Management Information Systems (MIS)

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1. Types of Management Support Systems?

No single system governs an entire business. Businesses have different kinds of Information Systems (IS) to address different kinds of problems and different business functions.

How does IT support the managers of a Business? When IS focus on providing information and support for effective decision making by managers, they are called management support systems. The information required by the decision-maker is directly related to the level of management decision making and the amount of structure in the decision situation they face (O’Brien, 1999).

Below are 3 kinds of Management Support Systems:

• Management Information Systems (MIS)
• Decision Support Systems (DSS)
• Executive Support Systems (ESS)

MIS provide routine summary reports about a firm’s performance; such systems are used to monitor and control the business and predict future performance. DSS are interactive systems under user control that provide data and models for solving semi-structured problems. A semi-structured problem is one in which only parts of the problem have clear-cut answers provided by a well-accepted methodology.

Both MIS and DSS are generally concerned with daily operations and with problems that are structured or semi-structured. (Structured problems are repetitive and routine and have specified procedure for handling then; in contrast, unstructured problems are novel and non-routine, with no agreed-upon procedure for solving them. Semi-structured problems combine elements of both types). Most of the information for these kinds of decisions come from within the business and the time frame is relatively short term, for example: this week, this month, or this year.

ESS generally supports the strategic planning function in a business, for which the time frame is relatively long term.  Such activities involve largely unstructured, open-ended questions and decisions pertaining to unpredictable future events; they tend to require a great deal of information from a business’s external environment.  Senior executives, for example: need information on government activities and regulations, new laws, the actions of competitors, market conditions, etc.  ESS also tend to be more graphical oriented than other management support systems.

Although all these management information systems are different, they often exchange information with one another and are related to one another through the information flow.

2. What Managers Do

Managers have traditionally been concerned with criteria for measuring progress toward some goal. Management also involves the co-ordination of many workers. Managers are clearly not the people who actually do ‘the work’; instead, they are responsible for determining what work will be done, where it will be done, and for what purpose. Any business is composed of specialists; managers are in a sense like symphony orchestra conductors trying to get individuals to work together so that ‘music’ results (Laudon & Laudon, 2000).

According to traditional theories of management, managing can be defined as the effort to accomplish business goals through:

• Planning refers to defining goals of the business and describing how it will fulfil these goals.
• Organising involves assigning responsibility for accomplishing the necessary tasks and assigning appropriate resources.
• Leading means motivating employees to achieve organisational goals.
• Controlling involves monitoring the activities of the business and making corrections as necessary (Laudon & Laudon, 2000).

This traditional view is adequate to describe the basic functions of management. However, a typical manager's day is rather different. Most of the day is spend in brief meetings and making telephone calls.

From very early days there have been much research gone into studying the behaviour of managers. Those who have studied management would have studied organisational behaviour. According to the behavioural theories this traditional view we talked about is a bit simplistic.

Managers do not operate in vacuum. They must deal with, and sometimes surmount, 3 factors within a firm. One is the company's culture, the framework of assumptions and acceptable behaviours that are expected of employees in general and managers in particular. Another is the company's politics, often arising from competition with other managers for valuable resources. A third factor is the bureaucracy; the day-today rules, regulations, and procedures governing the firm's operations. Any of these factors can affect a manager's ability to do the job (Laudon & Laudon, 2000).

MIS provide managers with reports on the firm's performance, both past and present so that they can carry out their work efficiently and effectively. They are generally dependent on underlying transaction processing systems for their data. In other words MIS summarise and report on the basic operations of the company.

3. Management Information Systems

MIS are the most common form of management support systems. They provide managerial end users with information products that support much of their day-to-day decision making needs. MIS provide a variety of displays and reports to management. The contents of these information products are specified in advance by managers so that they contain information that managers need. MIS retrieve information about internal operations from databases that have been updated by transaction processing systems. They also obtain data about the business environment from external sources.

MIS may record and model all or part of the organisation’s activities and provide indicators of any actual or predicted change in state. Of most value they record or predict the rate, direction and timing of such change. MIS serve various levels and aspects of management activities. At each level the MIS has a different emphasis.

There are a number of reporting alternatives provided by MIS:

• Periodic or Scheduled Reports:
• produced according to a pre-specified format on a regular basis. Typical examples are daily or weekly sales analysis reports and monthly financial statements. One of the major scheduled reports are Key indicator reports.
• Demand Reports:
• provide information whenever a manager demands it. For example, a report showing the hours worked by a particular employee, total sales for a product for the year.
• Exception Reports:
• produced automatically when a situation is exceptional or requires management attention.
• Drill down reports
• provide increasingly detailed data about a situation.

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Reference(s)
	Book		Laudon, K. C. & Laudon, J. P. (2007) Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm. 10th Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall: United States of America (USA), New Jersey (NJ), Bergen, Upper Saddle River. [ISBN: 9780132415798]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UhgqDH].
	Book		O’Brien, J. (1999) Management Information Systems: Managing Information Technology in the E-Business Enterprise. 4th Edition. McGraw-Hill: United States of America (USA), Massachusetts (MA), Suffolk, Boston. [ISBN: 9788186011799]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VQvCcJ].

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Reference (or cite) Article
	Kahlon, R. S. (2012) Management Information Systems (MIS) [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom, England, London. [Published on: 2012-05-02]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000041]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi - https://ravi.dkode.co/2012/05/management-information-systems-mis.html].

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