Management Monitoring and Information System

2.0 Related Studies

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Management Monitoring and Information System 2.1 Foreign Studies Business Intelligence for Small Enterprises: An Open Source Approach There are many considerations and risks that organizations have to evaluate before the adoption of BI solutions and the most important factor is the cost. This is due to the fact that BI solutions are very expensive, both to purchase and maintain (Raden 2007). Although, there is no exact figure because the implementation of BI depends upon number of factors like number of end users, functionalities, and so on. In fact, mostly large organizations can afford BI implementation where the investment cost could be millions of dollars and still fit in budget. This huge amount of investment is certainly beyond the reach of medium and especially small size organizations. According to Gibson and Arnott (2003), small businesses are often faced with limited access of finances to support the purchase of business intelligence. Now, on one hand, we have a large number of small businesses who cannot afford implementation of expensive BI solutions from industry leaders. On the other hand, these BI industry giants cannot offer entry level solutions without changing their business models. The exploitation of BI technology is important in the development of the small enterprise sector. In their research, Gibson and Arnott (2003) concluded that: If large organizations are going to continue to exploit the latest decision-supporting technologies, and small businesses continue to tread wearily in terms of adopting modern business intelligence, the power gap will only continue to widen. If the power differential between large and small businesses persists to enlarge, small businesses will find it increasingly difficult to compete in a modern economy with resulting significant social and economic destabilization. This is to say that there is a strong need to develop an understanding of opportunities which open source Business Intelligence can bring to small businesses.

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Management Monitoring and Information System Conclusion In order to find out whether an open source BI suites can facilitate for small enterprises to remain competitive, three research questions: 1. Does an OS BI provide enough business value for small enterprises to be considered as an alternative to the commercial BI suites? 2. Does an OS BI solution provide cost savings in comparison with commercial BI suites? 3. Does an OS BI actually fit into small businesses ICT budget? To answer these questions business value evaluation through costbenefit analysis approach. Using divisive ("top-down") approach we tried to estimate monetary value for both costs and benefits of different BI suites. While costs have been easily decomposed, decomposition of the benefits wasnt successful. The researchers found that majority of BI benefits are either completely intangible or could be calculated only through complex evaluation methods because of strategic nature of BI. Four commercial and four OS BI suites have been evaluated against defined criteria. Results have shown that Pentaho is the most comprehensive and mature BI among OS suites. Therefore, Pentaho has been chosen for further comparison with commercial products. Two different approaches have been chosen in order to estimate the costs for the same BI implementation case and gather supportive information: 1. Interviews and web-based surveys of consulting companies helped to capture costs of outsourced solution and answer additional questions stated in questionnaires. 2. Experimental integration was set up in order to measure functionality of OSBI and capture the costs of in sourced solution. Results of the research summarized and grouped below according to the research questions stated earlier. Project Study I PUPQC- 15

Management Monitoring and Information System Q1: Does an OS BI provide enough business value for small enterprises to be considered as an alternative to the commercial BI suites? Costs and benefits of the commercial and OS BI implementations have been compared based on the interviewees (BI consulting companies) estimations and experimental setup results. Experimental setup of OS BI and benefit comparison between the commercial BI and OS BI have shown that OS BI meets basic needs of the small businesses and yields gross benefits nearly similar to commercial BI. Nevertheless, the greatest value of OS BI lays in minimizing risk of proprietary vendor lock-in and maximizing flexibility of BI solution through the support of open standards and source code availability. Q2: Does an OS BI solution provide cost savings in comparison with commercial BI suites? Cost saving provided by OS BI solution formed only 10% of the commercial BIs TCO over a five-year period (2.500K SEK versus 2.250K SEK). Such insignificant cost difference between commercial and OS BI solutions can be explained by the number of factors: a. Estimated commercial solutions are based on the BI software from the Microsoft which recently announced products (Performance Point 2007) which are aimed to bring BI for the masses and make it affordable for SMEs. This explains low costs of the commercial solution. b. Estimated license fees of the commercial solution allow only up to 5 end-user connections. As company grows, cost of commercial software licenses may increase many-fold and drastically broaden the gap between OS and commercial BI TCO. On the other hand, experimental setup suggests that in sourced OS BI implementation can provide 42% cost saving in

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Management Monitoring and Information System comparison to outsourced commercial BI over a five-year period. Huge variance between these two cases can be explained by: a. Survey results which have shown that none of the responded BI consulting companies see small companies as their main target group. Consequently, quality and prices for their professional services mainly set for medium and large enterprises. b. Hardware costs. Consulting companies offered two different servers for production and development systems while for experimental setup we proposed virtualization (one server running two virtual operating systems). Nevertheless, in sourcing of BI implementation may reduce costs of the commercial BI implementation as well. Based on the analysis of these results we concluded that although OS BI does not provide significant cost saving by itself, small companies may save up to 80% on acquisition costs and 10% on maintenance costs by using OS BI advantages such as active community (forums, mailing lists, etc.) and access to the latest updates. Q3: Does an OS BI actually fit into small businesses ICT budget? Experimental setup results have shown that in sourced OS BI implementation has acquisition costs up to 100.000 SEK which entirely fitted in the IT budget of the company. Despite the low acquisition costs, operational costs almost as high as for commercial solution. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, researcher were able to provide experimental setup only in one small enterprise which reduces accuracy of this answer Source: Business Intelligence for Small Enterprises: An Open Source Approach -- Rustam Aliyev

