MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

SYSTEM
Assignment
Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................... 2
Enhancing Management Decision Making ......................................................... 3
References ....................................................................................................... 10
Reference List .................................................................................................. 10
Appendix.......................................................................................................... 12

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Introduction

Before we understand the relationship of information system, information technology

and the impact of the IS and IT to the organisation and the decision making process

we have to know the definition of IS, IT and how the decision making process works.

According to Wikipedia “Information system (IS) is the study of complementary

networks of hardware and software that people and organizations use to collect,

filters, process, create, and distribute data. Any specific information system aims to

support operations, management and decision making. In a broad sense, the term is

used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) that an

organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in

support of business processes.”

In the term of Information technology, IT is the uses of computer and software to

manage information. In some companies they referred this as Management

information systems. The information technology department of a large company

would be in charge for storage information, guarding information, processing the

information, transmitting the information as necessary, and later retrieving

information as necessary. (Schneider, 2014)

In an organisation there are different decision has been made in different level within

an organisation. In semi structured decision covers a percentage that is unstructured

and a percentage that is structure. So in the semi structured which is normally used

in the middle management who normally their decision is to design marketing plan,

developed the departmental budget and design a new corporate website.

Whereas, structured will be used in operational management which is the individual

employees and teams who their decision will be like determine the overtime eligibility,

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restock inventory and determine special offer to the customer. In this structured

decision that their job of the structured will be repetitive and routine, include fixed

technique for handling so they do not have to be treated each time as new.

Lastly unstructured which will be used in high management which give them to

decide entrance or exit the market, approve capital budget and decide the long term

investment. In this unstructured, decision maker must provide a good decision,

evaluation and insight to resolve the difficulties. Refer to the image 1(appendix) for

the decision characteristics.

There are four stage of decision making process. The first stage is the intelligence

which is emphasis on determining; recognising and understanding the problem

occurring the organisation. While in stage two is the design which is identify and

discovering solution to the problem. In the stage three choice is choosing the among

solution which provide alternatives and last but not least the stage 4 implementation

which selected substitute work and continuing to monitor how well the solution is

working. Refer to the image 2 (appendix) below for the breakdown of decision

making process.

Enhancing Management Decision Making

So, in IS and IT this all will have a lot of impact on the organisation first is the using

of the decision making by usage of the Decision Support System (DSS), Group

Decision Support System (GDSS) and Executive Support System (ESS).

So before using these all system help in decision making they have to input the

information to the Transaction Processing System (TPS). TPS is performing and

record daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business. So in the output

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report of the TPS it will allow manager to monitor the status of operation and it serve

as predefined, structured goal and decision making.

After using the TPS then the information will be transfer to the Management

information system (MIS) this MIS provide a report on firm current performance,

based on data from TPS and it provide answer to routine question with predefined

procedure for answering them. This MIS normally will be used in semi structured

which is the middle management.

DSS is support semi structured and unstructured problem analysis. The DSS is

getting data from multiple sources from internal to external organisation. It is support

for multiple decision approaches and it will show the statistical analysis. DSS are

divided into few components they are DSS database, DSS software system, model,

sensitivity analysis and DSS user interface.

DSS database there are two sources of data which is internal sources and external

source. Database management system provides the facilities for organising, storing,

and queering the data. It acts as an information bank. Database software provide

various facilities to modify and delete for database creation, manipulate the data

present in database and query the data in the database (Govindam, 2012).

DSS Model is a model that represents the relationship between various parameters

of the system. This gives a mathematical description of reality. The model builder

provides a structured framework for developing models by helping decision makes.

The model builder also contains model dictionary consistencies in the definition user

of models (Govindam, 2012).

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Other than that, the model management subsystems provide the system which

supports in the designs of models and maintenance of the same. It is also an

external interface which allows a user to choose a model to be executed and delivers

conveniences for key in data

Then, the DSS user interface this is a gateway for the user to connect with DSS. It

delivers the menus and icons for the user to communicate efficiently with the system.

DSS interface also coverts the queries given by the user into forms which the

additional subsystem can identify and perform and lastly, it also keeps tracks of

activities that are being performed.

GDSS is interactive and computer based system that facilitates solving of

unstructured problem by a set of decision makers which the normally used by the

higher managements of a companies. GDSS is a group decision support system that

facilitates decision making by a team of decision makers working as a group.

GDSS is normally used in conference room with special hardware and software.

Hardware such as overhead projectors or displayed screen and the software is used

to collect, rank, edit participant ideas and responsibilities. GDSS also enable to

increase the meeting size and increasing the productivities of a company.

So, GDSS can enhance group decision making in many ways. First GDSS help to

improved preplanning this preplanning will coerce and agenda to keep the meeting

on track. Then, it can help to increase the participation so which mean more people

will result more effective contribution towards the decision making. Third, GDSS is

help to provide open and collaborative meeting atmosphere which provide non-

judgement input by all attendees and it is also provide criticism free idea generation

with more inputs and better ideas. Lastly, GDSS which help to setting the priorities

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and making decision this will gives the importance to those problems which are more

critical.

