Discussion On The Concepts Of Management Information System
Question
Task:
Main task
The assignment should critically discuss the key concepts of MIS learned in the first 6 weeks of the module. The assignment should include a title page (indicating the total word-count), should be no more than 1500 words and should include references from peer-reviewed sources (i.e. books and academic Journals) formatted using the Harvard referencing style.
The key questions to be answered as part of the assignment are the following:
1. You are starting a small bike messenger company. Given your type of services (hand-delivering packages within a small geographical area), could your firm be a digital firm If so, what would make this a digital firm
2. What are the main changes taking place in organizational use of information systems Which of these do you think is having the greatest impact on businesses
3. How does a company's use of information systems affect its corporate strategies Provide an example.
4. Why is the building of a house an appropriate analogy for the building of an information system
5. What are cross-functional business processes Give an example.
6. You have been hired by a non-profit organization to implement a system to handle donations. The system must be able to handle and record telephone, text, and Internet donations, provide up-to-the-minute reports, and create highly customizable mailing lists. In addition, event fundraisers need to be able to quickly access a donor's information and history. Which of the following systems will best meet these needs Briefly explain and justify the rationale of your choice.
A) TPS
B) TPS with DSS capabilities
C) TPS with MIS capabilities
D) TPS with ESS capabilities
E) DSS with MIS capabilities
7. You have been hired by BizCom, a business communications consultancy that services many clients in different industries throughout the United States, to help it improve its profit margin. BizCom provides customized recommendations for the best use of a client's existing resources for improving internal communications, typically delivered via documentation in different media. The company has approximately 50 consultants, all of whom are located in its central headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. What type of system do you recommend that BizCom install to improve its business processes and increase its profit margin Briefly explain and justify the rationale of your choice.
A) An extranet, to enable quick collaboration over the Internet, minimize the time spent communicating with the client, and minimize the amount of paperwork needed
B) A CRM, to maintain easily accessible customer records to minimize the time spent looking for client data
C) A KMS, for minimizing redundant work on similar clients
D) A marketing system, for improving sales levels
E) A TPS, to help manage all daily activities and transactions
8. The pet products chain you work for, Pets Galore, has noticed that one of its brands of dog food is not selling nearly as well as anticipated. What information systems of the business will you use to determine the reason for the poor sales Discuss what information you will retrieve from which system. Which of the information systems will be most important for your analysis Which of the systems will be least important
9. You are consulting with the owner of Better Fitness, a national chain of gyms. What strategies might Better Fitness use in applying information services to achieve a competitive advantage 10. Identify at least four benefits and four challenges of enterprise systems.
Answer
Answer to Question 1
The bike messenger company will be providing hand-delivering packages within a small geographic area by implementing management information system. To provide these services to the target audiences the company needs to establish a digital business strategy through which the destinations, pick-up points and delivery partner allocation can become easier and less time-consuming. Hence there is scope for this bike company to be an effective digital firm. To enhance the significance of this digital firm, the company should digitally maintain and mediate important business relationships (Laudon and Laudon, 2019). Through emerging and strong communication platforms, relationships and internal interactions can be carried out. Core business processes like determining the pick-up and drop location of the packages, communicating with customers, acquiring important details about the customers before deleting, allocating delivery partners should be managed through official websites, interactive platforms and other digital networks. Flexible work hours can be allocated to the employees recording and accumulating package or customer-related data as they will be working from remote locations using digital platforms.
Answer to Question 2
The advent of information systems has provided a lot of changes within different business organisations. The emergence of e-commerce platforms is one of the biggest changes associated with information systems. In the contemporary scenario, online retailing and online mobile advertisement have become major platforms to reach a wider range of audiences throughout the globe (McNurlin, Sprangue and Bui, 2013). The business management is also explicitly using the information systems to bring in new changes. Usage of virtual meetings, business intelligence applications has expanded due to the information systems (Lamb, Sawyer and Kling, 2004). For example, online retailing has enhanced the accessibility of the products provided to the customers, which contributed to higher customer satisfaction and business attractiveness. On the other hand, during the times of the Covid-19 pandemic, when every physical business premises has been shut down, the virtual meetings have minimised the disruption in the communication processes amongst staff. They have also been able to foster a collaborative environment amongst the employees and provided clarity of the job descriptions to the employees.
Answer to Question 3
One of the major strategic business objectives of the information system is to implement corporate strategies to enable an organisation to achieve its corporate goals. One of the important corporate goals of an organisation is to know its customers and implement strategies according to their demands. The information system helps the companies to gain elaborated information on markets, trends and customers which can enhance their research capabilities. Using the information systems, an organisation can integrate their business performances which is one of the main corporate strategies to acquire more customer satisfaction and generate more revenue (Chege, Wang and Suntu, 2020). For example, Kenya Airways has been facing a failed corporate strategy as they are losing their customers due to lower satisfaction quotients. With the help of the Oracle marketing cloud systems, they have been able to indulge in cross-channel customer interactions to accumulate and manage data about their choices (Preez, 2015). Additionally, using information systems, they have created online campaigns to advertise their new extended routes to the target audiences.
