Management Information System: Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Introduction to
Management Information System

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam
Let us first try to understand What is
Information System
Information System
Information systems provide an organization with support for business operations, managerial decision making, and strategic advantage.
Information System
This framework outlines the major areas of information systems knowledge needed by business end users.
Information System
The components of an information system. All information systems use people, hardware, software, data, and network resources to perform input, processing, output, storage, and control activities that transform data resources into information products.
Information System
Operations and management classifications of information systems. Note how this conceptual overview emphasizes the main purpose of information systems that support business operations and managerial decision making.
Introduction to MIS
What is MIS?
Introduction to MIS
Definitions:
An information collection and analysis system, usually computerized, that facilitates access to program and available information. It is designed/developed for decision making at various levels in the organization. An MIS is a system using formalized procedures to provide management at all levels with appropriate information, based on data from internal and if required from external sources also, to enable them to make timely and effective decisions for planning, directing, and controlling the activities for which they are responsible.
Introduction to MIS
Definitions:
A system designed by an organization to collect and report information which enables managers to plan, monitor, and evaluate the operations and the performance of the whole Organization. A computer system for a business or other organization which collects and analyzes data from all departments, and is designed to provide an organization's management with up-to-date information (such as financial reports, inventory, etc.) at any time.
Introduction to MIS
An information system is comprised of all the components that collect, manipulate, and disseminate data or information. It usually includes Hardware , Software, people, communications systems such as telephone lines, and the data itself. The activities involved include inputting data, processing of data into information, storage of data and information, and the production of outputs such as management reports.
Introduction to MIS
Classification
of MIS
Introduction to MIS
There are various types of MIS. Mason and Swanson (1981) describe four categories of MIS: (1) Databank Information System (2) Predictive Information System (3) Decision-Making Information System, and (4) Decision-taking information system. The classification is based on the level of support that the information system provides in the process of decision making.
Introduction to MIS
Databank Information System.
The responsibility of this information system is to observe, classify, and store any item of data which might be potentially useful to the decision maker.
Introduction to MIS
Predictive Information System.
This system moves beyond pure data collection and the determination of trends over time. Predictive information systems provide for drawing of inferences and predictions that are relevant to decision making.
Introduction to MIS
Decision-Making Information System.
This system goes one step further in the process of decision making and incorporates the value system of the organization or its criteria for choosing among alternatives. An extension organization's values are many and varied.
Introduction to MIS
Decision-Taking Information System. Decision-Taking information systems is the outcome of Decision making and hence both complement each other are not usually found in an extension organization. This is a decision system in which the information system and the decision maker are one and the same.
Introduction to MIS
The choice of an appropriate MIS category primarily depends on the nature of the decisions it supports. While unstructured decisions may use lower MIS-category and the highly structured ones, such as production schedules in an industry, may use higher MIS-category .
Introduction to MIS
There is another view of looking at MIS that is MIS may be classified by their level in the organisation, all of which enhance organisational decision making and provide competitive advantage.
Together they have the following function: Support for Strategic Planning
Support for Management Control Support for Operational Control Improved Product Quality Improved Product Delivery
Introduction to MIS
Operational Level Systems
These support operational or junior managers by keeping track of the daily transactions and activities of the organisation.
Examples include a system to record bank deposits from automatic teller machines, or one that tracks the number of hours worked each day by employees.
Introduction to MIS
Knowledge Level Systems
Purpose is to help the business integrate new knowledge in to the organisations work systems and help control the flow of paperwork Support knowledge workers - those people who create, work with or disseminate information
Introduction to MIS
Management Level Systems
Serve the monitoring, controlling, decision making and administrative duties of middle Managers. Provide periodic reports as opposed to instant information Process data from the operational level systems to produce business information relating to the periodic trends in the business.
Introduction to MIS
Types of MIS
Managers at different levels of an organisation make different kinds of decisions operational, tactical and strategic Kinds of information necessary to support their decisions are also different Accordingly, different types of information systems are designed to meet the various needs
Introduction to MIS
Types of MIS - Business Applications
Transaction Processing Systems (TPS)
Management Information Systems (MIS) Decision Support systems (DSS)
Office Automation Systems (OAS)

Executive Support Systems (ESS)
Introduction to MIS
Technical overview of IS
Needed for a full appreciation of the business applications of IS
Hardware Software Telecommunication Data Storage
Introduction to MIS
Characteristics of a Management Information System :
Fixed format, standard reports Hard-copy and soft-copy reports Uses internal data User-developed reports Users must request formal reports from IS department
Introduction to MIS
Strategic Advantage with MIS