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Management Monitoring and Information System Business Intelligence: Analysis of vendors and suppliers arguments for BI The traditional user of BI systems, or systems for decision support, is more than often a representative from the business side of the organization rather than the technology side (Brutigam, Gerlach, & Miller, 2006). This person is often responsible for choosing, or practicing some sort of influence on what kind of BI system the organization should invest in. Choosing BI system is a complicated and time consuming process with many parties and resources involved. Deciding which BI solution to implement and what vendor to work with is difficult and requires thorough research and comparison of alternatives before being able to make a decision. To make a distinction between which arguments that have been proven to be true and which arguments sales representatives use without solid foundation is not an easy task. Previous research has proved it to be very difficult to measure direct benefits from IT investments in monetary terms, since IT in many cases act as a support function to other processes throughout the organization (Falk & Olve, 1996). Due to the problematic nature of evaluating IT, it would be interesting to take on a different approach by examining BI vendors and suppliers arguments, using existing theories regarding BI, IT, and related areas. In our knowledge, no previous research has adopted this approach before. The outcome of such research could assist people in organizations in the process of implementing a BI solution. Conclusion Single Version of the Truth: One main argument for investing in BI, and which has a strong foundation in established theories, is the concept of Single Version of the Truth. Several researchers say that when data is stored in one central location, validation and verification become easier. Decisions are based on the truth, meaning that the numbers analyzed are the same throughout the organization. Centralization of data into one single location also increases quality and facilitates easy access to information. BI further improves business value by providing the right information, to the right person and at the right time. Nevertheless, single version of the truth has a negative impact on flexibility and Project Study I PUPQC- 18

Management Monitoring and Information System fulfillment of individual needs. Our conclusion is that this argument is credible, since we did not find any strong theories disproving this argument. Control: Another strong argument for implementing a BI solution is Control. Many theories support this argument by pointing at an increased level of organizational control as a benefit of BI. The visual interface of a BI system, often represented by dashboards, provides important insights on how the organization is aligned with its strategy, and acts as a control system. Centralization of data results in standardization and a higher level of control, but it also comprise a concentration of decision making. This limits decision making on several different levels in the organization. Our conclusion is that control is a valid argument for BI. Although, organizations should be aware of the impact centralization of control has on an organization. Time Savings: From our analysis we conclude that Time Savings is one of the strongest arguments for BI when reviewing theory. BI delivers great organizational improvements with time savings as a result. Time needed to perform different tasks is reduced when information is automatically gathered. A central location for data storage facilitates faster and more informed decision making. On the other hand, organizations need to be aware of the risk of making rushed decisions that are not based on sufficient information. Our conclusion is that time savings is a valid argument for BI. Cost Savings: The argument of experiencing Cost Savings as a result of implementing BI is supported by theory. Organizations say they invest in BI in order to reduce costs and increase revenues. Numerous studies show that companies mention cost savings as a positive effect from BI. Nonetheless, some theories disregard the importance of IT by referring to the fact that benefits from IT investments are many times lower than expected. An opinion, opponent researchers stress is a result of the difficulty of measuring the added value IT brings. Our conclusion is that cost savings is fairly credible.

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Management Monitoring and Information System Increased Efficiency: This argument, Increased Efficiency, is closely interrelated with many of the other arguments, which makes it especially difficult to support with theories. When implemented correctly, BI increases operational efficiency by supporting people in their work, and enable them to focus time and resources on more value-adding activities. BI does not automatically generate increased efficiency by itself; organizations have to use the system in an appropriate manner to realize the benefits of increased efficiency. Our conclusion is that increased efficiency is vaguely credible. Improved Analytical Capabilities: Finally, Improved Analytical Capabilities is the last argument we identified in our interviews with the five companies. BI offers easy access to many different tools for data analysis that provides improved forecasting capabilities and increased ability to spot trends in customer patterns. Increased ability to analyze and monitor organizational performance is also enabled by BI, thus resulting in optimization of processes. However, it is vital that business users are trained to utilize the capabilities of the analytical tools, otherwise benefits emerging from using such tools will not be achieved. Furthermore, complications exist with assuring the quality of the input to the central data repository. If the data is not accurate, analytics on such information becomes pointless. Our conclusion is that improved analytical capabilities is credible in the sense that BI is an analytical tool, and has proven to offer those services, however this tool is only as credible as the quality of the data stored in the data repository. Source: Business Intelligence: Analysis of Vendors and Suppliers Arguments for BI -- Daniel Andersson, Jenny Franzn & Hannes Fries, January 2008