According to Webopedia Executive Support System (ESS) is a reporting tool

(software) that allows you to turn your organization's data into useful summarized

reports. These reports are generally used by executive level managers for quick

access to reports coming from all company levels and departments such as billing,

cost accounting, staffing, scheduling, and more.

ESS bring together data from all parts of the firm and enable manager to select,

access and tailor them as needed using easy to used desktop analytical tools and

online data displays. Through ESS many manager can have easily access to public

data, such as news services, financial market databases and economic information.

Lastly, ESS has the ability to drill down, moving from piece of summary data to lower

and lower level of details. So with the help of ESS this improves the personal

efficiency and organizational control.

If without the help of ESS,

“Example: (Martinez, D) If CEO receives a call from an online advertising company

offering an incredible rate on pay-per-click ads, but for a limited time. Now it’s up to

the CEO to quickly figure out which products will yield the most return on the

advertising investment. First the executive logs into an online advertising dashboard

to compare costs, response rates and return from previous campaigns. Then he gets

on the phone with a warehouse account manager, or logs into an inventory

management database. From the warehouse, he finds out the cost to ship each

product, the list price of each product and which products have been sitting on the

shelves the longest or accruing the most storage fees. With all of this data and

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information in place, the executive can figure out which product will likely yield the

highest return and finally respond to the advertising offer before the deadline expires.”

Other than enhancing the decision making, IT and IS still help in many ways in an

organisation. Information system is bringing the new way for companies to interact

and compete, the way are the organisation structure and the way of the workplace

redesign. Information technology is drastically changing the business environment.

IT significantly affects strategic decisions and generates opportunities and problems

that manager require to address in many aspect of their business.

According to (David, S) for many years it has been argued that IT will enable larger

spans of control and the flattening of group ware. This has at last happened, but due

as much to initiatives like BPR (business process reengineering) and the drive to cut

costs. Research on whether IT encourages centralization decentralizations produced

ambivalent results. Many companies have centralized room operations (for efficiency)

while at the same time decentralize higher activities. It now seems clear that IT

enables a greater variety of structures. In particular it enables more flexible and fluid

structures - networked structures, dispersed team and teams that come and go as

needs change (as in the virtual corporation).

(According to the Britannica) Use of Web-based information systems can

significantly lower the costs of communication among workers and firms and cost-

effectively enhance the coordination of supply chains or webs. This has led many

organizations to concentrate on their core competencies and to outsource other

parts of their value chain to specialized companies. The capability to communicate

information efficiently within a firm has led to the deployment of flatter organizational

structures with fewer hierarchical layers.

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In IS has created a new organisation structure. In particular, they call the simulated

organisation which have developed do not depends on physical office and standard

organisation charts. The two important simulated organisations are network

organisation and cluster organisation. This network organisation maybe is nothing

more than an individual entrepreneurs reinforced only by few workforces. However

this network organisation creates a flexible system of companies, which their

formation and work is organised around Web-based information system.

In cluster organisation, their team member who are often broadly distributed around

the world, they are greatly supported in their work by the used of web resources,

corporate intranets and collaboration of system. Information System may also

provide the mobile platforms which enable the employees to work not just outside

the corporate offices but virtually anywhere around the world this has become one of

the emerging workplace.

Nonetheless, information systems do not consistently lead to increase of revenues.

The accomplishment relies both on the skill with which information systems are

organised and on their use being combined with other resources of the companies,

such as associations with business partners or superior knowledge of the industry.

Conclusion

So, technology helps in a lot in decision making but there are reasons that

information technologies do not always produce positive results. It is because high

information quality decisions require high quality information. Secondly, the

management will filters out the result which manager have selective attention and

have variety of biases that reject information that does not conform to prior

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conceptions and lastly, the strong forces within organisation resist making decision

calling for major change.

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References

1. 2014, Wikipedia, Information system,

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_systems> Accessed 22 February
2014
2. 2012, Govindam Business School, Dss Components and classification,
<http://dsscomponents.blogspot.com/2012/03/explain-components-and-
classification.html> Accessed 4 March 2014
3. 2014, Webopedia, Executive Support System,
<http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/Executive_Support_System.html>
accessed 4 March 2014
4. Martinez, V (2013), Executive Support System,
<http://www.slideshare.net/VonAdamMartinez/executive-support-system>
Accessed 4 March 2014
5. David, Skyrme 1999, Impact of Information Technology to organisation,
<http://www.skyrme.com/insights/5itorg.htm> Accessed 4 March 2014
6. 2014, Britannica, Impact of Information System to organisation,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/287895/information-
system/218074/Information-systems-audit#toc218075> Accessed 4 March
2014

Reference List

1. http://www.techopedia.com/definition/1016/executive-information-system-eis
2.

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Appendix

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2

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