Introduction to MIS
The Functional Support Role:
The business processes and operations support function is the most basic. It involves collecting, recording, storing, and basic processing of data. Information systems support business processes and operations by: Recording and storing sales data, purchase data,
FInance data, payroll data and other accounting data Processing these accounting records into income statements, balance sheets, ledgers, management reports, and other forms of financial information
Introduction to MIS
Recording and storing inventory data, work in process data, equipment repair and maintenance data, supply chain data, and other production/operations records Processing these operations records into production schedules, production controllers, inventory systems, and production monitoring systems Recording and storing personnel data, salary data, employment histories, and other human resources records processing these human resources records into employee expense reports, and performance based reports
Introduction to MIS
Recording and storing market data, customer profiles, customer purchase histories, marketing research data, advertising data, and other marketing records Processing these marketing records into advertising elasticity reports, marketing plans, and sales activity reports recording and storing business intelligence data, competitor analysis data, industry data, corporate objectives, and other strategic management records
Introduction to MIS
Processing these strategic management records into industry trends reports, market share reports, mission statements, and portfolio models Use of all the above to implement, control, and monitor plans, strategies, tactics, new products, new business models or new business ventures
Role of MIS
The Decision Support Role:
The business decision making support function goes one step further. It is an integral part of making decisions. It allows users to ask What if . . . ? questions : - What if we increase the price by 5%? ; - What if we increase price by 10%? ; - What if we decrease price by 5%? ; - What if we increase price by 10% now, then decrease it by 5% in three months? It also allows users to deal with contingencies : If Inflation increases by 5% (instead of 2% as we are assuming), then what do we do? What do we do if we are faced with a strike or a new competitive threat?
Role of MIS
The most basic and most versatile business decision making tool is the Spreadsheet , but spreadsheets are not user friendly. More sophisticated programs often seamlessly incorporate statistical decision making tools like:
- Sensitivity Analysis - Risk Analysis - Break Even Analysis
Role of MIS
The Strategic Support Role:
Information systems can support a companys competitive positioning. Here are three levels of analysis: 1. The supports for help in piloting the chain of internal value. They are the most recent and the most pragmatic systems within the reach of the manager. They are the solutions to reductions of costs and management of performance. They are typically named " Business Workflow Analysis " ( BWA) or of " Business Management Systems p2p ".
Role of MIS
2. All successful companies have one (or two) business functions that they do better than the competition. These are called core competencies. If a companys Core Competency gives it a long term advantage in the marketplace, it is referred to as a sustainable competitive advantage. For a core competency to become a Sustainable Competitive Advantage it must be difficult to mimic, unique, sustainable, superior to the competition, and applicable to multiple situations.
Role of MIS
Examples of company characteristics that could constitute a sustainable competitive advantage include:
- Superior Product Quality , - Extensive Distribution Contracts - Accumulated Brand Equity , - Positive company reputation - Low Cost Production Techniques, - Patents and Copyrights
The list of potential sustainable competitive advantage characteristics is very long.
Role of MIS
3. Information systems often support and occasionally constitute these competitive advantages. The rapid change has made access to timely and current information critical in a competitive environment. Information systems, like Business Environment Scanning Systems, support almost all sustainable competitive advantages. Occasionally, the information system itself is the competitive advantage. One example is Wal-Mart. They used an Extranet to integrate their whole Supply Chain . This use of information systems gave Sam Walton a competitive advantage for two decades. Another example is Dell Computer . They used the internet to market custom assembled PCs. Michael Dell is still benefitting from this lowcost promotion and distribution technique. Other examples are eBay, Amazon.com etc.
Introduction to MIS
What is Systems Approach ?

Systems Approach to MIS

Think of a situation when there was no approach or no systematic working.
Result
- Projects used to collapse, fail - Turn out to be costlier - Adhocism prevailed - Unorganized working - No body takes the responsibility or disowns responsibility - Leads to no estimation or wrong estimation

Effect of Systems Approach:
Systems are well defined The Project could be broken into various modules for better control and development. Separate teams may be created to deal with predefined module/tasks. Example of PERT/CPM could be given.

Systems Approach does not deal only with Projects and events but also with relationship between them.

Systems Approach enables the organization to deploy technique to bring transparency to decision making processes - an important requirement when dealing with systems.

SA gives flexibility wherever requiredThis becomes necessary to manage the Project and get it going with the pace it is targeted.
The Style of Management functioning if required, may also be changed for the overall benefit of the Project/Event to get completed.

The Nature of Systems Approach 1. Identifies connection between Objects and Events.
A systems approach involves placing as much emphasis on identifying and describing the connections between objects and events as on identifying and describing the objects and events themselves.

2. System Effects relationships.
It may be unidirectional or linked in chain. Systems are patterns of cause and effect relationships. These can be simple and unidirectional or they may be linked together in long chains. Any one factor can exert a control function (causing a change in another) and a dependent function (being changed by another) - this is called multi-factoriality.

Defining Systems
There are a number of steps to go through when building a model of a system.
The identification of the coherent elements of the system, and the definition of the principles of coherence. This can be quite difficult as some systems are organized on an ad hoc basis.

The identification of the control mechanisms by which the system maintains its coherence, and the value ranges within which these operate.