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Management Monitoring and Information System Business Intelligence in the Healthcare Industry The health care industry has never been as technically advanced nor as financially troubled as it is today. The diagnosis and treatment options available to patients are the most sophisticated in the world. New therapies and life saving pharmaceuticals are coming onto the market every year. But partly because of this advancement, health care costs now consume nearly 16 percent of the U.S. GDP, and hospitals and other healthcare providers suffer the constant financial strain of providing treatments that are often not paid for or paid for only in part. In fact, one-third of the nation's 5,000 hospitals are operating at a loss while another third are just breaking even--Symptomatic of a very ill industry. The insurance industry likewise has its troubles, albeit not as dire. Payers must grapple with how to fairly compensate providers for high-cost treatments, while weeding out those claims that are inflated or are outright fraudulent. Nearly a quarter of insurance claims are fraudulent, by one estimate, while another puts it at seven percent. Yet insurance companies as a group do not have a consistent policy for dealing with suspected fraud and many insurers bother to prosecute only the most egregious cases. Business intelligence could help address these serious problems that undermine the financial health of both the provider and payer sides of the healthcare industryand most large healthcare organizations already recognize this. Major companies, both on the provider [hospitals/clinics/physician] and the payer (insurance) side, have been adopting business intelligence platforms, tools and/or using information management services for several years, starting with data warehouse projects. One of the largest examples of this is Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's Blue Health Intelligence database, started in 2006. Comprised of 80 million "de-identified" or blinded patient histories, this data mart will eventually be used to analyze critical clinical practices and their outcomes, costs vs. success, and other healthcare trends that BCBS intends to use to create benchmarks for clinical practices.

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Management Monitoring and Information System In virtually all large healthcare organization today there is one or more data warehouse project either completed or underway. In some instances, the problem is there are multiple data warehouses and these need to be integrated or consolidated for BI purposes. Mid-sized and small healthcare organizations are less likely to have large data warehouses, but may have other types of data consolidation and the implementation of simple BI tools for financial planning and reporting. All of these data warehouses, data marts and databases in healthcare organizations contain a vast store of clinical, operational and insurance data, including patient histories, supply inventories, vendor in voices, admissions data and unstructured information such as patient verbatims, radiology images and scanned documents. But for many healthcare provider organizations, this store of data has not been transformed into useful information. It has not produced answers to questions about costs, revenues, trends, treatment, outcomes, or correlations that would enhance profitability or quality of patient care. BI projects that can show tangible monetary benefits are the most likely to be funded. That means projects targeted at: a. Cutting administrative costs b. Increasing reimbursement rates c. Reducing payments for fraudulent claims d. Improving efficiencies in procurement In short, any project that can collect the "low hanging fruit" and produce tangible returns can lay claim to being an essential investment. These types of BI investments will receive support even during recessionary times. Source: Business Intelligence in the HealthCare Industry -- Sue Hildreth, Leslie Ament Project Study I PUPQC- 22

Management Monitoring and Information System Social Business Intelligence: A Literature Review and Research Agenda Business intelligence (BI) solutions represent an essential and established component in the enterprise application landscape. They supply the management and further departments with decision-relevant information. BI hereby encompasses all processes and systems that are dedicated to the systematic and purposeful analysis of an organization and its competitive environment. Consequently, BI is of ongoing high relevance for an organization (Arnott and Pervan 2008). Luftman and Ben-Zvi (2010), for example, have identied BI as a key issue for CIOs in several consecutive studies. Although not exhibiting such a long tradition as BI, social media is another topic that attracts currently signicant attention in both, research and practice. Initiated by an investigation of use cases for social media in professional environments(McAfee 2006), the term Enterprise 2.0 and the subsequent application of social media practices in information systems (IS) have been established as a promising approach to increase employees effectiveness and satisfaction (cf. Cook 2008; Seo and Rietsema 2010). For a while, a certain convergence of both domains (BI and social media) can be observed, resulting in concepts like social BI, social customer relationship (CRM), or social media analytics. In the beginning pushed by vendors and market research institutions, the scientic community increasingly pays attention to social BI, i. e., the integration of social media data within BI environments. Social media applications are not restricted to marketing and CRM scenarios only, in which the potential benet of analyzing a customers voice is obvious. Customer insights, captured and analyzed by means of BI, may also be used as input for product and service innovation. Thus, social BI supports a broad range of processes in research and development, sales, customer service, and operations, just to name a few (Bose 2011). Although many authors mention rather specic research questions that can be assigned to the social BI domain, there is to the best of our Project Study I PUPQC- 23

Management Monitoring and Information System knowledge so far no systematic and comprehensive research agenda for social BI available. This gap and a still vague understanding of social BI in literature leads to the following research question: What are the predominant research areas in the social BI domain? The paper at hand aims at answering this question by deriving a research agenda for social BI, based on the results of a literature review and guided by a framework that investigates the impact of social media on BI design areas. Similar to the social media phenomenon that can be attributed to several disciplines, social BI can (and nally should) be investigated by multiple perspectives. We, however, focus in a rst step on the information systems (IS) point of view which should be complemented in future work. Conclusion The ongoing high relevance of BI and social media and an increasing demand in practice to integrate both domains motivate the articulation of a social BI research agenda. We derived the corresponding research areas by means of a literature review and by using a framework that allows the systematic and comprehensive consideration of all relevant research questions for social BI. In future research we plan to overcome limitations of this paper by broadening the literature review and by evaluating the research agenda with focus groups (practitioners, vendors, etc). Besides a further detailing of the research agenda, we plan to sketch a research landscape that extends the chosen IS perspective and investigates the interplay with related research domains, as social BI research calls for a highly integrated multidisciplinary approach (cf. Zeng et al. 2010).

