MIS syllabus for CSVTU, Bhilai

1. CBIS
Unit 2
Management Information Systems
CSVTU, Bhilai, Chhattisgarh
(Naren Chintada)

2. Role of MIS
1. To provide information readily available for company decision makers
2. Helps in data collection
3. Promote collaboration in the work place
4. Run possible scenarios in different business environments
5. Provide accurate projections on company’s standing in the short and long term
6. Helps track implementation of decisions taken in the company
7. Improve company’s reporting

3. Advantages
1. Stakeholders of the company have access to single database that holds entire
information for day to day operations
2. Save time and spend in more productive tasks, reduce paper work
3. Improve quality of decision making based on data
4. Employees have easier access to the information about progress of any process in
the company
5. Identify strengths and weakness from reports produced time to time and where
company stands financially
6. Gains competitive advantage
7. Eliminate redundant roles in the company

4. Challenges
1. Cost of the equipment
2. Training of the workforce
3. Systems are expensive to purchase
4. Many companies end up buying system that they lack the features they need most
5. Training needed to maintain the systems all the time
6. MIS systems are heavily affected by large changes in the company (acquisition?)
7. Results in loss of employment

5. Justification for CBIS
Information systems that support managers evolved after automation of clerical data
processing. Same method of economic justification to modern systems no longer
apply. They applied well for TPS by way of labor replacement even though it is much
more than that. Cost/Benefit Analysis, monetary payoffs (savings) are difficult to
apply.
Today systems are intended to enhance a manager’s ability to perform cannot and
should not be justified using reducing labor cost. The real payoff is in value added
management. The real purpose of Information systems lies in significantly enhancing
the effectiveness of all managers so that managers can work much smarter.
Tangible vs Intangible benefits

6. Management’s challenge on investment
The control of the investment in information systems and technology to ensure value
for money is currently an issue of major concern to most businesses. In today's
increasingly competitive business climate, there is a growing requirement for stricter
cost control and a demand for higher returns while minimizing risk in all investments.
Over reliance on traditional methods may lead to an excessively conservative IT
portfolio and an associated loss of competitiveness.
Some Traditional Methods:

7. Methods of Resource allocation
1. ROI - using streams of costs and benefits, ROI can be calculated. Some costs and
benefits are very difficult to quantify
2. Zero-based Budgeting - Start from scratch and list out all expenses. Prepare
decision package (each item that needs fund), rank them, allocate resources
3. Portfolio Approach - Applications evaluated collectively and rebalance based on
project size, technology experience, support value, risk/payoff, user proficiency
4. Chargeout - Allocating costs of IS resources to it users. Charge users for IS
services. Provides internal control on IS cost
5. Steering Committee ranking - Committee has executives from major beneficiary
departments who decide on application selection

8. Risk & Risk Assessment
● Risk is the probability that some undesirable event occurs
● We also need to know the impact of the risk or magnitude of risk
● Risk assessment helps in better understanding of project being under taken
● Objective of risk assessment is to help management to strike a balance between
the impact of risk and cost of protective measures against risk
● Risk categories
○ External environment (customer preference, technology, competitor, resources, social, legal)
○ Business process and assets (bad process, loss of reputation, quality/reliability, frauds)
○ Information security (unauthorised access, incorrect or irrelevant information, no accontability)
○ Compliance - inadequate
○ Financial - unreliable/incomplete

9. SLA with the Information services provider
● Service level agreement is between IS provider and receiver.
● In order to satisfy customer needs in an efficient, effective and economical
manner
● It is aimed at creating a working partnership between vendor and supplier of
services
● It takes form of an on going negotiation and continuous process improvement
● It should have measurable criteria (response time, availability guarantee, bug
level)
● Obligations from both the parties
● In written contractual document signed by both the parties valid for a given
period

10. Building CBIS

11. Need (example)
Moneygram’s global operations were hampered by outdated information system and
inefficient manual processes, which raised costs and limited its capacity to add new
product and compensation plans for partner agents.
Management decided to replace 40 outdated legacy systems with an enterprise wise
software suite that could create centralized data that supports global operations,
financial products and back office accounting and compensation and payment
transfers.

