Summary of the book Business Information Systems, for the course Information Management. 6th edition. Chapter 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 15. ISBN: 978-0-273-71382-1
Information Management
Book: Business Information Systems
Vu 2016/2017, Dominique van Schagen.
Chapter 1
- three levels of managerial decision taking:
1. strategic planning
• senior management
• broad issues concerning an organization’s development over the long term, e.g. what
markets to move into
• long-term horizon (much of the information the senior management needs will relate to the
future)
2. tactical planning and control
• middle management
• resource allocation within budget
• half future, half present
3. operational planning and control
• day-to-day operations
• hiring and firing personnel
• highly detailed, certain, immediately relevant
- structured and non-structured decisions:
• structured decisions:
• are governed by clear rules.
• can be left to low-grade personnel or even be automated
• have clearly specifiable and unambiguous information
• have a straightforward process of arriving at the decision
• unstructured decisions:
• have unclarity about what information is needed and how the decision should be reached
• use rules of thumb (heuristics) and ‘experience’
• semi-structured decisions:
• are where any of the three intelligence, design and choice elements are structured and some
are not
• lie in between of structured and non-structured
,- historical development of management information systems:
- in the last two decades:
• computers are used more by business organizations to carry out routine data processing, due
to the increased power of computing technology and its increasing cost
• management changed its thinking by accepting fast, effective provision of targeted info for
management planning and control
- this led to increased growth in management information systems, because of:
• cost: marginal costs are lower because the information is stored forever once it is stored
once.
• speed: it is faster because it is stored. So it may only take minutes for even writing a
complex report.
• interaction: users can request information and data online, which allows end users to be
selective about information from the MIS.
• flexibility: there will be new problems. However, a modern MIS will have in-built
flexibility that enables the manager to decide what information is needed.
- alternative terminology:
• describes ‘management information systems’ not as a designation for systems that assists
managers of a business in making decisions, but as a subset of this.
• highest-level: executive information systems (EIS)
- used by senior management to assist in strategic decision making
- typical examples: medium- to long-term forecasting and budgeting
• middle layer, tactical planning, is divided into two categories:
1. facilitating routine summarizing and reporting systems (here the MIS) —> short- to
medium-term forecasting and budgeting in inventory control
2. systems that allow ad hoc queries and analytical reporting, decision support systems
(DSS) —> analysis of sales, pricing and costing, scheduling production
• lowest layer: transaction processing systems (TPS)
- includes systems such as payroll, order tracking, machine control and employee
records
• complete set of layers:
• computer-based information systems,
• management support systems or
• business information support systems
• in this book: management information systems.
- database management system: where all the information is stored
- data is controlled, consistent and available to provide information
- information from a database can go to:
- models
• used to model predicted outcomes
• decision support system
- applications software
• e.g. global ageing of debt
- direct enquiry
• e.g. request names and balances of all customers with an unpaid balance greater than a given
figure.
- management information systems and decisions
• MIS aid the decision making by providing relevant information
• current data used for predictive purposes (using a model to generate future estimates from
existing data)
• model is used to:
• test the impact of altering the values of parameters
• analyse the effects of alternative plans
, • test the sensitivity of predictions to change
- special attributes of information when designing an MIS:
• Relevance: information is relevant to a decision if its content potentially affects the decision
taken.
• Accuracy: information should be as accurate as required.
• Timeliness: information must be presented within the time-span within which it is useful.
• Target: information must be directed to the correct recipient.
• Format: information should be presented in an understandable format.
• Interactive nature: information sometimes should be interactive in order to make a correct
decision.
• Control: information should be secure.
- approaches to MIS design
• by-product approach:
- developing a computerized system to deal with all the paperwork that was done manually
before
- only passing attention is paid to the information needs of management
- little or no analysis of requirements is undertaken
• null approach:
- reaction against the shortcomings of the by-product approach
- lays little emphasis on the production of formal information for management by means of
an MIS
- sees the activities undertaken by top-management as dynamic and ever-changing
• key variable approach:
- assumes that certain attributes of an organization are crucial for assessing its performance,
taking decisions and planning
- key variables are identified and the MIS is designed to provide reports on the values of
them
- variation to straight reporting: exception reporting.
• variable is only reported if it lies outside a ‘normal’ range
• total study:
- compares the information requirement of management and the information supply of the
MIS.
- IBM business system planning (BSP) does this by relying on the results of interviewing a
large number of managers to determine their key decisions, objectives and information
needs.
- gaining overall understanding of the information needs and getting to know where it is
currently going wrong
- expensive on manpower
- vast amount of data collected are not easy to analyse
- unacceptable biases may occur
• critical success factor approach (CSF):
- organization has certain goals, specific factors are crucial in achieving them
- main applicability in the design of systems for the provision of control information
- less effective at designing MIS for planning
- information- rather than data-led
Voordelen van het kopen van samenvattingen bij Stuvia op een rij:
Verzekerd van kwaliteit door reviews
Stuvia-klanten hebben meer dan 700.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet je zeker dat je de beste documenten koopt!
Snel en makkelijk kopen
Je betaalt supersnel en eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of Stuvia-tegoed voor de samenvatting. Zonder lidmaatschap.
Focus op de essentie
Samenvattingen worden geschreven voor en door anderen. Daarom zijn de samenvattingen altijd betrouwbaar en actueel. Zo kom je snel tot de kern!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper dominiquevschagen. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €4,49. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.