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Management Monitoring and Information System An Overview of Oracle Business Intelligence Applications The nature of successful business is to grow revenues and increase profitability while tightly managing costs. At the end of the 1990s, enterprises addressed these challenges by implementing transactional enterprise applicationssuch as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applicationsto streamline operations and increase efficiencies. These front- and back-office systems optimized processes and reduced costs while also increasing the amount of data about the enterprise and its core competencies. Today, companies realize that the information locked in enterprise and legacy systems is incredibly valuable. Accessing and understanding this information improves a companys ability to manage costs and grow margins. However, the information must be complete, current, and adequate to answer critical business questions. And most organizations struggle to access and extract the right data from multiple systems and to deliver insight to the right person at the right time. Analytic applications can be the answer to the data access and insight delivery challenges. The most effective analytic applications pull data from multiple enterprise sources and shed insight into the status and effectiveness of business operations. For example, a financial analytic application can track actual performance versus budget or measure the profitability of customers or products. A sales analytic application can track the size of the pipeline and identify the most profitable opportunities. A supply chain analytic application can optimize inventory levels, predict product fulfillment needs, and identify order backlog issues. While enterprise applications are required to run the business, analytic applications are mandatory to make sense of it. Today, most organizations recognize the need for analytic applications. They understand they must mine their data for timely insights that can lead to smarter decisions, better plans, and more empowered workers. But two questions remain. First, the organization must determine whether those analytic capabilities can be built in-house or should be purchased from a Project Study I PUPQC- 25

Management Monitoring and Information System packaged application vendor. Second, organizations must ensure that the solution they select is the best at pulling data from multiple systems around the enterprise and delivering useful information to decision-makers. This white paper will highlight the benefits of prebuilt analytic applications and then provide an overview of the most comprehensive and market-leading analytic applications availableOracle Business Intelligence Applications. Conclusion Most organizations collect and store a lot of data. However, the data is valuable only if it helps improve the quality of your organizations decisions. Oracle Business Intelligence Applications a. Access data from multiple sources across your organization b. Present data via intuitive, understandable dashboards, reports, and alerts c. Deliver an enterprise view of performance By providing access to enterprise wide information in an easy-tounderstand format, Oracle Business Intelligence Applications help business managers make better decisions that improve overall business performance. As the leading packaged analytic applications, Oracle Business Intelligence Applications also offer a rapid time to value, best practice-based functionality across eleven functional areas, and a single BI foundation for the enterprise. With Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, you can mine data for timely insights that can lead to smarter decisions, better plans, and more empowered workers.

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Management Monitoring and Information System Business Intelligence Systems: State-Of-The-Art Review and Contemporary Applications (Timothy Chee, Lee-Kwun Chan, Min-Hooi Chuah, Chee-Sok Tan, Siew-Fan Wong, WilliamYeoh) The business intelligence (BI) market has recently experienced high growth as vendors continue to report substantial profits. The BI applications have emerged as the top spending priority for many CIOs and remain the most important technologies to be purchased. CIOs realize that data is one of their more valuable assets because data is used to generate information. The increasing needs for prompt decision making leads to the generation of information at an increasing pace. Data analysis, reporting, and query tools in BI systems can help business users wade through a sea of data to generate valuable information from it. With its rapid growth, business intelligence as a relatively new area in information system warrants academic attention. However, most of the BI literature has come from within the business world, the IT industry, and vendors. Academic research within the information system field is still at an early stage and so there is no commonly agreed definition of BI. Vitt et al. acknowledged that the term is multifaceted and is used by different pundits and software vendors to characterize a broad range of technologies, software platforms, specific applications, and processes. Thus it is a content-free expression and means different things to different people. In view of this, this paper first presents the various definitions and categories of BI and suggests how the categories can fit into different dimensions of BI. According to Reinschmidt and Francoise, a BI system is an integrated set of tools, technologies and programmed products that are used to collect, integrate, analyze and make data available [29]. Negash states that a BI system combines data gathering, data storage, and knowledge management with analytical tools to present complex and competitive information to planners and decision makers [10]. The objectives are to enable business managers and analysts of all levels to readily access any data in the organization and to Project Study I PUPQC- 27

