executive information system (EIS)

Not a piece of hardware or software, but an infrastructure that supplies to a firm's executives the up-to-the-minute operational data, gathered and sifted from various databases. The typical information mix presented to the executive may include financial information, work in process, inventory figures, sales figures, market trends, industry statistics, and market price of the firm's shares. It may even suggest what needs to be done, but differs from a decision support system (DSS) in that it is targeted at executives and not managers.