The marking of the system boundary. The system boundary defines the inputs and outputs to the system. The identification of any subsystems of the system, or supersystems of the system need to be identified

Systems Theory
The Systems approach is essentially about defining the problem solving sequence.
Problem definition.
This involves defining the problem and what has to be done.

Choice of Objectives.
This involves deciding what would be required to reach the objective, and formulating the measures of effectiveness which then form the basis for making comparisons between strategies.

Systems Synthesis.
This involves identifying the various possible alternative strategies.
Systems Analysis.
This involves analysing and evaluating the various hypothetical systems in the light of the objectives.

Systems Selection.
This means choosing the most promising alternative.
System Development.
This entails developing the chosen alternative up to the prototype stage.

Participation of Users
The strategic purpose of the analysis of the system is to seek the acceptance of the users to new system. System Analysis process provides a sense of participation to the people/users. This not only breaks the resistance that may come from them but also imbibe a sense of commitment among users.
Business
Process Re-Engineering?
Introduction to BPR
The fundamental analysis and radical redesign of :
Business processes and management systems, job definitions, organizational structures and beliefs and behaviors to achieve dramatic performance improvements to meet contemporary requirements.
Information technology (IT) is a key enabler in this process. Acronym: BPR

Introduction to BPR
The process of radically changing or re-engineering a process.
BPR is used when businesses are out of time, i.e., if they do not do something they will be out-of -business or have huge financial problems, or when people perform processes so differently that there is no one clear process. BPR has a high risk associated with it, has radical results and starts with a clean slate.
Introduction to BPR
BPR - Just in Time techniques applied to various areas
in the organization with particular emphasis on laying out the work flow by process and breaking down the traditional functional barriers between: - Sales - Planning - Manufacturing - Accounts When Business Process Re-engineering is combined with manufacturing Just in Time ideas the result is a Focused Factory.
Introduction to BPR
The basic analysis and design changes of the processes in question with the objective of overall improvement in productivity is Business Processes Re-engineering (BPR). It may involve radical changes in: Managements style of functioning Job definitions Organizational structures and Policies All this to achieve dramatic performance improvements to meet contemporary requirements. Information technology (IT) is a key enabler in this process
Introduction to BPR BPR is the process of solving organization's needs and problems by changing the organization's policies and procedures.
Introduction to BPR
The process of radically changing or reengineering a process. BPR is used when businesses are out of time, i.e. , if they do not do something they will be out-of -business or have huge financial problems, or when people perform processes so differently that there is no one clear process. BPR has a high risk associated with it, has radical results and starts with a clean slate.
Introduction to BPR What is BPR?

Start with key concepts regarding- BPR
Myths about BPR, Processes Relation between BPR and information technology, Role of IS function in BPR, BPR Methodology, Failure of BPR Projects, and Future of BPR.
Introduction to BPR Need of BPR

The what and why of business process reengineering (BPR)
The need for re-engineering Determining what re-engineering is, and is not Focusing on the business processes Achieving cost reduction and revenue generation goals
Business Process Re-Engineering
BPR a New Perspective

Business Process Innovation: What is IT?
A six-step approach.
Is BPR Out of Vogue/Fashion? 1. Strategic Planning - Is BPR out of vogue? After a decade of streamlining processes for efficiency, companies are adopting a more proactive stance toward the future.
Business Process Re-Engineering Does BPR Always Require External Consultants?

Some Companies Re-Engineer without external Consultant
(Companies like Texas Instruments and Harley Davidson are setting the precedent for implementing reengineering initiatives with internal process improvement teams. )
BPR Initiatives... For the Benefit of Employees?

Balancing Work - Short-sighted nature of BPR
initiatives has been often criticized because of their key emphasis on restructuring and downsizing
BPR efforts have been expected to benefit the company and in several cases the customers of the company. How often have we heard of the BPR efforts oriented to the benefit of the employees?
Business Process Re-Engineering Systemic View of Organizational Change

For the "wholistic" perspective about management of organizational change and organizational interdependence the best option is to deploy Information Technology. This way the survival and growth of organizations in an increasingly turbulent environment would depend upon effective utilization of information technology for aligning the organizational structure with environmental preferences and for creating symbiotic inter-organizational structures.
Business Process Re-Engineering BPR: Incremental or Radical?