Management Monitoring and Information System conduct appropriate manipulation and analysis [17]. Implicit in this definition is the notion that a BI system can improve the timeliness and quality of the input to the decision making process [10], and thus corporate data is transformed from quantity to quality [16]. However, the idea is not new and fifty years ago Luhn of IBM wrote that [11]: Information is now being generated and utilized at an everincreasing rate because of the accelerated pace and scope of human activities, at the same time, the growth of organizations and increased specialization and divisionalization have created new barriers to the flow of information. Intrinsically, he notes that a comprehensive system may be assembled to accommodate all information problems of an organization. We call this a Business Intelligence System. In other words, a BI system can be viewed as enterprise architecture for an integrated collection of operational and decision support applications and databases [15], which provides various business stakeholders with easy access to the required information. Moreover, it facilitates the analysis and sharing of information and helps with the making of informed business decisions [16]. Negash and Gray argue that a BI system is not revolutionary technology, but rather a natural outgrowth of a series of previous systems designed to support decision making [9]. In terms of its key components, Fisher et al. assert that a BI system is composed of a set of three complementary data management technologies, namely data warehousing, online analytical processing (OLAP), and knowledge discovery which is predominantly aided by data mining techniques [30]. More specifically, Olszak and Ziemba posit that a BI system is composed of the following essential components [31]: a. ETL (Extraction-Transformation-Load) tools that are

responsible for data transfer from operational or transaction systems to data warehouses; b. Data warehouses to provide some room for thematic storing of aggregated and analyzed data; Project Study I PUPQC- 28

Management Monitoring and Information System c. OLAP tools which allow users access and which analyze and model business problems and share information that is stored in data warehouses; d. Data mining tools for determining patterns, generalizations, regularities and rules in data resources; e. Reporting and ad hoc inquiry tools for creating and utilizing different synthetic reports; and f. presentation layers that include customized graphical and multimedia interfaces to provide g. Users with information in a comfortable and accessible form. Conclusion This paper has reviewed the nebulous definitions and applications of business intelligence systems. It first addressed the multi-faceted definitions of BI by categorizing them into three main perspectives, namely technological, managerial, and product aspects. Then it outlined the key components of a typical BI system. It is noted that a BI system is not regarded as a completely new system, but an evolutionary, integrated product of a variety of tools and computing techniques. These include but are not limited to data warehousing, online analytical processing, visualization techniques, data mining, data quality, and web technologies. Also, the literature review has demonstrated that applications of BI systems are really broad and can be tailored to various industrial needs. Due to the unique business nature of every industry, organizations have different requirements in their business intelligence systems. A banking company has significantly different applications of BI systems as compared to a transportation enterprise. Consequently, to ensure a successful BI system implementation, BI stakeholders have to take into account not only the core business needs, but also the substantial benefits a BI system could bring into their organizations rather than the diverse features as trumpeted by BI vendors.

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Management Monitoring and Information System Executive Information Systems: A Framework for their Development and Use (T. Kaniclides and C. Kimble) The potential for utilization of computers as part of information systems in the business environment was realized as early as the 1960s. The first applications were mainly aimed at automating existing tasks (Watson et aI., 1991; Willcocks and Mason, 1989). As computerization evolved, systems were designed to support the management of the organization. The earliest approach was the introduction of Management Information Systems (MIS). These systems were operated by systems professionals and were used to generate regular, predefined, reports containing information about the organization (Milletet aI., 1991). A later attempt to assist managers in their jobs is the utilization of Decision Support Systems (DSS). These provided assistance with specific decision making tasks. However, despite the superiority of both of these approaches over non-computerized systems, and their relative success with lower and middle management, they failed to provide the necessary support to executive managers in organizations (Watson et aI., 1991). "Executives are managers with formal authority over the whole of an organization or an important functional unit of one" (Thierauf, 1991). They have responsibility and are accountable for the results of their actions, to either other executives (higher on the organizational scale) or to the owners of the organization (McLeod and Jones, 1986). A prominent characteristic of the executive's role is the making of decisions (Mintzberg, 1975).This refers to evaluating possible courses of action and selecting and initiating one of them. In order to take effective decisions, executives need to have access to high quality information. Such information needs to be relevant to the variables affecting the outcome of the decision, accurate, timely and up to date. Moreover it needs to be accessed easily and presented in a format that makes it easily understood. Project Study I PUPQC- 30

Management Monitoring and Information System The term 'Executive Information Systems' was introduced in 1982 (Rockart and Treacy,1982) to describe the kind of systems a few senior corporate officers were using on a regular basis to access information they needed. Unfortunately, there is no standard, universally accepted definition as to what the term EISs encompasses. Different researchers use a different working definition which usually refers to some characteristics of what the term 'Executive Information Systems' describes. In much of the literature the term Executive Support Systems (ESS) is used interchangeably with EISs to describe the same kind of system. Rockart and Delong (Rockart and Delong, 1988), make a distinction between the two terms. They define and use the term ESS to refer to systems with a broader set of capabilities than EISs. While the term EIS denotes providing information, ESS implies that other support capabilities are provided. These might include communications support, like electronic mail and teleconferencing facilities, data analysis capabilities such as spreadsheets, query languages and Decision Support Systems and other organizing tools, e.g. electronic calendars. What is important about this distinction is that the extra options available in an ESS, increase the system's technical requirements, as well as provide extra functionality (Watson et aI., 1991). For the purpose of this research, EISs are defined as computerized information systems designed to be operated directly by executive managers without the need of any intermediaries. Their aim is to provide fast and easy access to information from a variety of sources (both internal and external to the organization). They are easily customizable and can be tailored to the needs and preferences of the individual executive using it. They deliver information of both soft and hard nature. This information is presented in a format that can be easily accessed and most readily interpreted. This is usually achieved by the utilization of multiple modes of accessing data and the use of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). This will form the working definition of an EIS. Under various disguises, true computer terminal-based Executive Information Systems have been available for about two decades (Paller and Project Study I PUPQC- 31

