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Management Information Systems
Notes
2 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
 Discuss Information and knowledge economy
 Understand contemporary approach to IS
 Recognize management challenges
Introduction
Management Information System is an old management tool, which has been long used by
people for better management and scientific decision-making.
Management Information System is mainly dependent upon information, which is a vital
ingredient of any Management Information System. Information is the most critical resource of
Management Information System. We all know that information is a vital factor for our existence.
Just as our body needs air, water and clothes, we are as much dependent upon information. To
make life more interesting and to achieve the feeling of being a part of the social system, we
want to know our surroundings and for that we need information. Information is an important
input for achieving our goals such as learning to help each other and to become integral part of
society.
Actually, information system is not a new concept; it is as old as the hills. From biblical times,
humans have been making the use of information generated through information systems in all
times. There have been systems that generated and communicated information. Kings and
rulers had their own ways of designing information systems to retrieve information. The main
objective of these information systems was to ascertain the well being of their people in the
kingdom and to effectively and efficiently manage the kingdom. The church had its own
information system. In India, Tainali Rama, Akbar and many others had impressive management
information systems in operation. Similarly, the merchants of Venice had their own fully
functional appropriate management information system in place.
1.1 Information Systems
Now, it is time to see the real meaning and concept of Information Systems. Too often you hear
someone say, “Oh yeah, I know how to use a computer. I can surf the Web with the best of them
and I can play Solitaire for hours. I’m really good at computers.” Okay. So that person can pound
a keyboard, use a mouse at lightning speed, and has a list of favorite Web sites a mile long. But
the real question is “Is that person’s information literate?” Just because you can pound the
keyboard it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can leverage the technology to your advantage or
the advantage of your organization. An organization can gather and keep all the data on its
customers that a hard drive can hold. You can get all the output reports that one desk can
physically hold. You can have the fastest Internet connection created to date. But if the organization
doesn’t take advantage of customer data to create new opportunities, then all it has is useless
information. If the output report doesn’t tell the management that it has a serious problem on
the factory floor, then all that’s been accomplished is to kill a few more trees. If you don’t know
how to analyze the information from a Web site to take advantage of new sales leads, then what
have you really done for yourself today?
Most of us think only of hardware and software when we think of an Information System. There
is another component of the triangle that should be considered, and that’s the people side, or
“liveware.”
We talk about the input, processing, output and feedback processes. Most important is the
feedback process; unfortunately it’s the one most often overlooked. Just as we discussed above,
the hardware (input and output) and the software (processing) receive the most attention. With
those two alone, you have computer literacy. But if you don’t use the “liveware” side of the