Answer
Purpose of EIS: These are stated below:
i. The primary purpose of an Executive Information System is to support managerial learning about an organization, its work processes, and its interaction with the external environment. Informed managers can ask better questions and make better decisions.
ii. A secondary purpose for an EIS is to allow timely access to information. All of the information contained in an EIS can typically be obtained by a manager through traditional methods. However, the resources and time required to manually compile information in a wide variety of formats, and in response to ever changing and ever more specific questions usually inhibit managers from obtaining this information. Often, by the time a useful report can be compiled, the strategic issues facing the manager have changed, and the report is never fully utilized. Timely access also influences learning. When a manager obtains the answer to a question, that answer typically sparks other related questions in the manager’s mind. If those questions can be posed immediately and the next answer retrieved, the learning cycle continues unbroken. Using traditional methods, by the time the answer is produced, the context of the question may be lost, and the learning cycle will not continue.
iii. A third purpose of an EIS is commonly misperceived. An EIS has a powerful ability to direct management attention to specific areas of the organization or specific business problems. Some managers see this as an opportunity to discipline subordinates. Some subordinates fear the directive nature of the system and spend a great deal of time trying to outwit or discredit it. Neither of these behaviors is appropriate or productive. Rather, managers and subordinates can work together to determine the root causes of issues.