13. Developing Business Systems
Systematic way of developing solution is Systems Approach (recap)
1. Recognize and define a problem or opportunity using System Thinking
2. Develop and evaluate alternative system solutions
3. Select the system solution that best meets your requirements
4. Design the selected system solution
5. Implement and evaluate the success of the designed system

14. System Thinking
The essence of the discipline of system thinking is “seeing the forest and the trees”
1. Seeing interrelationships among systems vis-a-vis look at cause-and-effect when
events occur
2. Seeing process of change among systems rather than discrete snapshots, when
change occurs
Look at each subsystem and analyse with the standard system view of Inputs, Outputs,
Processing and Feedback

15. Selecting the right IT solution
While rapid business expansion, CIOs are asked to ramp up the IT infrastructure and
place clear enterprise deployment plan.
Build or Buy - finding a solution that matches their requirement is a big challenge
Starting point is to map internal processes and pinpointing at pain areas followed by
vendor selection process
Involve all departments for gathering the requirements and consolidate them
Understand the vendor’s track record, gather references, verify their support
credentials

16. System Development Process
System Investigation - Understand the Business
Problem or Opportunity. Perform feasibility study
Systems Analysis - Is detailed in-depth study of rnd
user information needs that produces Functional
Requirements Document that is used as the basis in
the design phase
System Design - This where we focus on
determining how the system will accomplish its
objectives. The deliverables are UI, Data and
Process design. Includes prototyping
Implementation - This requires project
management which includes Programming, Testing
and Correction
Production & Maintenance - Once system goes to
production, maintenance phase starts

17. Feasibility Studies
Operational
● Does it support business priorities
● Does it solve identified problem
● Does it fit with existing organization structure
Economic
● Cost saving
● Increased Revenue
● Increased Profit
● Cost/benefit analysis
Technical
● Hardware/Software & Network capability
● Reliability
● Availability
Human Factors
● Employee/Supplier/Customer acceptance
● Management supprt
● Right people available for right roles
Legal
● Patent, Copyright and Licensing
● Government restrictions
● Maintenance Contract & SLAs

18. Tangible and Intangible Benefits
Tangible Benefits
1. Increase in Sales & Profits
2. Decrease in information processing cost
a. Elimination of unnecessary documentation
3. Decrease in operation costs
a. Reduction in inventory carrying costs
4. Decrease in required investment
a. Decrease in investment on inventory
5. Increase in Operational efficiency
a. Less spoilage, waste and idle time
Intangible Benefits
1. Improved Information availability
a. Timely & accurate inforamation
2. Improved ability in Analysis
a. OLAP and Data mining
3. Improved Customer Service
a. Timely service response
4. Improved Employee morale
a. Elimination of burdensome tasks
5. Improved Management Decision making
6. Improved competitive position
7. Improved Business image
a. Progressive image

19. Systems Analysis
● Organizational Analysis
○ Need to understand the nature of business, business activities
○ Management structure
○ End users who get affected
● Analysis of current system
○ How present system (we are going to replace) uses resources to convert data to information
○ Document the current activities
○ Peripheral systems and interfaces
● Logical Analysis
○ Creation of Logical Model of the current system, a blue print
● Functional Requirements Analysis and Determination

20. Functional Requirements
This requires to work with the end users to determine:
● What type of information is each business activity requires; what format, how
much volume, how frequently, what response times are expected
● What is the information processing capability required for each system activity to
meet the information needs
The main goal to identify what should be done and not how to do it
Functional requirements are end-user information requirements that are not tied to
any specific hardware, software, network, data and people resources that end users use

21. System Design
Here is where Logical model is modified until it represents the blueprint of the new
model that we are going to build. The focus here is on how the system will accomplish
its objectives.
Here we focus on three aspects:
● User Interface design
● Data design
● Process or Program design
During the design phase, sometimes we may need prototyping approach to get user
acceptance before embarking on the bigger project

22. System Specification
System specification formalizes the design effort documenting user interface methods,
database structure, processing and control procedures in the form of HLD and LLD.
System designers specify hardware, software, network, data and user role specifications
for the proposed system
➔ Use personalized screens, show personalized recommendations for repeat clients
➔ Develop database and business objects to access to perform CRUD operations
➔ Design to take care of performance requirements for response times to end user
➔ Installation of redundant networks and redundant server framework to achieve
high availability
➔ Develop APIs or Web services (SoA) or micro services to access remote data

23. Implementation
1. Programming: Using system specification and functional requirement as
reference, code gets developed in the programming language most suitable
2. Testing: The program thus developed is put through testing. Unit testing to test
individual components; System testing to test whether various components are
working together properly; User Acceptance test for users approval. Users may
test not only functionality, but performance through stress test, Security
vulnerability tests as well Accessibility tests
3. Deployment: After staging system and sign-off from all stake holders, system is
moved to Production
4. Maintenance: This is the longest phase is system life cycle where bugs,
enhancements are identified and fixed and maintained against security violations

