Computer Information

Systems
 Objectives of this Course
• This course deals with the process of
designing, developing and implementing
computer based information systems in an
organisation.
– Question to class
• What have you learnt so far?
• What are the other subjects being taught?
• What are the other MIS/ CIS related subjects that
will be taught later?
Course Content
Why we need Information?
 Basic questions
• WHAT is the purpose?
• WHAT do I need to be SUCCESSFUL in
that purpose?
• HOW to fulfill those needs?
 Questions

• What are the different types of business &

what can be the different information
needs?
• How do we capture these information?
• Source & target audience for these
information
Introductory Case Study Discussion
• Knowing your customer.
– What do they want?
– What should they want?
• Knowing your product.
– What are you selling?
– What should you sell?
• Knowing your channel of distribution.
– How do you sell?
"The secret of business is to
know something that nobody
else knows."
 Much of the data to answer the questions exists and more is available
but there is a growing gap in the ability of organizations to analyze it

Information
Availability

Knowledge Gap
Data

Analytical
Potential

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Source: Gartner Group
 Discussion Questions

– What challenges you the most in your effort to

make informed decisions?
– What roadblocks do you have to cross in order
to get the information that you need to do your
job?
– What you need to do to move data to
information to knowledge to Decision?
 The Value Chain
• Data
– Lifestyle
– Point of Sales
– Demographic & Geographic
• Information
– X lives in Z
– S is Y years old
– X and S moved
– W has money in Z
• Knowledge
– Product A is bought X% of time if product B is bought
– Amount of matter Y is mostly used in region Z
– Customers of class Y will use X% of C during period D
• Decision
– Let us promote product A in region Z in stores
– Send catalogs to houses of profile P
– Allocate X% of funds to population B
– Offer additional service to client P
 Key Issues?
• How do I proactively manage risks of my
receivables portfolio?
• How does supplier performance impact
customer satisfaction and revenue?
• How does employee tenure, training &
compensation affect efficiency and cross-selling
performance?
• How do we look our shareholders?
• Can we improve and create value?
• What must we excel at?
• How do our customer see us?
 The meaning and Role of MIS in
Managing
• The manager of tomorrow
• Systems view of business
• Advances in Management
• The MIS
• Example of MIS
• The Process of MIS development
• MIS organisation within the Company
 What Do Managers Do?
• Management Functions
– Planning
• Setting objectives and determining in advance
exactly how the objectives will be met.
– Organizing
• Delegating and coordinating tasks
and allocating resources to achieve
objectives.
– Leading
• Influencing employees to work
toward achieving objectives.
– Controlling
• Establishing and implementing mechanisms to
ensure that objectives are achieved.
The Systems Relationship among the
Management Functions
Planning

Controlling Organizing

Leading

Exhibit 1–3
 Manager of Tomorrow
• Challenge- manage the change in the
conceptual framework that underlies all
organisations and operations. Change will
be in the development of system
concepts. That is all aspects of total
business including people, their activities,
physical parts of business and suppliers,
customers etc.
• Use of Information/ Knowledge
 New Workplace Issues and
Challenges Technology and Speed

Networking and
Boundaryless Globalization
Relationships and Diversity

Ethics and Knowledge,

Social Learning,
Responsibility Quality, and
Continuous
Improvement

Participative
Management, Knowledge
Empowerment, Management
and Teams
Change, Creativity, Innovation,
and Entrepreneurship
New Workplace Issues and Challenges (cont’d)
• Technology and Speed
– E-business: work done by using electronic
linkages (including the Internet) between
employees, partners, suppliers, and
customers.
– E-commerce: business exchanges or
transactions that occur electronically.
• Globalization and Diversity
– Mergers are creating larger globalized firms.
– Firms competing globally have to act locally.
– Diversity is increasing as minorities grow
and markets globalize.
E-Commerce

Exhibit 1–8
New Workplace Issues and Challenges (cont’d)
• Knowledge, Learning, Quality, and
Continuous Improvement
– Information is the foundation of knowledge
which, in turn, is the foundation of
competitive advantage.
• Knowledge workers
• The learning organization
• Knowledge Management
– Involves everyone in an organization in
sharing knowledge and applying it to
continuously improve products and
processes.
 Problems
Business Issues
•Evolving business scenarios with changing customer demographics
•Increasing complexity in assessing risk
•Expanding challenges in tracking and managing performance
•Increasing amounts of data providing little valuable information
•CEO’s are demanding more