Figure 1: Functions of an Information System
(Source: Slidetodoc, 2022)
Answer to Question 4
The hammer, bricks, sand, cement build a house but a house does not only consist of these things only. Proper architecture, planning, design, setting are very crucial parts of building a house that solve the purpose of providing a roof to the individuals. The appropriate application of all these stages enhances the effectiveness of the house itself. Similarly in the information system, hardware like computers, different programs only play the role of hammer, nail, sand and cement. However, without the effective organisational process, culture, structure, innovative ideas, design, plan of execution the efficiency of the information system cannot be enhanced. In this particular context building a house and building information, the system becomes similar which makes the houses the perfect analogy for describing the development of an information system.
Answer to Question 5
One of the major benefits of the information system is that it fosters cross-functional business processes. Some of the examples of cross-functional business processes are product development, a diverse workforce through efficient human resource management, lead management and client order fulfilment process (Shamset al. 2018). The client order fulfilment process is one of the major examples of the cross-functional business process. After a certain order is generated by the client, the order is submitted to the database using the digital network channels. Checking, approving credit and generating an invoice for that specific order are the following steps after submitting the order (Aiyeret al. 2019). The products related to order are then assembled, shipped and delivered to the specific clients. Close coordination of sales, manufacturing and accounting processes initiated by the business information system can improve the efficacy of the order fulfilment process addressed above. Following the activity flowchart, a cross-functional business process is enhanced which provides sufficient client satisfaction for generating more revenues in upcoming years.
Figure 2: Order Fulfilment Process Flowchart
(Source:Sparks, 2019)
Answer to Question 6
The different functions that need to be carried out in the non-profit organisation like handling donations, recording telephones, texts, providing up-to-date reports, creating customisable mailing lists, recording donors’ history and information for further accessibility, will need the TPS with MIS capabilities. The TPS system with MIS capabilities combines the functionalities of both transaction processing system and management information system. The transaction processing system will help the organisation to handle donations, submit the donations to certain bank accounts associated with the company and handle the donation princes through generating up-to-date invoices of the transaction. The transaction processing system is important for developing sales entries, which in this case is the entry of donation details (Cisco, 2019). On the other hand, the management information system is important for managing and storing important information for future accessibilities (Pramanik, Mondal and Haldar, 2020). With the help of the MIS system, I will be able to record the information about the donor's history, personal information, mailing lists, telephone and texts so that the stakeholders of the organisation can use that information while dealing with future transactions.
Figure 3: TPS and MIS Capabilities
(Source: Berisha-Namani and Qehaja, 2013)
Answer to Question 7
For the improvement of business processes and increasing profit margins of Bitzcom, it is important to incorporate an extranet to enable quick collaboration over the internet, minimise the time consumption during communication and reduce the amount of paperwork needed for the activities of the organisation. An extranet is a necessary platform that utilises the information system to facilitate collaboration between the employees and develops company websites that detect the authorised suppliers and vendors for interactive negotiation (Guo et al. 2021). The extranet will help in providing clarity of job roles to the employees, identify clients’ existing sources and the ways to utilise them. Through extranet, a strong interactive platform can be developed between managers, employees and customers so an effective relationship between them can be established along with increasing the efficiency of the employees.
Answer to Question 8
The four business information systems namely, TPS, MIS, ESS and DSS can be utilised in the context of Pets Galore. TPS will provide information about the dog food brand going to the stores and whether they are restocked on a timely basis or not. MIS on the other hand, will determine the sales levels of that specific dog food brand and compare them against the different other food brands and their profit margins. The ESS will help the companies to understand the competitor’s strategy of selling and their pricing points that may have affected the sales of this particular product. Finally, DSS will help the management to come up with innovative and creative promotional and sales ideas to increase the sales of the dog food brand. After discussing the functionalities of all these systems, it can be said that ESS and DSS will be the most important processes for Pets Galore as they will actively work for improving sales. TPS on the other hand can be least important as the restocking data can be easily assumed through the production variables.
Answer to Question 9
Better Fitness can utilise computer-based information systems to monitor the health and fitness data of the members. Using MIS this information can be stored and examined for future references as well. Information systems can also be used in enhancing the effectiveness, attractiveness and innovativeness of the promotional, advertising and sales platforms (Rosário, 2021). Through effective advertisements, a wider range of audiences can be attracted. Using the BIS, Better Fitness can strengthen its interactive platforms to acquire more feedback from the customers to bring in changes accordingly. Thus, Better Fitness will be able to acquire more competitive advantages in the upcoming years. >
Answer to Question 10
Benefits of Enterprise SystemReduction of the preliminary cost for running a business
Increasing customer service capabilities
Speed communication of information (Strong and Volkoff, 2010)
Increasing management efficacy to assemble different views of operations
Challenges of Enterprise System
The time-consuming process of system training to managers and employees
Inadequate testing of enterprise systems may lead to unsuccessful outcomes
Acquiring full commitment from the managers sometimes is difficult
Finding the right enterprise system from a wide range of systems to choose from
References
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Berisha-Namani, S. M., and Qehaja, M. S. A. 2013. Improving Decision Making with Information Systems Technology–A theoretical approach. ILIRIA International Review, 3(1), pp. 49-62.
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