Question

MIS (Management Information System)

Good information is vital for a company, discuss how do we judge information to be “good information”? support your discussion by providing real-world examples.

Answer 1

MIS (Management Information System)

Good information is vital for a company, discuss how do we judge information to be “good information”? support your discussion by providing real-world examples.

Information is fact, news or knowledge which are organized into values for receiver. Information system is an integrated set of components for collecting, storing and processing data for providing information and digital products that helps to organize and analyze data. Good information system is the combination of people, information technology and business processes that helps to accomplish business objectives. Information system plays an important role in company's business to maintain and provide good customer satisfaction. It make possible for companies to manage all their information, make better decisions and improve the execution of business processes.

Good informations always gives better result in the business operation and organization as whole. We can judge information to be "good information" in the following sense :

Qualities of "Good Information" :

● Its presentation : An information should be presented in clear an readable way. An information should be readable, that is should be decoded easily by the receiver.  

● Objectivity : The information should be 'balanced'. An information should present all evidence for and against and make conclusion regarding the real world without being biased.

● Information should be relevant : When we look for an information, it is recommended to observe its relevancy. Relevancy of information is the quality of information provided and it should be accurate.

● Method of collecting information : It is important to refer what methodology is used to conduct research and collection information. It is very important that the information provided to the user or the information should be correct, there for the way of gathering information is very important, it will be useful to refer in future also.

● Source of information : It is notable about the source or origin of information, that is, from where and who is created the condent of the information. It provides 'credentials' for a piece of information and supports its status and perceived value. To be a good information, it is essential to identify the provenance of the information for further clarification and the source remains as a proof in future.

● Worth the cost : Information costs money. Information is gathered in costly and takes time to read and assimilate. The user will question about the information, if they received or requested information is worthless.

● Timeliness : Information should be presented in right place and time, unless it is useless. Timing of information is very important, because making decisions and processing, information should available at anytime.

● Meet user's needs : An information should be useful to meet the needs of the users. It should be contain quality results in brief summary instead of lengthy writing.

In short a good information should be : readable, subjective, relevant, honest, up-to-date, clear, current, objective, accurate, well written, reliable, worth the cost,complete, easy to understand etc...

Example :

In a manufacturing of fast-moving consumer good company, it is necessary to create forecasted plan for the next production unit. The manager created an estimate with the collected data and the instructor provides the production chart to the employees according to the forecasted demand chart. They produced the proposed unit stated in the chart. After the submission of product in the market, the manufacturer get knows that the production was over and the data collected for preparing estimates were two year previous than the current year. For the reason of use inaccurate and old data for creating information, the production goes over production and the manufacturer went into great loss because expiry dates of fast-moving cunsumer goods will be for short period of time and it can't sell after it expired.