Sheet for MID Term

MIS and Decision Making Techniques

Chapter 1
 Chapter 2

Information systems have become as integrated into our daily business activities
as accounting, finance, operations management, marketing, human resource
management, or any other major business function. Information systems and
technologies are vital components of successful businesses and organizations—
some would say they are business imperatives. They thus constitute an essential
field of study in business administration and management, which is why most
business majors include a course in information systems.

If we are to understand information systems and their functions, we first need

to be clear on the concept of a system. In its simplest form, a system is defined
as a set of interrelated components, with a clearly defined boundary, working
together to achieve a common set of objectives by accepting inputs and
producing outputs in an organized transformation process. Using this definition,
it becomes easy to see that virtually everything you can think of is a system, and
one system can be made up of other systems or be part of a bigger system.

Systems have three basic functions:

• Input involves capturing and assembling elements that enter the system to be
processed. For example, raw materials, energy, data, and human effort must be
secured and organized for processing.
• Processing involves transformation processes that convert input into output.
Examples are manufacturing processes, the human breathing process, or
mathematical calculations.
• Output involves transferring elements that have been produced by a
transformation process to their ultimate destination. For example, finished
products, human services, and management information must be transmitted to
their human users.
Example.
● A manufacturing system accepts raw materials as input and produces
finished goods as output.
● An information system is a system that accepts resources (data) as input
and processes them into products (information) as output.
● A business organization is a system in which human and economic
resources are transformed by various business processes into goods and
services.

The system concept becomes even more useful by including two additional
elements: feedback and control. A system with feedback and control functions is
sometimes called a cybernetic system, that is, a self-monitoring, self-regulating
system.
• Feedback is data about the performance of a system. For example, data about
sales performance is feedback to a sales manager.
• Control involves monitoring and evaluating feedback to determine whether a
system is moving toward the achievement of its goal. The control function then
makes the necessary adjustments to a system’s input and processing
components to ensure that it produces proper output. For example, a sales
manager exercises control when reassigning salespersons to new sales territories
after evaluating feedback about their sales performance.
Business as an example of system

Information system is defined as a collection of elements that capture data and

convert it into information and disseminate to the decision-makers in an
organization. The value of information lies within proper utilization of it so that
it can be converted into knowledge. An information system (IS) can be any
organized combination of people, hardware, software, communications
networks, data resources, and policies and procedures that stores, retrieves,
transforms, and disseminates information in an organization. Most of us think
only of hardware and software when we think of an Information System. There
is another component of the triangle that should be considered, and that’s the
people's side, or “persware.”
We talk about the input, processing, output and feedback processes. Most
important is the feedback process; unfortunately it’s the one most often
overlooked. Just as in the triangle above, the hardware (input and output) and
the software (processing) receive the most attention. With those two alone, you
have computer literacy. But if you don’t use the “persware” side of the triangle
to complete the feedback loop, you don’t accomplish much. Add the “persware”
angle with good feedback and you have the beginnings of information literacy.

An information system differs from other kinds of systems in that its objective is
to monitor/document the operations of some other system, which we can call a
target system. An information system cannot exist without such a target
system. For example, production activities would be the target system for a
production scheduling system, human resources in the business operations
would be the target system of a human resource information system, and so on.
It is important to recognize that within a vending machine there is a component/
sub-system that can be considered an information system. In some sense, every
reactive system will have a subsystem that can be considered an information
system whose objective is to monitor and control such a reactive system.

Information technology plays a vital role as part of the Information systems as

it encompasses the hardware and software retirements to build the system.
Information Technology is reshaping the basics of business, customer service,
operations, product and market strategies, and distribution are heavily, or
sometimes even entirely, dependent on IT. Thus IT can be referred to as hardware
and software that perform data processing tasks, such as capturing,
transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating or displaying data. An
information system differs from other kinds of systems in that its objective is to
monitor/ document the operations of some other system, which we can call a
target system. An information system cannot exist without such a target system.

For example Production activities would be the target system for a production
scheduling system, human resources in the business operations would be the
target system of a human resource information system, and so on. It is important
to recognize that within a vending machine there is a component/sub-system
that can be considered an information system. In some sense, every reactive
system will have a sub-system that can be considered an information system
whose objective is to monitor and control such a reactive system.
Chapter 3
ESS process
 Chapter 4
Competitive forces and strategies
This strategic role of information systems involves using information technology to develop
products, services, and capabilities that give a company major advantages over the
competitive forces it faces in the global marketplace. This role is accomplished through a
strategic information architecture: the collection of strategic information systems that
supports or shapes the competitive position and strategies of a business enterprise. So a
strategic information system can be any kind of information system (e.g., TPS, MIS, and DSS)
that uses information technology to help an organization gain a competitive advantage,
reduce a competitive disadvantage, or meet other strategic enterprise objectives.
Role of IT in creating agile company
Chapter 5