DEVELOPMENT OF MIS
Development of Long Rate Plans of the MIS
Any kind of business activity calls for long range plans for
success, the same being true for MIS.
The plan for development and its implementation is a basic necessity for
MIS. In MIS the information is
recognized as a major resource like capital, time and capacity. And if this resource is to be managed
well, it calls upon the management to plan for it and control it for the
appropriate use in the organization.
Most of the organizations do not recognize `Information' as a resource.
They have looked at information as one of the many necessities for
conducting the business activity. Hence, due regard is often not given for its
planned development and use. Many organizations have spent financial resources
on computers purely to expedite the activity of data collection and processing.
Many organizations have purchased computers for data
processing and for meeting the statutory requirements of filing the returns and
reports to the Government. Computers are used mainly for computing and
accounting the business transactions and have not been considered as a tool for
information processing.
The organizations have invested in computers and expanded its
use by adding more or bigger computers to take care of the numerous transactions
in the business. In this approach
the information processing function of the computers in the organization never
got it s due regard as an important asset to the organization. In fact, this
function is misinterpreted as data processing for expeditious generation of
reports and returns, and not as information processing for management action and
decisions.
However, the scheme has been changing since late eighties
when the computers became more versatile, in the function of Storage,
Communication, Intelligence and Language. The computer technology is so advanced
that the barriers of storage, distance, understanding of language and speed are
broken.
With the advancement of computer technology, it is now
possible to recognize information as valuable resources like money and capacity.
In short, we need a Management Information System flexible
enough to deal with the changing information needs of the organization. It
should be conceived as an open system continuously interacting with the business
environment with a built-in mechanism to provide the desired information as per
the new requirements of the management. The designing of such as open system is
a complex task. It can be achieved only if the MIS is planned, keeping in view,
the plan of the business management of the organization.
The plan of MIS is concurrent to the business plan of the
organization. The information needs for the implementation of the business plan
should find place in the MIS. To ensure such an alignment possibility, it is
necessary that the business plan – strategic or otherwise, states the
information needs. The information needs are the traced to the source data and
the systems in the organization which generate such a data. The plan of
development of the MIS is linked with the steps of the implementation in a
business development plan. The system of information generation is so planned
that strategic information is provided for the strategic planning, control
information is provided for a short term planning and execution.
