The impact of the Management Information System
The impact of MIS on the functions is in its management.
With a good MIS support, the management of marketing, finance, production and
personnel becomes more efficient, the tracking and monitoring the functional
targets becomes easy. The functional managers are informed about the progress,
achievements and shortfalls in the activity and the targets. The manager is kept
alert by providing certain information indicating the probable trends in the
various aspects of business. This helps in forecasting and long-term perspective
planning. The manager'' attention is
brought to a situation which is exceptional in nature, inducing him to take an
action or a decision in the matter. A disciplined information reporting system
creates a structured database and a knowledge base for all the people in the
organization. The information is available in such a form that it can be used
straight away or by blending and analysis, saving the manager's valuable time.
The MIS creates another impact in the organization which
relates to the understanding of the business itself. The MIS begins with the
definition of a data entity and its attributes. It uses a dictionary of data,
entity and attributes, respectively, designed for information generation in the
organization. Since all the information systems use the dictionary, there is
common understanding of terms and terminology in the organization bringing
clarity in the communication and a similar understanding of an event in the
organization.
The MIS calls for a systemization of the business operations
for an effective system design. This leads to streamlining of the operations
which complicate the system design.
It improves the administration of the business by bringing a discipline in its
operations everybody is required to follow and use systems and procedures. This
process brings a high degree of professionalism in the business operations.
Since the goals and objective of the MIS are the products of
business goals and objectives, it helps indirectly to pull the entire
organization in one direction towards the corporate goals and objectives by
providing the relevant information to the people in the organization.
A well designed system with a focus on the manager makes an
impact on the managerial efficiency.
The fund of information motivates an enlightened manager to use a variety of
tools of the management. It helps him to resort to such exercises as
experimentation and modeling. The use of computers enables him to use the tools
and techniques which are impossible to use manually. The ready-made packages
make this task simpler. The impact is on the managerial ability to perform. It
improves the decision making ability considerably.