Technological Issues
•Operational systems are aging
•Key data resides in multiple systems from different vendors
•Access to data is complicated, difficult to find and often requires special
requests to IT
•The data isn’t timely
•Data isn’t information and doesn’t tell you what’s really going on
 What if?
What if you could……..
•Provide a clearer picture of your company’s status on
a single page?
•Drill down into detailed information from a big
picture view?
•Be proactively notified when key events occur within
your company?
•Access the information you need without having to
involve your IT organization?
.…wouldn’t your BOSS/ CEO be happier?
 Systems View of Business
• Past Isolated problem solving.
– Shoe sales droplack of effort by salesman
 sales mgt problem train/ replace
salesman.
• Systems approach is to understand many
factors affecting sales.
 Manufacturing System
• A group of people, machines and facilities (a set
of elements) work to produce specified number
& types of products (seek a common goal) by
operating on product specs, schedules, raw
materials, sub-assemblies, and electrical power
converted to mechanical power (operate on
data, matter and energy) to yield the specified
products and information by the date the
customer wants them (yield matter in a time
reference) .
 Business organisation System
• A group of people (a set of elements) gathers
and processes materials and informational
resources (form an activity) toward a set of
multiple common goals including an economic
profit for the business (seek common goals) by
performing financing, design, production and
marketing (operate on data, energy and matter),
to achieve finished products and their sale at a
specified minimum rate per year (yield matter in
a time reference)
 Management Information System
• A group of people, set of manuals, data
processing equipments (a set of elements)
select, store, process and retrieve data
(operate on data & matter) to reduce the
uncertainty in decision making (seek a
common goal) by yielding information for
managers at the time they can most
efficiently use it (yield information in a time
reference).
 System
• A system is therefore a set of elements
performing an activity or a process
seeking a common goal by operating on
data and/or material and or energy in a
time reference to yield information and/or
energy and or matter.
 System Approach to Managing
• Aims to
– Developing and managing operating
systems (eg money flows, manpower
systems, manufacturing, etc)
– Designing information systems for
decision making
• What is the link between the above
two processes?
 The link
The Reason for Information System
design is to assist in making decisions
regarding management of operating
systems.
• Fundamental Concept of the systems Approach
To Organisation and Management is the
interrelationship of the parts or sub-systems of
the organisation.
– Objective Oriented focussed on design of the whole
as compared to design of components or sub-
systems.
• Classical approach  Authority Based
• Systems Approach  Information Based.
– Achieve Synergy
– Question:
– What are the business processes in an organisation
and what are the information reqmts at each stage?
 Fish & Prawns Restaurant
• Function – components vs Process
-systems
• Cooking area and process
• Serving Process
• Dining area and collections
 Changes in Managing Style

• Systems Approach vs Inductive Style

• Necessity for Systems Approach
 Modern Organisation Theory- A
Systems View
• An organisation is a set of sub-systems
whose interaction determines its survival.
– What are the strategic parts of the system?
– What is the nature of their mutual
dependencies?
– What are the main processes in the system
that link the parts together and facilitate their
adjustments to each other?
– What are the goals sought by the systems?

Elements of Modern Org Theory

 Questions
• What was the initial role of MIS?
• Process Data and present it in the form of
reports
• What were the activities?
• Storing  Collection  Processing
• What was the nature of MIS?
• More impersonal
• What was the next step?
• Distinction between Information and Data
 Questions
• What is information in simple terms?
• Processed Data
• But data can be processed in different ways
• What did this lead to?
• So this was more individual oriented
• The obvious next stage of MIS?
• Provoke Decisions!
• Do we need to know all?
• Exception reporting
• Need Based reporting
 Where did this Need Lead to?
• Need can be different for different people.
• Anybody may need data, any time.
• What arrived?
• DATABASE
• The next fundamental change in computing style
that happened was?
• End user Computing/ PCs..
• The result?
• User becoming independent of computer professionals.
• MIS turned into a Decision Making System
• Concept of MIS gives high regard to
individual and his ability to use information
• Analysis of data to provide information is
based on many academic disciplines.
– What are they?
• Theories, Principles and Concepts of
– Management Science,
– Management Accounting,
– Operations Research,
– Organisational Behaviour
– Engineering
– Computer Science
– Psychology
– Human Behaviour
• The foundation of MIS is the principles of
Management and its practices.
• MIS uses the concept of Management
Control in its design and relies heavily on
the fact that the decision maker is a
human processor of information.
 MIS