Management Monitoring and Information System Laska, 1992). Since the term was first introduced, the trend of senior management having direct access to computers, has grown. EISs are slowly becoming a significant area of computing. The increasing amounts of money invested in EISs development projects and the subsequent operation of these systems is an indication of the growing significance of EISs. (Millet et aI., 1991, Belcher and Watson, 1993). Recent work by Kolodziej demonstrates this rising trend in EISs expenditure by giving actual figures. These figures could be significantly higher in practice, since costs of systems developed or enhanced inhouse, are difficult to determine and include in such surveys (Ryan, 1989).

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Management Monitoring and Information System Integrating Expert Systems, Executive Information Systems, and Decision Support Systems The term Executive Information System (EIS) was coined at MIT in the late 1970s. Hailed as a new technology (see Rockart and Treaty 1982), the concept has spread with growing momentum into hundreds of large corporations. A study conducted at MITs Center for Information Systems Research showed that about one third of the large U.S. corporations now have some kind of EIS installed or underway. The study (Rockart and DeLong 1986) also indicated that about SO percent of surveyed EIS were directly used by top executives (e.g., CEOs, CFOs). That is, about one of every six top executives in large cqporations is on-line with EIS. Several recent studies provide general descriptions of EIS, for example, see Brody (1988) and McNurlin ( 1987). Specific case studies are provided by Houdeshel and Watson ( 1987), Fedorowicz (1986), and in a special issue of Informrim Cenfer (1988). Lately, the concept of EIS has been related to DSS. For example, since 1986 The Institute of Management Sciences has incorporated in its DSS Conferences a special EIS track which has been especially popular with conference attendees (see El Sawy 1987 and Fedorowicz 1986). One dimension of the relationship between EIS and DSS is the integration of the two. When data analysis and other capabilities are added to an EIS, the resulting system is sometimes referred to as an Executive Support System (ESS) (see Rockart and DeLong 1988). When Ben Heineman was the CEO at Northwest Industries, the system he used was an EIS with an option to use Express-based decision support systems (Rockart and Treaty 1982). EIS focuses on the present, usually presenting the executive with information i within the budgeting time-frame of the organization. Furthermore, it is exclusively a dis. play technology, oriented to presenting static reports, graphs, and textual information m demand. It offers no analysis capabilities to help the executive explain, diagnose, and understand the information presented to them. Project Study I PUPQC- 33

Management Monitoring and Information System In addition, an EIS does nothing to help the executive forecast the effects of different decisions and plans he or she might make, or to understand the impact of different situations which might be imposed on the organization from without. Intelligent ESS or an integrated ES/EIS/DSS is an emerging topic that deserves much attention. Briefly stated the purpose of such a system is to make the executive more efficient (enable him or her to save time) and more effective (make better decisions). The integration of ES, EIS, and DSS make sense only if the integration of EIS and DSS makes sense (an issue which is still debatable). The above objective can be achieved by using computers to automate many of the tasks that currently are executed manually. Such an automation is desirable, if and only if it can be done in an economic manner and if the provided support is of a high quality. This research is a pioneering attempt to call attention to such an integrated system and to some of its benefits, limitations, and costs. We hope that it will attract the attention of both researchers and practitioners who attempt to increase the computerized support of managerial activities.

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Management Monitoring and Information System 2.2 Local Studies The use of Management Information Systems can do a lot of benefit to an organization or company plus the faster rate of doing the transactions at a company. This will help the company and their employees. For the Government of Bulacan, specifically in the Human Resource Dept. the use and management of Information System can give them the ease of work and faster transactions. This includes the maintenance of the records associated with payroll preparation and processing, also the

maintenance of 201 files for each individual employee that they have. The reason why HRIS is much better than the manual style is that it is easy to manage, fast and accurate processing of employee records which includes the records and payroll. Their HRIS description does not only do manage and keep records of payrolls and employee, the system also do attendance, through this automatic computation it is very accurate to tell who among the employee had absences, who among them had to earn a little because of some sort of circumstances and the system also prepares the remittance of contributions for GSIS, PAG IBIG and MEDICARE which shortened the processing time from 5 days to 4 hours well that we would say a fast transactions. In addition, the payroll clerks no longer need to give cash advances for payroll payments, which can lead to the possibility of corruption and over lending to employees this is because salaries are now released through the Landbank ATMs. Their system caused the empowerment and increased the productivity of their employees in terms of work because the record cannot be altered by anyone else but the management which is good to see the transparency of the employees. Also it removed the Red Tape which is defined to be the obstructive official routine or procedure in their company or organization to have a more productive company. Lastly their HRIS caters faster response time

