MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

Definitions of MIS by various Author’s

According to Stair and Reynolds, “MIS is a set of inter-related elements or components that
collect (input), manipulate (process) and disseminate (output) data and information and provide
a feed-back mechanism to meet an objective”. MIS Stands for “Management Information
System.” An MIS is a system designed to manage information within a company or organization.
This includes employees, departments, projects, clients, finances, and other types of data. At its
most general level, an MIS may include non-computer based elements, such as the structural
hierarchy of an organization. However, in the computing world, an MIS typically refers to the
hardware and software used to manage information.

The hardware required for a management information system can vary widely depending on the
size and data processing requirements of an organization. A small business, for example, may
only need a single machine to store information, such as employee data, projects, and invoices.
A large business may require several systems that allow employees to share data securely across
multiple locations. Data stored in an MIS is often backed up in multiple locations for redundancy.
According to Davis and Olson, “MIS is an integrated user-machine system for providing
information to support operations, management and decision-making functions in an
organization. The system utilizes computer hardware and software, manual procedures/models
for analysis, planning, control and decision making and a database”. Some common functions of
MIS software include employee record keeping, invoicing, inventory management, project
planning, customer relationship management, and business analysis. Some software programs
are designed for specific tasks, such as maintaining financial records or backing up data. Other
programs are designed to be comprehensive solutions that perform multiple MIS functions in a
single software package. A Management Information System is a set of combined procedures
that gathers and produces reliable, relevant, and properly organized data that supports the
decision making process of an organization. To sum up, it is a group of processes through which
data is obtained, sorted, and displayed in a useful way for decision-making purposes.

According to Laudon and Laudon, MIS can be defined as “A set of inter-related components that
collect (or retrieve), process, store and distribute information to support decision-making and
control in an organization. In addition to supporting decision-making, co-ordination and control,
information systems may also help managers and workers analyze problems, visualize complex
subjects and create new products”. The use of information technology, people, and business
processes to record, store and process data to produce information that decision makers can use
to make day to day decisions. The full form of MIS is Management Information Systems. The
purpose of MIS is to extract data from varied sources and derive insights that drive business
growth.
Lucey has defined MIS as a system to convert data from internal and external sources into
information to communicate that information in an appropriate form to managers at all levels,
in all functions to make timely and effective decisions for planning, directing and controlling the
activities for which they are responsible”.
From the various definitions quoted above, we can state that the MIS is basically an integrated
system which transforms the data (inputs) into reports (outputs) for facilitating decision-making
through processing, using various components of the information system viz., Hardware,
Software, Database, Procedures and Personnel.