BUSINESS GOALS

IS
M
& MISSION

TO
E APPLICATION OF PURE
UR
& SOCIAL SCIENCE
T
UC
R

APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES &

ST

PRACTICES OF MANAGEMENT
RT
O
PP

USE OF DATABASE & KNOWLEDGEBASE

SU

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE

CONCEPTUAL VIEW OF MIS

 EIS

BUSINESS
INFORMATION SYSTEM

RE
TU
MISSION CRITICAL
UC
R APPLICATIONS
ST

FUNCTIONAL INFORMATION
IS

SUB-SYSTEMS
D
TE
RA

DATABASE & KNOWLEDGEBASE

G
TE
IN

DATA PROCESSING & ANALYSIS SYSTEMS

OLTP, DATA & VALIDATION SYSTEMS

PHYSICAL VIEW OF MIS

 Questions
• Define MIS
• What are the points that a formal system should
take care of?
– Handling of Voluminous data
– Confirmation of the validity of data and transaction
– Complex processing of data and multidimensional
analysis.
– Quick search and retrieval
– Mass Storage
– Communication of the information to the user on time.
– Fulfilling the changing needs of the information.
 Role of the MIS
• MIS satisfies diverse needs through a
variety of systems such as:-
– Query Systems
– Analysis Systems
– Modelling Systems
– Decision Support Systems
 Role of the MIS
• MIS helps in?
– Strategic Planning
– Management Control
– Operational Control
– Transaction Processing
 Management as a control System
– See figure.

• Characteristics of control system

– EARLY warning system
– Performance Standard
– Strategic Controls.
– Feedback
– Accuracy & timeliness
– Realistic
– The information Flow
– Exception Principle
 MIS a support to Management
Steps Decisions

Planning A selection from various alternatives-

strategies, resources, methods etc

Organisation A selection of a combination out of

several combinations of the goals,
people, resources, method and
authority.
Staffing Providing proper manpower
 MIS a support to Management
Directing Choosing a method from the various
methods of directing the efforts in the
organisation
Coordinating Choice of the Tools and techniques
for coordinating the efforts for
optimum results
Controlling A selection of exceptional conditions
and the decision guidelines.

• Figure
 Management Effectiveness and
MIS
• Emphasis on Management Philosophy
and Environment factors

– Different Philosophies give rise to different

end-results through different actions

– Figure
 Organisation as a System
• Figure: Modified Model of the Organisation
System
– A system is a collection of elements.

– There are more elements to the system than mere

people.
• S-Curve
– All organisations & their business go through the
different phases of growth cycle in stages.
– Each phase generates new goals to be served.
• If the changed or displaced goals are not reflected in the
organisation as a system, the organisation is bound to suffer
from decay
 MIS: Organisation Effectiveness
• Figure
• Considerations in MIS design
• MIS plays an imp role in creating
organisational behaviour which in turn sets
the goals for achievement. Technology and
people decide the org structure and style of
management.
• Figure explains the impact of and
relationship of MIS on org behaviour. How?
 Planning Dimensions

• Planning
– Determining what you want to accomplish
and developing approaches to achieving
your objectives.
• Planning Dimensions:

Exhibit 5–1
 Strategic and Operational Planning
• Strategic Planning
– The process of developing a mission and
long-range objectives and determining in
advance how they will be accomplished.
• Operational Planning
– The process of setting short-range
objectives and determining in advance how
they will be accomplished.
• Strategy
– A plan for pursuing the mission and
achieving objectives.
The Strategic Planning Process

Exhibit 5–2
 Strategic Planning
• Corporate-Level Strategy
– The plan for managing multiple lines of
businesses
• Business-Level Strategy
– The plan for managing one line of business
• Functional-Level Strategy
– The plan for managing one area of the
business
Strategic and Operational Levels

Exhibit 5–3
Information Quality
Types of Information Systems
Top Five Reasons for Top Five Reasons for
Success Failure
Us er i nvo lvement Lack of user in put

Executive In comp le te
manageme nt require me nts and
support specific ations
Cle ar sta te ment of Changing
requir eme nts require me nts and
specific ations
Pro per pla nning Lack of executive
support
Realist ic Te chnolo gical
expectatio ns incompetence
• OLAP
USING DSS
• Knowledge management
Systems
Domains of Artificial Intelligence
 CIS Concepts
• Initial Concept of MIS-> Data and
reporting
– Data collection to processing