We are all familiar with the initial thrust of BPR on 'forcing' radical change on the employees. We are also aware of the criticism of such 'radicalism' and the later about turn when it is suggested that BPR needs to take into consideration the human factors necessary for successful implementation.
The question remains: BPR, should it be incremental or radical?
BPR Methodology:
Two approaches are outlined:
- Top Down Approach - Bottom up Approach
Six basic steps of BPR Methodologies:
BPR Methodology
Envision
This job is assigned to a team comprising senior executives and knowledgeable individuals to target a business process for improvement based on the review of business strategy and IT opportunities, in the hope of improving the companys overall performance.
BPR Methodology
Initiate
This stage encompasses the assignment of a reengineering project team, setting of performance goals, project planning, bench marking etc. This is achieved by developing a business case of reengineering via bench marking , identifying customer needs and cost benefit analysis.
BPR Methodology
Diagnose
This stage is classified as the documentation of the existing processes and its sub-processes in terms of process attributes, such as activities, resources, communication, roles, IS and cost. In identifying process requirements and assigning customers value, root causes for problems surface and non value- adding activities are identified.
BPR Methodology
Re-design
In the redesign stage, a new process design is developed. This is accomplished by devising process design alternatives through brainstorming and creativity techniques. The new design should meet strategic objectives and fit with the human resource and IS architectures. Documentation and prototyping of the new process is typically conducted and a design of the new information system to support the new process is completed.
BPR Methodology
Re-construct
This stage relies heavily on change management techniques to provide reasonable assurance of a smooth migration to new process responsibilities and human resource roles. During this stage ,the IT platform and systems are implemented and the users go through training and transition.
BPR Methodology
Evaluate
The last stage of a BPR methodology requires monitoring of the new processes to determine if it met its goals and often involves linkage to a total quality program.
Management Information System and Management Support
MIS and Management Support
Let us recapitulate that the crux of MIS is To provide the right information to the right person in the right fashion at the right time.

Right information will help in Good Decision-Making and problem-solving. It may also help in developing the skills for taking right decision that ultimately benefit the organization. Thus the organization can have Effective Information and Decision Support Systems.

Decision Support System (DSS):
A highly flexible and interactive IT system designed to support decision making, particularly when the problem is not structured. It is an information system that utilizes decision models, a database, and a decision maker's own insights in an ad hoc, interactive analytical modeling process to reach a specific decision by decision maker.

Decision Support System
A decision support system (DSS) is a computer program application that analyzes business data and presents it so that users can make business decisions more easily. It is an "informational application" (to distinguish it from an "operational application" that collects the data in the course of normal business operation). Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would be:

Comparative sales figures between one week and the
next Projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions The consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience A DSS may present information graphically for better presentation .

A properly designed DSS is an interactive softwarebased system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from : - Raw data - Documents - Personal Knowledge , and/or - Business Models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.

Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would be:
- Accessing all of your current information assets, including legacy and relational data sources, data warehouses, and data marts - Comparative sales figures between one week and the next

- Projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions - The consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a context that is described
Tools for Business Support System
MIS and Management Support Every organization recognizes the value of making their business decisions, as such they would like the decision to be better/improved, faster and more consistent.
MIS and Management Support To achieve these goals, many companies have gone for:
- Data Warehousing/ Data Mining - CRM -Customer Relationship Management, Etc.

Decision Management Applications enable businesses to:
- Determine the most profitable and relevant decision - make full use of corporate data including production data - Execute Business Strategies with rigorous precision, by making consistent decisions across multiple points, while gathering information on the customer's needs

There are variety of tools available for Business Support , but before any tool is used the Data must be available. This means that an appropriate/correct database is required to use any tool for taking decision.

Unfortunately, ensuring the integrity of data comes with multiple IT challenges, which create roadblocks to sustaining IT compliance over time. Some important factors that need to be taken care are:

Complexity of data
Largely due to the level of merger and acquisition activity in recent years, IT infrastructures have become a complex maze of heterogeneous hardware and software assets. In addition to technological complexity, IT executives are also responsible for interpreting the IT requirements for multiple global regulations and implementing the appropriate IT controls for numerous compliance efforts simultaneously.
Lack of Standardization:
Inconsistent processes across business units and geographies create fragmented efforts involving multiple ways of testing, measuring, and reporting on the same IT control.
What if Analysis?

In What if Analysis , an end user makes changes to variables or relationships among variables , and observes the resulting changes in the values of other variables.
For example If you are using a spreadsheet , you might change a revenue amount (a variable) or a tax rate formula ( a relationship among variables) in a simple spreadsheet model. You may then have a command on the spreadsheet to instantly recalculate all effected variables in the spreadsheet.
What If analysis can help you get a

feel for how your portfolio's risk would change if you were to make changes to your portfolio.

The benefit of What If is that you can assess the effect of potential changes before you actually make them. You can assess the potential impact of:
- Adding an asset to your portfolio, - Deleting an asset from your portfolio, - Making adjustments to the amount you own of an asset by calculating explicitly how the changes would affect the risk of your portfolio.
MIS and Management Support After modifying (hypothetically) your investment mix, you can view the preand post- impact of the investment decisions you are considering.

You can assess the impact of your changes on all of the risk measures provided on the Risk site, including: - Portfolio Risk Grade - Diversification benefit - Risk Impact
MIS and Management Support Using the What If tool permits you to either confirm what you believe to be a good decision, or undo a bad decision by preventing you from making it in the first place!
Sensitivity Analysis

Sensitivity Analysis (SA) is the study of how the variation in the output of a model (numerical or otherwise) can be apportioned qualitatively or quantitatively, to different sources of variation.

