Informational management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Informational management - Essay Example These information flows cannot be ignored: they are potent and effective, and they are the basis f most really good decision-making. Generally, MIS deals with information that is systematically and routinely collected in accordance with a well-defined set f rules. MIS plays a major role in a company's informational process. Information that has major managerial planning significance is sometimes collected at golf courses. Such information is not part f MIS, how ever, one- shot market research data collected to gauge the potential f a new product does not come with in the scope f an MIS by our definition because although such information may be very systematically collected it is not collected on a regular basis. (SMITH 1991, 60-85; O'REILLY 1980, 684-96) Normally, the information provided by an MIS helps the managers to make planning and control decisions. Now, we will see, what is planning and control. Every organization in order to function must perform, certain operations. For Example, a car manufacturer has to perform certain manufacturing activities, a wholesaler has to provide water to its area f jurisdiction. All these are operations that need to be done. Besides, these operations, an organization must make plans for them. In other words it must decide on how many and what type f cars to make next month or what commissions to offer retailers or what pumping stations to install in the next five years. Also an organization must control the operations in the light f the plans and targets developed in the planning process. The car manufacturer must know if manufacturing operations are in line with the targets and if not, he must make decisions to correct the deviation or revise his plans. Similarly the wholesaler will want to kno w the impacts that his commissions have had on sales and make decisions to correct adverse trends. The municipal corporation will need to control the tendering process and contractors who will execute the pumping station plans. Often there are elaborate systems for information that assists operations. For example, the car manufacturer will have a system for providing information to the workers on the shop floor about the job that needs to be done on a particular batch f material. There may be route sheets, which accompany the rate materials and components in their movement through various machines. MIS has all the ingredients that are employed in providing information support to manager to making planning and control decisions. Managers often use historical data on an organization's activities as well as current status data to make planning and control decisions. Such data comes from a database, which is contained in files maintained by the organization. This database is an essentia l component f an MIS. Manual procedures that are used to collect and process information and computer hardware are obvious ingredients f an MIS. MIS sub serves managerial function, collects stores, evaluates information systematically and routinely, supports planning and cont