Role of the Management information system
The role of the MIS in an organization can be compared to the
role of hear in the body. The information is the blood and MIS is the heart.
In the body the heart plays the role of supplying pure blood to all the elements
of the body including the brain. The
heart works faster and supplies more blood when needed. It regulates and
controls the incoming impure blood, processes it sends it to the destination in
the quantity needed. It fulfills the needs of blood supply to
human body in normal and also in crisis.
The MIS plays exactly the same role in the organization. The
system ensures that an appropriate data is collected from the various sources,
processed, and sent further to all the needy destinations. The system is
expected to fulfill information needs of an individual, a group of individuals,
the management functionaries; the managers and the top management.
The MIS satisfies the diverse needs through a variety of
systems such as Query Systems, Analysis Systems, Modeling Systems and Decision
Support Systems. The MIS helps in Strategic Planning, Management Control
Operational Control and Transaction Processing.
The MIS helps the clerical personnel in the transaction
processing and answers their queries on the data pertaining to the transaction,
the status of a particular record and references on a variety of documents. The
MIS helps the junior management personnel by providing the operational data for
planning, scheduling and control, and helps them further in decision making at
the operations level to correct an out of control situation. The MIS helps the
middle management in short term planning, target setting and controlling the
business functions. It is supported by the use of the management tools of
planning and control. The MIS helps the top management in goal setting,
strategic planning and evolving the business plans and their implementation.
The MIS plays the role of information generation,
communication problems and helps in the process of decision making. The MIS,
therefore, plays a vital role in the management, administration and operations
of an organization.