• Information= Product of analysed data

– Egs.
• Data analysis can be in different ways
– Individual oriented
– Provoke the individual to action
 CIS Concepts-2
• Selective approach Exception Reporting
• Need based exception reporting
– Different needs from same data
• Rise of Database Concept

Emergence of End-user Computing using

Multiple databases
– Brought fundamental changes in MIS
 CIS Concepts-3
The change
Decentralisation of the system

Became Independent of

• MIS became a Decision Making System

 CIS Concepts-4
• Job of
→Manage the
Information
Resource

• Job of
→Information
Processing
 CIS Concepts-5
• MIS A system which handles the
databases, provides computing facilities to
the end user and gives a variety of
decision making tools to the user of the
system
 CIS Concepts-6
New concept based on:-
– Individual’s ability to use information
– Information through Data analysis, using
academic disciplines, which includes
• Theories, Principles and concepts of Management
Science
• Management Accounting
• O.R. /O.B./ Engineering /Computer Science
/Psychology and human behaviour
To design the MIS and the DSS tools.
 MIS
• Management Information System (MIS) Computer-based or manual
system that transforms data into information useful in the support of
decision making. MIS can be classified as performing three
functions:
• (1) To generate reports-for example, financial statements, inventory
status reports, or performance reports needed for routine or non-
routine purposes.
• (2) To answer what-if questions asked by management. For
example, questions such as "What would happen to cash flow if the
company changes its credit term for its customers?" can be
answered by MIS. This type of MIS can be called Simulation.
• (3) To support decision making. This type of MIS is appropriately
called Decision Support System (DSS). DSS attempts to integrate
the decision maker, the data base, and the quantitative models
being used.
 1.2 Types of Information Systems
• Information Systems that support specific
functional areas and operations include:
– Functional Area Information System
– Transaction Processing System (TPS)
– Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System
– Interorganizational Information System
– Electronic Commerce Systems
 Types of Information Systems
(Continued)
• Functional area information systems or
departmental information systems
– Function: Support the activities within specific
functional areas.
– Example: System for processing payroll.
 Types of Information Systems
(Continued)
• Transaction processing system (TPS)
– Function: Process transaction data from business
events.
– Example: Walmart checkout point-of-sale terminal.
• Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP)
– Function: Integrate all functional areas of the
organization.
– Example: Oracle, SAP
 Types of Information Systems
(Continued)
• Interorganizational information systems (IOS) are
information systems that connect two or more
organizations and support interorganizational operations
such as supply chain management.
– Function: Manage flows of products, services and information
among organizations.
– Example: Walmart Retail Link System connecting suppliers to
Walmart.
– Supply chain describes the flow of materials, information,
money and services from raw material suppliers through
factories and warehouses to the end customers.
 Types of Information Systems
(Continued)
• Electronic Commerce Systems
– Function: Enable transactions among
organizations and between organizations and
customers.
– Business-to-Business (B2B)
– Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
– Example: www.dell.com
 Support for Organizational
Employees
• Knowledge workers are professional
employees such as financial and
marketing analysts, engineers, lawyers
and accountants.
– They create information and knowledge about
a specific subject area and integrate it into an
organization.
– Act as advisors to middle managers and
executives.
 Support for Organizational
Employees (Continued)
• Office Automation System (OAS)
– Function: Support daily work activities of
individuals and groups.
– Example: Microsoft Office
– Support: Clerical staff, lower and middle
managers and knowledge workers.
 Support for Organizational
Employees (Continued)
• Management Information System (MIS)
– Function: Produce reports summarized from
transaction data, usually in one functional
area.
– Example: Report on total sales of each
customer.
– Supports: Primarily for middle managers,
sometimes for lower level managers as well.
 Support for Organizational
Employees (Continued)
• Decision Support System (DSS)
– Function: Provide access to data and
analysis tools.
– Example: “What if” analysis of changes in a
budget.
– Supports: Primarily for Middle managers and
knowledge workers
 Support for Organizational
Employees (Continued)
• Expert System (ES)
– Function: Mimic human expert in a particular
area and make a decision.
– Example: Credit card approval analysis.
– Supports: Knowledge workers
 Support for Organizational
Employees (Continued)
• Executive Information System (EIS)
– Function: Present structured, summarized
information about aspects of business
important to executives.
– Example: Status of production by product.
– Supports: Top managers of the organization.