Corporate management relies more and more on IS, especially EIS [30]. To a large
extent, dashboards [31] and scorecards [22] fulfill the role of EIS today [32].
However, we continue to use the term ‘‘EIS,’’ arguing that the main purpose of
dashboards/scorecards is to synthesize and present comprehensive information in a
concise format. EIS, in turn, represent a more comprehensive approach with
additional analytical capabilities, such as dimensional reporting (OLAP), exception
reporting, simulations, trend/sensitivity analyses, and drill-downs/drillthroughs.
They also support comments and communication capabilities, including
e-mail and collaboration [33].
Today’s data warehouses (DWH) make data sourcing much less of an issue than
it was in the 1980s/1990s [8]. EIS benefit from this development in two ways.
First, DWH ensure consistent, integrated data handling and, when combined with
OLAP, they improve information analysis in various dimensions, such as products,
countries, and customers. New user-interfaces (‘‘frontends’’), which often apply
web technology, make it easier to provide up close, more personalized access to
required information. Finally, efforts are underway to make EIS results more
readily available on mobile devices. Advances in both new end-user devices and
user-interface software components should significantly simplify EIS handling,
even for technology-averse users [34, 35].
To compile a list of current EIS requirements, we searched several databases
covering the most important journals for EIS. Following our prior work [36],
complemented by [37], the search string [‘‘executive information systems’’ or
‘‘EIS’’ and (requirements or antecedents or determinates)] resulted in the following
hits per database: 1,043 in Science Direct, 272 in Proquest, 95 in EBSCOhost, 3 in
ACM, 254 in Wiley Inter Science, and 128 in Google Scholar.