Chapter 1 What is MIS?

? Chapter 1 explains the importance of Management Information Systems (MIS) and how it will help business professionals succeed in their careers. According to Moores Law, continuous rollout of new and more advanced technologies in a short time frame (18 months) has helped drive down the cost of storing and transferring data across the Internet to almost zero. Nowadays, most jobs are being outsourced to the less-developed countries to save costs. In order to secure their jobs, business professionals (as well as individuals in other professions) need to obtain a set of marketable skills that make them invaluable assets to their organizations. The four marketable skills are: * Abstract reasoning - the ability to create and manipulate models * Systems thinking - the ability to assess how components within a system relate with one another (inputs vs. outputs) * Collaboration the ability to work with others in developing ideas along with giving and receiving critical feedback * Experimentation the ability (or courage) of creating and testing new and promising ideas Every computer-based information system, regardless of its complexity, will always have the following components: hardware, software, data, procedures, and people (this includes YOU the user). These five components work together to produce useful information that allows business professionals to make decisions to achieve the organizations goals and objectives.

Figure 1-4: Characteristics of the Five Components) pg. 11. Source: Using MIS 3rd ed.- David Kroenke In order to create a valuable information system that fits your needs, it is important for YOU to take part in the development process, especially in specifying the systems requirements since nobody understands what your business needs like you do. Besides knowing how to use the information system to obtain information, you also have to learn how to safeguard and recover data in case of system failures in order to minimize information/data loss to your organization.

Information is data that has been processed and presented in a way that deem valuable to the users (subjective). Information is only useful when it is: * Accurate correct and complete * Timely produced in time for intended use * Relevant * Just sufficient generate just enough information (neither overload nor underload) * Worth its cost the cost of information cannot exceeds its value