24. Implementation Challenges
Success Factors to implementation of an Information System is three fold:
1. Aligning strategic purpose of the organization with the system capabilities built
2. To achieve system implementation in the overall organization
3. To form the system usage & exercise related toward the alignment of the
objective
Challenges:
A. Management D. Environmental
B. Human E. Time
C. Technical

25. Implementation Challenges
Lack of top management’s commitment
Weak management roles in implementation
Poor coordination and sharing of
responsibilities
Lack of communication
Difficulty in transforming business process to
suit the new system
Lack of proper requirements
Technical difficulty in implementation
Upgrading current system is a challenge
Difficulties in employing suitable staff
Lack of resources to participate in user
education
System inability to meet user expectations
Lack of knowledge of domain
Inability to implement system within time
Difficulty in measuring benefits of new system
Cost overruns in implementing the system
Lack of sufficient budget
Difficulty aligning system to the business
strategy

26. CBIS Management (centralized)
CIO
Planning Quality
Process
SA & SD Programming Maintenance
Applications
Hardware
Data CenterTech Services
End user support
Assistance Operations
Tech watchDatabasesSystems/SWNetworks

27. Decentralized Matrix
Director Information
Services
Manager
Technical
Manager
Development
Manager
Operations
Engineering
Marketing
Manufacturng

28. Functions to be managed
1. Personnel - Job Design, Job Positions, Career Paths, Motivation
2. Supporting End-User Computing, Information Center
3. Resource Control
4. Availability Control
5. Capacity Planning
6. Acquiring IT resources
7. Software Purchase
8. Vendor Selection
9. Security, Control and Audit
10. Change Management

29. End User Computing

30. End user Computing
In many organizations, application development is not limited to the programmers
and analysts in the information-technology department. Especially in larger
organizations, other departments develop their own department-specific applications.
The people who build these are not necessarily trained in programming or application
development, but they tend to be adept with computers.
● Decentralized end user computing, user takes full responsibility of development
and implementation
● Centralized resources and databases. Analysts helping users in planning training
on tools and standards to do their own development

31. Motivation
There are various motivations for EUD: professional developers lack the domain
knowledge that end users cannot easily convey when communicating requirements for
a new application, and regular development cycles are too slow to meet the users’ fast
changing requirements. However, since end users usually lack the training of
professional software developers, it is simply not possible to use the traditional
development approaches for EUD.

32. Techniques used in EUC
● Programming by Demonstration
● Programming by Example
● Visual Programming
● Macros in a spreadsheet
● Simple Report generation systems (report design and generation)
● Presentation of data in alternate forms
● Application packages like payroll, sales/purchase ledger, scheduling, inventory
● 4GLs (Query languages, Data Analysis tools, Graphic languages, financial
modeling)

33. Tools for End User Computing
➢ Text & Multimedia handling tools : - word processors, DTP, web-publishing,
presentation software, document management systems, workflow management
system
➢ Data handling tools – spreadsheets, statistical packages, decision support systems,
databases
➢ Communication tools – email, VOIP, fax,
➢ Office automation tools – calendar, electronic notebooks, directories, project
management tools, reminders
➢ Group systems/collaboration – teleconferencing,
➢ Graphic design – computer aided design (CAD), graphic software
➢ Knowledge management – expert systems, data mining, information retrieval,
intelligent agents

34. Information Center/Help desk
Problem: One major requirement arises because of end user computing is IT support.
Problem areas are due to lack of standardization in purchasing tools and lack of
control over requirements.
Information Centers were initially created to promote use of PCs in organizations and
also who wish to access data and process from central databases using 4GLs. The role
extends to defining standards and establishing best practices, providing advice and
support to individuals. Help data conversions and consolidations, etc.
Information Center consists of a small group of specialist personnel to help promote
EUC

35. Growth factors for EUC
❏ Pressure for Rapid Response from individual departments
❏ Availability of easy to use Software and Hardware
❏ Low prices
❏ More Computing power
❏ Availability of Computer literate users

36. Pros and Cons of End-user development
● Relieving the shortage of developers
● Eliminating the problem of requirements determination
● Transferring the application implementation function
● Risk in getting complete and correct requirements
● Ignorance about quality concepts (hard coding, lack of generalization, no
standards)
● Unstable applications (uncontrolled changes, no version control)
● Hand over/take over problems and information hiding
● Storing unwanted data
● Not taking backups