Perspectives on executive information systems

Executives who consider the acquisition of Executive Information Systems (EIS) may encounter several major problems already in their selection and introduction stages. Key issues are the following: Can the EIS's really match our managerial needs and support decision making in our organizational contingencies? How widely in the leadership levels can they be introduced? Are they easy-to-learn, easy-to-use and easily customizable? Do they utilize the newest information technology, e.g. graphics and modern interface technology? Can they work in our computer network? In order to facilitate elegant solutions of the selection problems, we construct an evaluation framework which guides the selection of an EIS product to match the managerial needs according to the organizational contingencies. This framework is useful immediately after the specification of the decision making support requirements of the executive. The effectiveness of the framework is shown by applying it and analyzing 13 EIS products. We also offer introduction and use experiences from four English and four Finnish large companies covering the opinions of 132 EIS users. In this paper we give general answers to the questions above and discuss other relevant issues.