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Management Monitoring and Information System to employee requests. This will maintain the good relationship of the officials to the employees. A study from The Philippine Health Information Network says that the monitoring and assessment of the health and nutrition of each and every Philippine citizenry is a concern by the government but not only in the Philippines but also a concern of the international donor agencies and non-government agencies. Monitoring and the assessment of such health and nutrition require the data to generate the measure status of the population over a period of time. The Philippine Health Information Network, World Health

Organization and Health Metrics Network conducted an assessment of the health information systems that can generate health and nutrition data. The assessment started in November 2006 with the conduct of a Training of Trainers on the Health Metrics Network (HMN) framework and tools for assessing health information systems. The activities the assessors made included workshops to evaluate and customize the HMN assessment tool for the Philippines; pretesting and finalizing the customized tool; the actual assessment; workshop to discuss the result of the actual assessment; additional assessment in the sub national level of two specific systems that generate health information Field Health Service Information System of the Department of Health and civil registration system of the National Statistics Office; and, meetings to finalize the report on the assessment. This report presents the results of the assessment. Through this health information system the government can be aware if a certain place in the country needs attention in terms of the communitys health and nutrition or how was the improvement of the countrys health statistics and standing in the world. This kind of information system can really have a great impact especially in the society and even in the individuals.

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Management Monitoring and Information System

Figure 1 Health and Nutritional Strategies and Expected outcomes The figure shows the strategies set by the assessors to be achieved using the Health Information System. The system will help generate the possible outcomes and who, when and where do the government need to do actions. The Department of Health in the Philippines also has their version of Health Information System, the HAMIS or Health and Management Information System had conducted their assessment in two provinces of Northern Mindanao. Which also have the same process and intention why it must be implemented in the countrys health. They went to Mindanao to conduct the tests on how will be the system implemented to that kind of area and community. The assessment of the health and management information system of Region 10 is one of the basic activities of HAMIS, a pilot project on information management currently being undertaken in selected areas in Northern Mindanao. Project Study I PUPQC- 37

Management Monitoring and Information System The project is geared towards the improvement of health services in the country, through the development of a model for a more efficient, more effective and more equity-oriented health and management information system. It focuses on the development of the information system in five areas namely that of the barangay (BARHAMIS), the municipality (MUN-HAMIS), and the district (DIS-HAMIS). As well as the hospital health and management indicator system (HaSHAMIS) necessary for hospital management and the appraisal of the quality of performance, the fifth area is the often-ignored logistics management information system (LOG-HAMIS) which is essential for the monitoring of the availability of basic materials like drugs and medical supplies. The data that was collected in this initial assessment was meant to provide the baseline information needed for the implementation and subsequent evaluation of the HAMIS Pilot Project Management Information Systems are not only applicable In private companies, it is also use mostly in government unit such as National, Local and municipal. It includes the business of a certain place, the health aspects, the agricultural and many more. In the field of agriculture they also jumped into the trend which is to have their Information system to help them in ideal decision making and policy making. Agricultural engineering plays a vital role in every countrys agricultural development, they are specializing in agricultural needs like machineries and such things related to agriculture. So putting it together with an information system, it will be producing great results to the agricultural impact in the Philippines. A study by Dr. Reynaldo I. Acda of the University of the Philippines said that it is timely to put AETIS or Agricultural Engineering Technologies Information System: Philippines Satellite. This is to have appropriate information sharing among research, better researching, planning, monitoring and

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Management Monitoring and Information System evaluation; more efficient use of financial resources and avoid duplication of researches. This will also give more benefits to the farmers. The use of the Philippine Agricultural Engineering Technologies Information System can help improve the way the researchers do their thing and also for the benefit of the farmers, fisherman and other individuals that are related to agriculture business. They will benefit in terms of finding and understanding the research on how they will get bigger harvest by the use of Information Systems. It this way, agricultural workers can work not as much because of the researches that was made to help them.

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Management Monitoring and Information System Aegis Pi: Suite of Business Intelligence Services MANILA, Philippines - Aegis, a global business services and experience management company, recently launched Aegis Proactive

Intelligence (Pi), a suite of business intelligence services. Aegis Pi is a revolutionary, state-of-the-art-solution with capabilities of delivering unparalleled business management experience, utilizing knowledge from historic and real-time data. Aegis Pi enables organizations to gain insights into data streams, dive into operations metrics, zoom out to get a global perspective, and be mobile through an interface that is wholly intuitive, interactive, and informative. Aparup Sengupta, global CEO of Aegis said, Aegis Pi empowers organizations to predict business challenges before they arise and act preemptively to mitigate their impact. This solution will enable clients to have access to real-time information across the globe on a single window. With Aegis Pi, we hope to provide value addition to our clientele and add another feather in the cap under our innovative service offerings, Sengupta said. Aegis Pi is a comprehensive real-time holistic solution. Its ability to correlate multiple events and identify patterns helps in an efficient decision making process. Aegis team of highly qualified domain experts collaborate with clients to re-engineer or innovate on new processes on the basis of insights gathered from various data sources. With customized results, clients benefit from a comprehensive understanding of the organization and its internal operations to help steer its direction toward optimal growth.

