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Unit 2: Information Systems in the Enterprise

The Role of ESS in the Organization Notes
Executives often face information overload and must be able to separate the chaff from the
wheat in order to make the right decision. On the other hand, if the information they have is not
detailed enough they may not be able to make the best decision. An ESS can supply the
summarized information executives need and yet provide the opportunity to drill down to
more detail if necessary.
As technology advances, ESS are able to link data from various sources both internal and external
to provide the amount and kind of information executives find useful. As common software
programs include more options and executives gain experience using these programs, they’re
turning to them as an easy way to manipulate information. Many executives are also turning to
the Web to provide the flexibility they need.

The Nature of Executive’s Work
We now know the basics of ESS. Now before continuing further I want to discuss the nature of an
executives work. This means that which type of work executives normally do or perform for
which they require not a DSS but ESS. This is highly required before building an ESS because
without the knowledge of executives work we cannot decide about the system which is suitable
for him.

Basically manager’s role is divided into three categories:
 Interpersonal Role: Roles like figurehead, leader, and liaison
 Informational Roles: Roles of monitor, disseminator, spokesperson
 Decisional Roles: Entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource alligator, negotiator.

Most of the ESS support all these roles for executive’s successful working. If we pay attention
then we can see that for interpersonal roles and informational roles with very few advances to
DSS the executives can start using ESS. But executives mainly require the ESS for decisional roles.

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Caution To determine the information needs of executives, it is necessary to specify the
activities, which are performed in decisional role.

We divide the work of executives in relation to the decision roles into 2 phases. Phase 1 is the
identification of problems or opportunities. Phase 2 is the decision of what to do about it. The
figure below provides the flowchart that describes about the process of information flow in
decisional roles.

Functional units like finance, production, accounting, and personnel, etc. generate the internal
information. The external information comes from the sources such as online databases,
newspaper, industry newsletters, government reports, personal contacts, etc. We know that the
combined information is very important because that is the source needed for successful
competition and survival. As the data is large the information is needed to be scanned further.
The collected information is then checked and verified for its correction that is it is evaluated for
the further use of the organization. Finally, the evaluated information is sent for qualitative or
quantitative analysis. Then the executive makes a decision whether an opportunity occurs or
problem occurs. If there is a problem then information is given as an input for the next step else
it is again scanned for further evaluation. Finally the executives take the decision.

Task Describe MIS in a virtual organization.

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