Dashboards and Scorecards: Executive Information Systems for the Public Sector.

• Author: Liang, Leo Yonghong

Web-based technologies are ushering in a new era of public management by disseminating information to key decision makers through portals known as executive information systems (EIS). This article describes the concept of EIS, identifies the features and functions of leading products, and discusses how EIS can promote strategic management in the public sector.

Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success.

Thomas Davenport and John Beck (2001)

The Attention Economy

Growth in the use of technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems has exploded the volume of information that public managers must pay attention to. That ERP systems can reduce transaction costs through streamlined processes for citizens, suppliers, and employees is well known. That these systems are not delivering everything that they once promised is also grudgingly accepted. Then there is the nagging question in the minds of those thinking about investing in ERP in the public sector: Do ERP systems really improve executive-level decision making?

Most organizations would concede that ERP systems have done more to increase the efficiency of transaction processing than they have done to improve the strategic management capabilities of managers and executives with enterprise-wide responsibilities. Because ERP systems are transaction based, they are not well suited to tackle issues of information summarization, analysis, display, and dissemination. That is, ERP systems do not provide "dashboards" and "scorecards" that executives need for strategic management. This article focuses on a new breed of Web-based executive information systems (EIS) that may pave the way to a new era of public management.

ERP's Unmet Promises

Organizations have traditionally used financial systems for transaction processing and reporting. From the outset, mainframe software packages were strong in the area of high-volume transaction processing but weaker in their ability to query and produce custom reports on large databases. These "legacy" systems limited the quantity of data that could be retained. While the proliferation of PCs improved information access for some individuals, the problems of organization-wide access remained. Since the 1980s, mainframe systems have operated along side PCs, and significant staff effort has gone into exchanging data between the two. In recent years, ERP systems and data warehouses have risen to address the data storage and retrieval limitations of mainframes, but the problem of pushing out this information to executives, managers, and users in a format that meets their diverse needs persists even today. As one analyst comments, "ERP systems are a goldmine for valuable business intelligence. Unfortunately, ERP re ports generally provide a fraction of the useful information in the system." (1)

Information from applications within a modern ERP system is typically consolidated into a common relational software database. Yet data from a host of other applications that are not encompassed by ERP sit in individual silos. The very data that executives need for strategic and tactical decision making often requires the combination of data from ERP and non-ERP application sources (e.g., cost accounting information, efficiency indicators, customer information, performance measures, historical data for forecasting). Exhibit 2 provides a comparison of ERP and EIS.

To summarize, ERP systems are transaction-processing focused and weak on analytics. Software firms have recognized that there is a clear demand for technology solutions that can unlock, analyze, and visualize information from ERP and stand-alone systems, and this has provided the motivation for a new niche in the application software marketplace.

The Concept of EIS

EIS is a subset of a class of technology solutions that also are referred to in the industry as business intelligence (BI) software. EIS seeks to provide a management information portal to support strategic activities such as goal setting, planning and forecasting, and tracking performance (Exhibit 3). EIS enhances the ability of organizations to establish "a single version of the truth." Another objective of these systems is to gather, analyze, and integrate internal and external data into dynamic profiles of key performance indicators (KPIs). Tailored to each executive's information needs, EIS can access both historical and real-time data through ad-hoc queries. EIS users can manage and manipulate multidimensional or cube-like databases. In essence, managers at every level of government can have a customized Web portal that extracts information from disparate sources and summarizes it into meaningful indicators. By providing a single informational gateway, line managers and executives can build dashboards a nd scorecards that summarize transactional and other data on a real-time basis.

With the growth of Web-based technology and innovations in managerial methods, such as balanced scorecard and activity-based management, many public and private organizations are examining whether EIS is right for them. (2) Although the public-sector EIS installation base is still limited, the demand for such systems is forecasted to grow to nearly $5 billion by 2003 across all sectors. (3) Among governments that are pursuing EIS projects are the State of Minnesota, State of Maryland, State of Utah, Texas Education Agency, Maricopa County, City/County of San Francisco, City of Albuquerque, and City of Philadelphia.

Technology Features of EIS

EIS attempts to present data in a form that is relevant for enterprise-wide decisions (i.e., for shaping the "big picture"). While the idea of EIS is hardly new, only recently have both technology and practice matured to make EIS a reality. (4) The major technology features of EIS are listed below.

Online Analytical Processing (OLAF) Engine

An OLAP engine is a query generator that provides users with the ability to explore and analyze summary and detailed information...