2.  The aim of this presentation is to help you understand what a management information system is and how it can be used to help inform decisions.

3.  Piece of software that collects data from a range of sources and turns it into information.  The returned information will be appropriate for the recipient’s needs to enable them to make decisions.  A MIS seeks to satisfy individual data needs.

4.  Consider the following:  A mobile phone shop manager needs information regarding their shop: › Current stock levels › Finance › Workers › Sales figures › Etc

5.  An Area Manager will need information regarding all the information gathered by all the shops within their area.  They might need to know summary information such as sales figures so they can weight them up against predicted sales.  They do not need to know the same level of information as the branch manager needs.

6.  Strategic managers (the ones that decide how the company moves forward) will need summary information from their regional managers.  A financial manager may want information regarding all the sale figures within each region.  A marketing manager may want information regarding the top selling phones in each region.

7.  Different managers have different information needs. DataMIS Shop Manager Area Manager Financial Manager Personnel Manager Marketing Manager Sales Manager

8.  Provide reliable information. › Unreliable information outputted by the system would succeed in losing the trust of the people using it.  Provide up-to-date information. › Once information has become old it should archive it. Old information is useless to a business man.  Present information clearly. › Depending on the information, it should be able to present information in the most suitable way e.g. in a graph, table or text.  Illustrate trends in areas of business. › This would help with future planning of the business.  Ultimately, help a company become more profitable and give it the edge over rival companies.

9.  A MIS is not a processing system.  A data processing system takes raw data and turns it into regular and well- defined forms.  MIS systems take data and rearranges it into different forms depending on the user.

10.  Examples of a MIS › A report showing the prices charged for flights to New York by competitors. › A report showing how many mobile phones were sold in each shop in a chain. › A report showing how profits varied each month over the last year. › A report detailing the overtime worked in each supermarket in a chain of supermarkets. › A report showing how many customers each till operator dealt with in a single shift.  Examples of data processors › Processing monthly bank statements for customers. › Processing employee payslips. › Processing a list of supermarket items that must be reordered. › Processing a list of people who have not paid their annual subscription to a club. › Processing a list of pupils’ grades in a class.

11.  Define a ‘Management Information System’.  MIS can produce outputs in a wide range of formats. Give specific examples to illustrate the range of formats found in a car production factory.  State the characteristics of a good MIS.  What is the fundamental difference between a MIS and a data processing system?