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Management Monitoring and Information System Sandeep Gulati, Executive Vice President, Aegis Pi commented, Aegis Pi is a business intelligence tool each organization can benefit from. From real time updates to visually interactive dashboards to actionable intelligence, the product covers all corners in successful business management. A combination of intelligent experts and state-of-the-art technology are constantly churning data aimed at impacting profit margins of businesses. Some of the key features of Aegis Pi include the following: 1) Intelligence Command Centers: The intelligence command centers produce realtime business summaries from multiple data streams, intelligent analysis, and interpretation. It empowers management teams to make rational and actionable decision on the go. 2) Business Activity Monitoring (BAM): Aegis Pi provides access to real-time, around-the-clock information about the status and results of various operations, processes, and transactions. This aids managers in extracting intelligent, ready-to-use, real-time summary of business activities, anticipating challenges or problem areas, and acting promptly to prevent or mitigate them in order to sustain continued growth and performance. 3) Business Optimization: Aegis Pi acts as a Decision Support System for the organization. It helps businesses optimize both costs and resources by transforming data into actionable information. It leverages business rules to identify and act upon patterns that may otherwise go unnoticed. This helps businesses establish a proactive approach to enhance performance and improve operational efficiency. The solution gives pertinent information that is compatible with all mobile devices and is truly platform agnostic. Aegis is a global consulting, technology, outsourcing, training and education company committed to impacting client business outcomes by focusing on enhancing customer experience across all touch points and channels. Aegis was founded 30 years ago in the US and now has operations in 53 locations across 12 countries with more than 55,000 employees. Aegis services over 300 clients from verticals such as Banking, Financial Services & Insurance, Technology, Telecom, Healthcare, Travel & Hospitality, Consumer Project Study I PUPQC- 41

Management Monitoring and Information System Goods, Retail, and Energy & Utilities. The company is wholly owned by the Essar Group, a USD 27 billion conglomerate.

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Management Monitoring and Information System 2.3 Synthesis and Relevance to the Study The researchers of the Management Monitoring and Information System were able to efficiently define and accumulate all the relevant data into meaningful information with the help of the local, foreign and other related studies about the project. They have reviewed that a Management Monitoring and

Information System or an Executive Information System is like a decision support system used to assist senior executives in the decision-making process. The system does this by providing easy access to important data needed to achieve strategic goals in an organization. An Executive Information System normally features graphical displays on an easy-to-use interface. Developing and implementing a Management Monitoring and Information System in an organization like a Local Government Unit will be helpful and beneficial. It can be used to monitor and evaluate performance, development activities and projects as well as to identify opportunities and problems. An Executive Information System has also the responsibility to create and generate numerous reports concerning the achievement, finished projects, budget, collections and summary reports. The researchers have also found out that in todays technology, graphical and analytical reports are preferred so that any user of the system will be able to analyze and determine the results quickly. From an article, the main reason why an Executive Information System is required nowadays is that some other systems such as transaction processing systems do not provide adequately for the analytical and reporting requirements of executive people. There is often a lack of ways to analyze and report on all the valuable data that is embedded in every day applications. However, the key focus of the other systems are getting the data in, in other words, making sure that the transactions are stored securely and making sure Project Study I PUPQC- 43

Management Monitoring and Information System that each transaction can be traced. On the other hand finding the best way of getting the data out for analytical or reporting purposes poses a challenge that many organizations disregard. Executive Information Systems can also be applied to other types of firms and organizations. For many organizations, the goal is simply to get a dashboard or set of analytics up and running, thinking that the value they achieve will come naturally. After all, technology is meant to support business operations and not make the decisions for us. From an article about Business Intelligence, it summarizes that more and more organizations are waking up to the fact that perhaps the single most important aspect of growth in todays information world is Business Intelligence. Being able to collect and then visualize the most important metrics is critical. And having the right tools to automate this process is just as crucial. However, most businesses dont start to get into Business Intelligence until theyve had a massive failure or missed a big opportunity, one that could have been prevented with the proper insight. At its core, Business intelligence (BI) is about decision making. It is about presenting data in a human readable way so that decisions can be made more easily and in a more informed way and so that patterns can be discovered and acted upon. Analytical tools used can give you the insight that you need to achieve real business agility as they can provide increased visibility of your financial prospects, help you better understand the implications of an investment, and can make and analyze connections between different areas of your organization. Business Intelligence helps you to embrace strategic planning for growth, by identifying key trends and patterns in your data and gain a better understanding of your organization, transforming data into actionable information. You can be more responsive and can support future planning with the ability to identify opportunities and problems. In summary, with the help of the gathered foreign and local studies, the researchers were able to review what has been done already in the past about developing a system relating to an Executive Information System, to Project Study I PUPQC- 44

Management Monitoring and Information System identify the problems and to answers to specific questions for them to efficiently determine what will be the edge of the project they will be doing, to relate it to the previous studies, to detect conflicting points and to take note all of the relevant concepts and ideas that will be helpful to the project. Lastly, the researchers think that these related studies are also important to highlight the differences in opinions, contradictory findings or evidence and the different explanations given for their conclusions and differences by different authors. Thus, reviewing and summarizing the related studies is a very important part of creating this research.

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