PQR Ltd. is an electronic goods manufacturing company having very wide customer base for past many years. The company has implemented a comprehensive management information system (MIS) for its business requirements. The

Management information being a specialized information system conforms to certain characteristics. These characteristics are generic in nature. These characteristics remain more or less the same even when the technology around such management information system changes: Management Oriented One important feature of MIS is that MIS is designed top-down. This means that the system is designed around the need felt by the management at different levels for information. The focus of the system is to satisfy the information needs of management. Management Directed Since MIS is 'for the' management it is imperative that it also should have a very strong 'by the' management initiative. Management is involved in the designing process of MIS and also in its continuous review and up gradation to develop a good qualitative system. The system is structured as per directions factored by management. This helps in minimizing the gap between expectations of management form the system and the actual system. Integrated MIS is an integrated system. It is integrated with all operational and functional activities of management. This is an important characteristic and requirement for a system to qualify as MIS. The reason for having an integrated system is that information in the managerial context for decision-making may be required from different areas from within the organization. If MIS remains a collection of isolated systems and each satisfying a small objective, then the integrated information need of managers will not be fulfilled. In order to provide a complete picture of the scenario, complete information is needed which only an integrated system can provide. Common Data Flows Through MIS the data being stored into the system, retrieved from the system, disseminated within the system or processed by the system can be handled in an integrated manner. The integrated approach towards data management will result in avoiding duplication of data, data redundancy and will help to simplify operations. Strategic Planning MIS cannot be designed overnight. It requires very high degree of planning which goes into creating an effective organization. The reason for this kind of planning is to ensure that the MIS being built not only satisfies the information need of the managers today but can also serve the organization for the next five to ten years with modifications. Sometimes when the planning part is done away with, systems tend to perform well in the present but they tend to become obsolete with time. Planning helps to avoid this problem. Bias towards Centralization MIS is required to give 'one version of the truth', i.e., it must supply the correct version of the latest information. There is a requirement for the data repository to be centralized. Centralized data management helps MIS to exercise version control as well as provide an integrated common view of data to the managers. In a non-centralized system, data will get entered, updated and deleted from the system from different locations. In such a case it becomes difficult to provide correct information to managers. For example, in a decentralized System if a person superannuates from an organization and his superannuating is only recorded in the human resource system but not communicated to the finance department system, then it is quite likely that his salary may be generated by the finance system for the next month. A centralized system where data in entered, updated and deleted from only one location does not suffer from such problems. In a centralized system, the superannuating employee's details are deleted from the master file from which all departments' access data, thereby eliminating the risk of generating his salary for the next month. Other features: Organization and updating of huge mass of raw data of related and unrelated nature derived from internal and external sources at different period of time. Ability to process data into information with accuracy and high speed. It involves making complex computations, analysis, comparisons and summarization's. Though humans can do the processing, the computer's ability to process huge data is phenomenal, considering its speed, reliability and faithfulness in perfectly following the set of instructions. Super-human memory, tremendous volume of data and information and the set of instructions can be stored in the computer and can be retrieved as and when needed. Management can get any bit of stored information from the computer in a matter of seconds. The input data in the computer can be processed into a number of different outputs and for a variety of purposes. The system is so organized that managers at different levels and in different activity units are in a position to obtain information in whatever form they want, provided that relevant "Programmes" or instructions have been designed for the purpose. The information processing and computer technology have been so advanced that managers are able to obtain real time information without any waiting period. Computer based MIS opens up new vistas for management to make efficient timely decisions on vital operations of the enterprise and major strategic and tactical problem. It also helps organizations to gain substantial economies by reduction of clerical and computational time. Role based access can be made possible, so that information will go to concerned users only. Computerized MIS also ensures Push reports on regular basis.