatter diagrams, maps or
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