Sensitivity Analysis (SA) is a special case of What-if-analysis. Typically, the value of only one variable is changed repeatedly and the resulting changes on other variables are observed. So SA is case a of what-if-analysis involving repeatedly changes to only one variable at a time.

Typically , Sensitivity Analysis is used when decision makers are uncertain about the assumptions made in estimating the value of certain key variables. This would help a manager understand the impact of various revenue levels or other factors involved in decisions being considered.

Sensitivity Analysis (SA) aims to ascertain how the model depends upon the information fed into it, upon its structure and upon the framing assumptions made to build it. This information can be invaluable, as:

Different level of acceptance (by the decision-makers and stakeholders) may be attached to different types of uncertainty. Different uncertainties impact differently on the reliability, the robustness and the efficiency of the model.

What are the reasons to conduct Sensitivity Analysis?
Modelers may conduct SA to determine: (a) the model resemblance with the process under study, (b) the quality of model definition, (c) factors that mostly contribute to the output variability (d) the region in the space of input factors for which the model variation is maximum (e) optimal regions within the space of factors for use in a subsequent calibration study (f) interactions between factors.

What is difference between Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis?
Although closely related, Uncertainty Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis are two different disciplines. Uncertainty Analysis assesses the uncertainty in model outputs that derives from uncertainty in inputs. Sensitivity Analysis assesses the contributions of the inputs to the total uncertainty in analysis outcomes.

Which is the best method to perform SA on my model?
The choice of which SA method to adopt is difficult as each technique has strengths and weaknesses. Such a choice depends on the problem the investigator is trying to address, on the characteristics of the model under study, and also on the computational cost that the investigator can afford.
Goal Seek Analysis

Goal-Seek analysis reverses the direction of the analysis done in What-if and Sensitivity analysis. Instead of observing how changes in a variable affect other variables, Goal-seek analysis (also called how can analysis) sets a target value (a goal) for a variable and then repeatedly changes other variables until the target value is achieved.

Goal Seek is the easiest tool to use and is a real time saver. For example, suppose you want to know what you must make on the final exam in order to receive an A Grade in this course. The lowest value for an A grade is 93. Therefore, you want your final grade to be at least 93.

Using the sample worksheet above, you COULD type values for the final exam in cell C4 until the final grade is 93. But an EASIER way is to use Goal Seek. To do this, simply select Goal Seek from the Tools menu. Then enter the cell references and value as shown in the dialog box at the left. You want to set the Final Grade cell (B4) to the value of 93 by changing the Final Exam (cell C4). When you click OK, the grade you need to make on the final appears in cell C4.
Optimization Analysis

WHAT IS OPTIMIZATION?
Optimization analysis is a more complex extension of Goal-Seek analysis. In this , instead of setting a specific target variable, the goal is to find the optimum value for one or more target variables, given certain constraints. Then one or more variables are changed repeatedly subject to the specified constraints, until the best values for the target variables are discovered.

Optimization is a process that finds a best, or optimal, solution for your model. Not every spreadsheet model requires optimization; however, the technique is very important when you have model variables that you can control (e.g., spending) and you want a maximum or minimum goal that relies on those variables.

For example, you want to know the maximum possible return on an investment portfolio, but you are not sure how much money to put into each separate investment. Or, you are a project manager with budget constraints, and you need to figure out which combination of seven possible projects will result in the highest profit. Or, you are a petroleum engineer, and you must determine the optimal number of oil wells to drill given a certain reservoir size and specified production rates.

With traditional spreadsheet models, you can perform simple optimizations with programs such as Excel's Solver, which applies linear equations to come up with a maximum or minimum value. This works fine if your problem has a single optimal value, like the top of a mountain.

In reality, such simple situations are rare, and more often than not, you are searching for the highest peak in a whole range of mountains. You must discern which of the high values is the highest, and you need to perform a more global optimization.
Developing MIS
Developing MIS
System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) encompasses complete Information System. The activities it covers are Conceptualize, Design, and
implement a project such as: - Analysis - Design - Building - Implementation - Operation and - Maintenance.
Developing MIS
In other words System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the overall process of developing information systems through a multi-step process from investigation of initial requirements through analysis, design, implementation and maintenance. There are many different models and methodologies, but each generally consists of a series of defined steps or stages.
Developing MIS
To manage this, a number of System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) models have been created like:
- Waterfall - Fountain - Spiral - Build and fix - Rapid prototyping - Incremental and - Synchronize and stabilize.
Developing MIS
The oldest of these, and the best known, is the waterfall: a sequence of stages in which the output of each stage becomes the input for the next. These stages can be characterized and divided up in different ways, including the following:
Developing MIS
Project planning, feasibility study: Establishes a high-level view of the intended project and determines its goals.
Systems analysis, requirements definition:

Refines project goals into defined functions and operation of the intended application. Analyzes enduser information needs.
Developing MIS
Systems Design:
Describes desired features and operations in detail, including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudocode and other documentation.
Implementation:
The real code is written here.
Integration and testing:

