Managing Information (MI) Assessment Answer

Interconnected Information Systems Facilitating Managerial Decision Making

Information systems contain a wide range of interconnected elements which helps in collecting, manipulating, storing, and disseminating information and data along with providing feedback for meeting a specific goal. This mainly includes MIS or management information systems which can help the manager to make decisions in a valid way. They are capable to make informed decisions as well as provide other benefits such as realizing corporate objectives, reducing costs, and increasing revenue. MIS will be able to focus on specific functional lines of the corporate sector and work effectively to produce financial MIS such as auditing procedures, products, and funds management. Manufacturing MIS technology will be helpful in monitoring and controlling services, products and materials flow. The marketing MIS feature will help the manager in doing product development, pricing, sales forecasting, and distribution. There is also the human resources MIS which would be effective to handle the entire human resources department as well as manage activities in relation to employees (Markgraf, 2019). In addition, it also provides updated and accurate information along with performing various analytic functions. Other than this, there are also decision support systems at the group and executive levels, transaction processing systems, and specialized systems.

Besides this, there are the decision support systems (DSS) that can bring effectiveness within decision-making regarding semi-structured and unstructured business issues. The decision-making level with regards to the capabilities of DSS comprises strategic managers getting engaged within certain long-term decisions made in an infrequent way. On the other hand, operational managers are engaged to make decisions more frequently (Ada & Ghaffarzadeh, 2015). Therefore, the decision frequency is low for strategic managers and high for operational managers. In group support systems or GSS, managers will be able to take decisions with the help of various elements of the DSS and additional support for providing effective support at the time of group decision making. There is the executive support system or ESS containing all types of procedures, data, software, and hardware. The ESS can be utilized by managers for assisting senior-level executives in their working procedures. It is also known as the executive information systems (EIS). Senior managers get the availability of a system through this and are able to highlight, compare and analyze trends for help in governance of the strategic direction within the organization. Both MIS and DSS offer models and information within a form for facilitating strategic and tactical decision-making (Bremhorst, 2017). For example, they can utilize the information reporting systems or IRS which are useful in delivering pre-specified reports with regard to regular decision-making. With the help of knowledge work systems or WKS, managers evaluating this level help in aiding knowledge employees, and on the other hand, data workers primarily shall be aided by office automation systems.

Operational Information Systems such as transaction processing systems or TPS can be utilized by managers for managing funds and information exchange between third parties like distributors, suppliers and customers and the company. Financial reporting Systems or FRS would assist managers in the organization to produce traditional financial statements as well as other reports necessary. Managers can provide the internal management team with different financial reports specifically for decision making and other internal purposes through a management reporting system or MRS (Markgraf, 2019). Lastly, there are process control systems that are vital to manufacturing industries in order to control goods manufacturing procedures. There are some potential differences between MIS and DSS. MIS can be utilized normally with structured issues whereas DSS can only handle unstructured issues that have complexities to be programmed easily. The company is primarily supported by MIS and users possess fewer controls in the short term. DSS can support the whole company, small groups and individuals and more control is acquired by users in this system. In MIS focus is given on information only whereas in DSS managers focus on their styles of decision making and actual decisions. In MIS, response time is provided generally longer as compared to a DSS. Users can easily implement DSS and are flexible in characteristics (L. Alter, 2014). Therefore, less time is taken by it for developing and being capable of responding to certain user requests. Both systems will provide various types of advantages to managers during the time of assisting within decision making, having the potential for running scenarios depending on major applications like spreadsheets and carrying out evaluation and implementation. By applying them, managers will be able to take corrective actions for reaching their aims.

References

Ada, Ş. and Ghaffarzadeh, M. (2015) “Decision making based on Management Information System and decision support system,” European Researcher, 93(4), pp. 260–269. Available at: https://doi.org/10.13187/er.2015.93.260.

Bremhorst, M. (2017) “How information systems can support data-driven decision-making,” Academy of Management Proceedings, 2017(1), p. 15256. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2017.15256abstract.

Alter, S. (2014) How effective managers use information systems, Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/1976/11/how-effective-managers-use-information-systems (Accessed: April 6, 2023).

Markgraf, B. (2019) Importance of Information Systems in an organization, Small Business - Chron.com. Chron.com. Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-information-systems-organization-69529.html (Accessed: April 6, 2023).

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