Question

When it comes to making sound decisions an effective management information system acts as an important part of the process. To what extent would you agree with this perspective and why?

You must draw upon relevant theory, concepts and models and appropriate organisational examples.

In order to complete this task, you will need to consider as a first step the factors outlined in the course materials, referring as a start to the lessons on Introduction and the Role of Business Analysis in Organisations and add relevant external academic sources to your answer.

END OF QUESTIONS

(1200 words) (LO: 1,2)

Answer 1

I will fully agree with role of MIS in sound decision making because MIS as it states Management, Information and systems, so it is a use of information technology for collecting, processing, analysing, storing and put the same in a structured way by the man/human resources which is readily available and easy to use and helps in make decisions by the management/top executives in a fast and easy way.

Introduction:

MIS is the very important tool since it makes it possible to make available data to all the employees and other stakeholders in the company in the real time basis and fast flow of information to all within an organization and it stores the data which makes it possible for all stakeholders to pull out and use the same as per their requirement for quick decision making.

Mobile devices, i.e. smartphones, laptops has made it possible to access the information outside the boundary walls of the company and this enables the employees and other stakeholders to access, use and make decisions faster and this has helped the growth of the company and faster internet run on mobile devices has made it possible.

Some of the important MIS systems are Enterprise Resource Planning, Accounting and Finance System, Sales Forecast System, Business Intelligence System, Supply Chain Management System, Human Resource Management System, Executive Information System, etc.

Management Information System is the study of computers and computing in a business environment and how MIS helps the organizations in taking their operational and future oriented strategic decisions in a more confident way.

MIS also helps in avoiding duplication of work since it helps in eliminating the duplication by showing the relevant information already available which saves time and money for the organization and makes the process and decision making efficient and faster.

Role of business analysis:

Business analysis plays a very significant role in decision making in an organization since business analysis is the systematic and structured way which involves data collection, Storage, processing, reports presentation and decision making on a specific given business problem and their detailed explanation is as under.

For example for a given business problem of how to increase sales and revenue of an organization below is to be done with the help of MIS.

1 Data Collection- For any given business problem it is very necessary first to collect relevant data and for our problem to increase sales and revenue for the organization, first relevant figures related to past sales and revenue is to be taken for example for the last two years.

2 Processing: After collection of sales and revenue data for the last two years it is time to process the same, it means to make a meaningful data in terms of figures on per years basis with relevant trend of sales and revenue and when sales and revenues were high and when these were low and which were the months and also when sales and revenue were low and which were the relevant months and how many festivals had happened during any year and whether sales were high, low or stable during that period and to make report accordingly in a structured way with the helps of chart, graphs made per year basis.

3 Report presentation to Management/Top Executive; After processing the data and generation of report same is to be presented to the management for their further discussion with their group and discussion in their board meeting.

Management also feels comfort and easy to understand and analyse the given business reports which are made with help of different tools, i.e. Sales and Revenue Management Tools, Human Resources Tools since reports generated by these MIS tools are structured, short and easily presentable and easy to make decisions for the future.

4 Decision making by the Management: Based on the report given by concerned team based on last two years relevant data on sales and revenue with per year report and trends of sales and revenue with its high, low and stable periods with some reasons attached with the same and some useful suggestions by the team for the improvement with improvement areas.

Basis the report and given information, management discuss the same internally within board members and analyse on their own what are the reasons for the fall in both sales and revenue and how to rectify this and how to improve upon in sales and revenue in future.

Possible conclusions made by the management can be as per below.

1 Reasons for fall in sales and revenue due to increase in competition and underpricing done by one of the competitor and seasonal and bulk purchase discounts given by the competitors.

2 Not enough number of sales force/sales personnel available in order to reach every part of area, no bulk discounting to the customers, high prices of their products vis a vis competitors and demand and supply gap, for example demand for the company's product is more and supply is less in comparison to that, gap/time lag in fulfilling that demand.

Then management takes below decisions to improve upon its sales and revenue.

A Reduction in price: Management will decrease the price of its products and services in order to match competitors price and to regain the lost market share.

B Festival and Bulk Discount: Company will start giving bulk discounts and festival discounts in order to increase sales of its products and services and increase the revenue accordingly since customers always get fascinated by the bulk discounts and also discounts given at the time of festivals, i.e. Christmas, New Year when people oftenly spends more in order to enjoy the festivals and their holidays.

C Lag in Demand and Supply: Often it happens that demand suddenly increases or there is more demand for the company's products and services and company does not have enough stock to provide for the increased demand and in that case the company looses its customers and sales and revenues both to its competitors and for this management decides to maintain the enough inventory for the given periods for which relevant data were provided by the MIS reports and in this way MIS reports and business analysis helps in increasing sales of the company since company will increase its production and will maintain enough inventory in their stocks and will make that inventory available as per demand conditions since same will help the company in increasing its sales and revenue both.

Effects of implemented decisions: Management with the help of relevant data also check and decides whether the implement strategies based on MIS data of past two years of sales and revenue helps in improving its current year sales and revenue and if it helps with some extent but not fully then again it tries to take other methods like below.

1 Cost cutting: Management asks respected team to give them the MIS sheets based on the cost structure for the producing the products and services and where it can improve upon and lessen its cost of production whether any type of automation of systems is required in order to eliminate the un-necessary cost in order to increasing revenues for sustainable future of the company and to support its future growth.