Brings all the pieces together into a special testing environment, then checks for errors, bugs and interoperability.
Developing MIS
Acceptance, Installation, Deployment:
The final stage of initial development, where the software is put into production and runs actual business.
Maintenance:
What happens during the rest of the software's life: changes, correction, additions, moves to a different computing platform and more. This, the least glamorous and perhaps most important step of all, goes on seemingly forever.
Developing MIS
But Waterfall Model did not work
Larry Runge, SDLC expert says that SDLC "works very well when we are automating the activities of clerks and accountants. It doesn't work nearly as well, if at all, when building systems for knowledge workers -- people at help desks, experts trying to solve problems.
Course Developed by -
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Developing MIS
Fountain Model -The fountain model
recognizes that although some activities can't start before others -- such as you need a design before you can start coding -- there's a considerable overlap of activities throughout the development cycle.
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Developing MIS
Spiral Model -The spiral model emphasizes the
need to go back and reiterate earlier stages a number of times as the project progresses. It's actually a series of short waterfall cycles, each producing an early prototype representing a part of the entire project. This approach helps demonstrate a proof of concept early in the cycle, and it more accurately reflects the disorders, if any.
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Developing MIS
Build and Fix Method - Build and fix is the
crudest of the methods. Write some code, then keep modifying it until the customer is happy. Without planning, this is very open-ended and can be risky.
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Developing MIS
Rapid Prototyping - In the rapid prototyping
(sometimes called rapid application development) model, initial emphasis is on creating a prototype that looks and acts like the desired product in order to test its usefulness. The prototype is an essential part of the requirements determination phase, and may be created using tools different from those used for the final product. Once the prototype is approved, it is discarded and the "real" software is written.
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Developing MIS
Systems Analysis
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Developing MIS
What is Systems Analysis?
It is a process of planning, designing and implementation of new and improved information systems to meet the business requirements of the organizations.
The studying of a business problem to recommend improvements and to specify the requirements for a solution.
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Developing MIS
It focuses on specifying what the system or application is required to do. Elements of structured analysis:
Graphical description Data Flow Diagrams Data Dictionary: definitions of elements in the System
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Developing MIS
The Analysis tries to establish in detail what the system is expected to do:
Objectives
Costs Benefits Implementation process Organizational changes required Defines who the USERS are, their input and output
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Developing MIS
Phase 1 - Identify problems, opportunities, and objectives
Analyst looks at what is happening/occurring in the business. It looks for problems and opportunities. People involved:
- Users - Analysts - Systems Managers
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Developing MIS
Phase 1
Activities include:
- Interviewing User/Management - Summarizing Knowledge obtained - Estimating Scope of Project
Output of this phase:

- Feasibility study (report) containing a problem definition and summarizing the objectives
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Developing MIS
Feasibility Study: The Basic Tasks
Problem Orientation Define the problem Establish system objectives Identify the users Establish functional scope
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Developing MIS
Feasibility Study
Alternative Specification - Propose options - Cost-Benefit analysis - Assess project risk - Recommend
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Developing MIS
Feasibility Study
Technical - Do we have the capability to develop the system? - Does the necessary technology exist? - Does the proposed system have the right - Response time, Interface, - Can the system be expanded?
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Developing MIS
Feasibility Study
Economic
- Is there an economic payoff? - Cost of Hardware/Software - Other benefits in terms of reduced costs - Opportunity costs
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Developing MIS
Phase 2 -Determining Requirements & Analyzing System Needs
Goal - Determine the requirements of the new

