Fisher-Price's ElS
CONSIDERABLE PLANNING AND PREPARATION PRECEEDED THE DEVELOPMENT of Fisher-Price's EIS. Executives and analysts met to identify clearly the objectives for the system. The overriding goal was to provide infonnation about the business processes that were necessary to achieve Fisher-Price's new market-driven strategy. In order to achieve this objective, an EIS was needed that differed from those developed in other firms. It had to support a broad base of users from the outset and it had to provide detailed information about business processes. These requirements in tum led to a unique way of thinking about, planning for, and determining the information requirements for the initial and later versions of the ms.
A number of areas were of importance and were thoroughly covered in discussions between executives and the ms staff. Analysts leamed what drove the business, what business opportunities existed, and what might be done to improve executive produc- tivity. Executives briefed tiie Eis team on everything of importance to their job responsibilities, what infonnation each business unit needed to have, where the information came from, and how the information was used.
Analysts participated in strategic planning and other meetings in order to better understand tiie firm's new strategy, how it would be implemented, and the information needed to support iL Attendance at these meetings also helped build an effective working relationship between the executives and the analysts and provided an oppor- tunity for the analysts to leam how, about what, and in which ways managers communicated with one another. It was found that considerable effort had to go into carefully defining what information to place in the system. For example, saying that information on customer orders was needed was not specific enough. They had to specify exactly what information about customer orders was wanted (e.g., orders that were filled, received, shipped out, or in production). Based on an understanding of Fisher-Price's strategic objective, the business