Question

Measuring performance is an important aspect of MIS. Using your own words, please answer the following questions:
a. Identify and explain the differences between critical success factors (CSFs) and key performance indicators (KPIs). Provide examples.
b. Explain the how CSFs and KPIs could help managers to measure the success of MIS projects? Provide examples.

Answer 1

a. Critical success factors (CSF) are those entities, which determine the success of a particular business operation or organization as a whole. Some examples are increased cash flow or customer base.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are basically the tools, which are used to measure the performance of any business process or organization as a whole. KPIs help in tracking the CSFs. Some examples are low turnover, low attrition, no of products sold, etc.

b. The CSFs for a MIS can be the successful integration of data or the ease of data utilization. The KPIs related to MIS can be percentage of data covered, percentage of data processing, etc.

The objective of a successful MIS can be laid with the specification of CSFs. The extent of realization of CSFs can be measured with the help of KPIs. So, both CSFs and KPIs are essential to map and measure the successful implementation of a MIS project.