system -- must obtain a consensus from the
user community on the ideal information system
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Developing MIS
Requirements
Analyst must understand:
a. the CURRENT SYSTEM b. What information users need to perform their jobs c. Why and how current system is no longer effective Analyst derives new system requirements from an analysis and synthesis of a,b,& c
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Developing MIS
Requirements
People involved in this phase:
- Analysts, - Users - Operations Manager
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Developing MIS
1.Requirements capture and analysis
- The process of deriving system requirements - Accomplished through observation of existing systems, discussions with - Potential users and task analysis. - Very time consuming step
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Developing MIS
Analyst needs to know details of current system functions Who - the people who are involved What - the business activity Where - the environment in which the work occurs When - the timing of the activity How - how the current procedures are performed
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Developing MIS
2.Requirements definition
Document containing an abstract description of:
- User functions the new system is expected to provide - Constraints under which the system must operate - Only specifies the external behavior of the system - does not cover any implementation
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Developing MIS
A Word about
Data Flow Diagram?
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Developing MIS
A Data Flow Diagram is a graphical means of : - Representing - Describing or - Analyzing a process. This is done by drawing small boxes which represent steps or decisions in a chain of steps or decisions. These boxes are connected to other boxes by lines and arrows which represent sequence and dependency relationships (i.e., X must be done before Y can be done). This is also known as a Flow Chart.
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Developing MIS
The basic format for a DFD
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Developing MIS
Before we examine the components of a DFD, let us see some samples:
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Developing MIS
Thus just by looking at the DFD one can understand the processes involved, the flow and the outcome.
The notations are simple and intuitively obvious. This is particularly important when we remember who is supposed to be looking at the DFD not the Systems Analyst, but the user! Therefore ,if the user needs an encyclopedia in order to read and understand the model of his system, he or she probably wont bother to do either.
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Developing MIS Data Warehousing & Data Mining
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Definition:
A data warehouse is, primarily, a record of an enterprise's past transactional and operational information, stored in a database designed to favour efficient data analysis and reporting (especially OLAP). Data warehousing is not meant for current, "live" data.
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The term Data Warehouse was coined by Bill Inmon in 1990, which he defined in the following way: "A warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant and non-volatile collection of data in support of management's decision making process". He defined the terms in the sentence as follows:
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Subject Oriented:
Data that gives information about a particular subject instead of about a company's ongoing operations.
Integrated:
Data that is gathered into the data warehouse from a variety of sources and merged into a coherent whole.
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Developing MIS
Time-variant:
All data in the data warehouse is identified with a particular time period.
Non-volatile
Data is stable in a data warehouse. More data is added but data is never removed. This enables management to gain a consistent picture of the business.
(Source: "What is a Data Warehouse?" W.H. Inmon, Prism, Volume 1, Number 1, 1995).
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Developing MIS
This definition remains reasonably accurate almost ten years later. However, a single-subject data warehouse is typically referred to as a Data Mart, while data warehouses are generally enterprise in scope.
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Developing MIS
Source System Identification:
Source System Identification: In order to build the data warehouse, the appropriate data must be located. Typically, this will involve both the current OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing) system where the "day-to-day" information about the business resides, and historical data for prior periods, which may be contained in some form of "legacy" system. Often these legacy systems are not relational databases, so much effort is required to extract the appropriate data.
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Developing MIS
Data Warehouse Design and Creation:
This describes the process of designing the warehouse, with care taken to ensure that the design supports the types of queries the warehouse will be used for. This is an involved effort that requires both an understanding of the database schema to be created, and a great deal of interaction with the user community. The design is often an iterative process and it must be modified a number of times before the model can be stabilized. Great care must be taken at this stage, because once the model is populated with large amounts of data, some of which may be very difficult to recreate, the model can not easily be changed.
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Data Acquisition:
This is the process of moving company data from the source systems into the warehouse. It is often the most time-consuming and costly effort in the data warehousing project, and is performed with software products known as ETL (Extract/Transform/Load) tools. There are currently over 50 ETL tools on the market. The data acquisition phase can cost millions of dollars and take months or even years to complete. Data acquisition is then an ongoing, scheduled process, which is executed to keep the warehouse current to a pre-determined period in time, (i.e. the warehouse is refreshed monthly).
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Developing MIS
Changed Data Capture:
The periodic update of the warehouse from the transactional system(s) is complicated by the difficulty of identifying which records in the source have changed since the last update. This effort is referred to as "changed data capture". Changed data capture is a field of endeavor in itself, and many products are on the market to address it. Some of the technologies that are used in this area are Replication servers, Publish/Subscribe, Triggers and Stored Procedures, and Database Log Analysis.
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Developing MIS
Data Cleansing:
This is typically performed in conjunction with data acquisition (it can be part of the "T" in "ETL"). A data warehouse that contains incorrect data is not only useless, but also very dangerous. The whole idea behind a data warehouse is to enable decision-making. If a high level decision is made based on incorrect data in the warehouse, the company could suffer severe consequences, or even complete failure. Data cleansing is a complicated process that validates and, if necessary, corrects the data before it is inserted into the warehouse.
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Developing MIS
For example, the company could have three "Customer Name" entries in its various source systems, one entered as "IBM", one as "I.B.M.", and one as "International Business Machines". Obviously, these are all the same customer. Someone in the organization must make a decision as to which is correct, and then the data cleansing tool will change the others to match the rule. This process is also referred to as "data scrubbing" or "data quality assurance". It can be an extremely complex process, especially if some of the warehouse inputs are from older mainframe file systems (commonly referred to as "flat files" or "sequential files").
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Developing MIS
Data Aggregation:
