What is MIS?
Have you ever visited a railway station to book a ticket? Earlier, getting a train ticket from a railway station was a time consuming task. There used to be a long queue at the ticket counter. It was also challenging for the railway employees to manage the records of passengers and train schedule as they used to perform all these tasks manually.
It was only after the introduction of Management Information System (MIS) in the railways that the arduous task of railway employees became fairly simple. MIS is an information systems for managing information. Now you can book and your tickets from anywhere using the computer and the Internet.
MIS is a source of information to the management which is helpful in making effective decisions and well-organised business management. It is emerging as the fastest developing concepts in a business environment. It has made its impact on decision making patterns and strategies for business concepts considerably.
For instance, a marketing manager may need information about sales performance and trends, production manager may need information analysing resources requirement and worker productivity and personnel manager may require information regarding employee compensation and professional development. Therefore effective MIS system is required to provide managers with information about their area of concern.
MIS retrieves data from numerous resources, processes it, and converts the data into significant and valuable information.
Figure shows the structure of MIS:
Internal and external sources are used to collect this data. This data is processed using technical and analytical methods. After processing, the transformation of data is performed making it into meaningful information. This information is used to make decisions and help to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation.
Nature and Scope of MIS
MIS has become a vital part of the business environment. It is useful for managers who use the information provided by it to take effective decisions. The nature of MIS can be described as:
- Technology-based Concept: A concept that uses numerous technologies for data processing in the system.
- System Approach: It consists of input, process, and output used for management decision-making.
- Interdisciplinary Concept: It incorporates all business aspects, such as accounting, operational research, statistics, management, etc.
MIS is used to analyze and organize unstructured data retrieved from several resources. This data is transformed into meaningful information which creates an opportunity for the management to make the best product decisions. Information technology has given great scope to MIS.
Features of MIS
The following are the characteristics of MIS:
- Management: MIS handles the management processes, such as decision-making, production planning, and goal setting.
- Requirement-Based: MIS gives the information needed by the managers.
- Concerned with Growth: MIS simplifies progress via effective planning and control of the production processes.
- Flexibility of Process: MIS provides various processes which are flexible in nature.
- Integrated: MIS incorporates numerous processes and resources and delivers combined information, when needed.
Functions of Mis
MIS fulfils the information requirements of managers to make several management decisions. The figure shows the functions of MIS:
Some functions of MIS are discussed as follows:
- Data Collection from Various Sources: It includes collecting data from different internal and external sources. External sources consist of competitors, customers, suppliers, newspapers, and so on. Internal sources consist of financial reports, sales records, and so on. This data can be stored in both paper and in electronic forms.
- Data Storage: All the records are stored and retrieved when required.
- Data Processing: It comprises tasks, such as calculating, analyzing, and summarising the collected data.
- Information Generating: The collected data is transformed into valuable and meaningful information after processing. This information is well-structured and organized.
- Information Storage: Information is saved again in the database to be used in the future. The same information can be processed again if required.
- Information Distribution: The information produced is distributed to users or managers to assist them in performing their tasks efficiently. For example, report generation.
