An Enterprise Information System (EIS) is any kind of

information system An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

which improves the functions of enterprise business processes by integration. This means typically offering high quality of service, dealing with large volumes of

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...

and capable of supporting some large and possibly complex

organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

or enterprise. An EIS must be able to be used by all parts and all levels of an enterprise. The word ''enterprise'' can have various connotations. Frequently the term is used only to refer to very large organizations such as multi-national companies or public-sector organizations. However, the term may be used to mean virtually anything, by virtue of it having become a corporate-speak buzzword.

Purpose

Enterprise information systems provide a technology platform that enables organizations to integrate and coordinate their

business processes A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...

on a robust foundation. An EIS is currently used in conjunction with

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study big data, large amounts of information. CRM systems data collectio ...

and supply chain management to automate business processes. An enterprise information system provides a single system that is central to the organization that ensures information can be shared across all functional levels and management

hierarchies A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

. An EIS can be used to increase business

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

and reduce service cycles,

product development In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market, renewing an existing product or introducing a product in a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design, along w ...

cycles and marketing life cycles. It may be used to amalgamate existing applications. Other outcomes include higher

operational efficiency In a business context, operational efficiency is a measurement of resource allocation and can be defined as the ratio between an output gained from the business and an input to run a business operation. When improving operational efficiency, the ou ...

and cost savings. Financial value is not usually a direct outcome from the implementation of an enterprise information system.

Design stage

At the design stage the main characteristic of EIS efficiency evaluation is the probability of timely delivery of various messages such as command, service, etc.

Information systems

Enterprise systems create a standard data structure and are invaluable in eliminating the problem of information fragmentation caused by multiple information systems within an organization. An EIS differentiates itself from

legacy system In computing, a legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program, "of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system", yet still in use. Often referencing a system as "legacy" means that it paved ...

s in that it is self-transactional, self-helping and adaptable to general and specialist conditions. Unlike an enterprise information system, legacy systems are limited to department-wide communications. A typical enterprise information system would be housed in one or more data centers, would run

enterprise software Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than individual users. Such organizations include businesses, schools, interest-based user groups, ...

, and could include applications that typically cross organizational borders such as

content management systems A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

References

{{Reflist Data management Enterprise architecture Enterprise modelling Website management

Purpose

Design stage

Information systems

See also

References