It is process is often performed during the "T" phase of ETL, if it is performed at all. Data warehouses can be designed to store data at the detail level (each individual transaction), at some aggregate level (summary data), or a combination of both. The advantage of summarized data is that typical queries against the warehouse run faster. The disadvantage is that information, which may be needed to answer a query, is lost during aggregation. The tradeoff must be carefully weighed, because the decision can not be undone without rebuilding and repopulating the warehouse. The safest decision is to build the warehouse with a high level of detail, but the cost in storage can be extreme.
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Developing MIS
Now that the warehouse has been built and populated, it becomes possible to extract meaningful information from it that will provide a competitive advantage and a return on investment. This is done with tools that fall within the general rubric of "Business Intelligence".
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Developing MIS
Business Intelligence (BI)
A very broad field indeed, it contains technologies such as Decision Support Systems (DSS), Executive Information Systems (EIS), On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), Relational OLAP (ROLAP), Multi-Dimensional OLAP (MOLAP), Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP, a combination of MOLAP and ROLAP), and more. BI can be broken down into four broad fields:
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Developing MIS
Multi-dimensional Analysis Tools:
Tools that allow the user to look at the data from a number of different "angles". These tools often use a multi-dimensional database referred to as a "cube".
Query tools:
Tools that allow the user to issue SQL (Structured Query Language) queries against the warehouse and get a result set back.
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Developing MIS
Data Mining Tools:
Tools that automatically search for patterns in data. These tools are usually driven by complex statistical formulas. The easiest way to distinguish data mining from the various forms of OLAP is that OLAP can only answer questions you know to ask, data mining answers questions you didn't necessarily know to ask.
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Developing MIS
Data Visualization Tools:
Tools that show graphical representations of data, including complex three-dimensional data pictures. The theory is that the user can "see" trends more effectively in this manner than when looking at complex statistical graphs. Some vendors are making progress in this area using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML).
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Developing MIS
Metadata Management
Throughout the entire process of identifying, acquiring, and querying the data, metadata management takes place. Metadata is defined as "data about data". An example is a column in a table. The datatype (for instance a string or integer) of the column is one piece of metadata. The name of the column is another. The actual value in the column for a particular row is not metadata - it is data. Metadata is stored in a Metadata Repository and provides extremely useful information to all of the tools mentioned previously.
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Developing MIS
Data Mining: What is Data Mining?
Generally, data mining (sometimes called data or knowledge discovery) is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information information that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both. Data mining software is one of a number of analytical tools for analyzing data. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified. Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.
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Developing MIS
Although data mining is a relatively new term, the technology is not. Companies have used powerful computers to sift through volumes of supermarket scanner data and analyze market research reports for years. However, continuous innovations in computer processing power, disk storage, and statistical software are dramatically increasing the accuracy of analysis while driving down the cost.
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Developing MIS
For example, one Midwest grocery chain used the data mining capacity of Oracle Software to analyze local buying patterns. They discovered that when men bought grocery items on Thursdays and Saturdays, they also tended to buy beer. Further analysis showed that these shoppers typically did their weekly grocery shopping on Saturdays. On Thursdays, however, they only bought a few items. The retailer concluded that they purchased the beer to have it available for the upcoming weekend.
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Developing MIS
The grocery chain could use this newly discovered information in various ways to increase revenue. For example, they could move the beer display closer to the grocery item display. And, they could make sure beer and that item were sold at full price on Thursdays.
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Developing MIS
Data, Information, and Knowledge
Data - Data are any facts, numbers, or text
that can be processed by a computer. Today, organizations are accumulating vast and growing amounts of data in different formats and different databases. This includes:
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Developing MIS
Operational or transactional data such as, sales, cost, inventory, payroll, and accounting Non- operational data, such as industry sales, forecast data, and macro economic data Meta data - data about the data itself, such as logical database design or Data Dictionary definitions
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Developing MIS
Information
The patterns, associations, or relationships among all this data can provide information. For example, analysis of retail point of sale transaction data can yield information on which products are selling and when.
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Developing MIS
Knowledge
Information can be converted into knowledge about historical patterns and future trends. For example, summary information on retail supermarket sales can be analyzed in light of promotional efforts to provide knowledge of consumer buying behavior. Thus, a manufacturer or retailer could determine which items are most susceptible to promotional efforts.
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Developing MIS
What can Data Mining do?
Data mining is primarily used today by companies with a strong consumer focus - retail, financial, communication, and marketing organizations. It enables these companies to determine relationships among "internal" factors such as price, product positioning, or staff skills, and "external" factors such as economic indicators, competition, and customer demographics. And, it enables them to determine the impact on sales, customer satisfaction, and corporate profits. Finally, it enables them to "drill down" into summary information to view detail transactional data.
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Developing MIS
How does Data Mining work?
Information Technology has enabled to establish link between the transactions and the Analytical system. The Software analyses the relations and the patterns in the stored transactions. Several types of Analytical Software are available e.g.: Statistical, Machine Learning and Neural Networks. Generally, any of four types of relationships are sought:
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Developing MIS
Classes:
Stored data is used to locate data in predetermined groups. For example, a restaurant chain could mine customer purchase data to determine when customers visit and what they typically order. This information could be used to increase traffic by having daily specials.
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Developing MIS
Clusters:
Data items are grouped according to logical relationships or consumer preferences. For example, data can be mined to identify market segments or consumer affinities.
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Developing MIS
Associations:
Data can be mined to identify associations.
Sequential patterns:
Data is mined to anticipate behavior patterns and trends. For example, an outdoor equipment retailer could predict the likelihood of a backpack being purchased based on a consumer's purchase of sleeping bags and hiking shoes.
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Developing MIS
Data Mining consists of five major elements:
- Extract, transform, and load transaction data onto the data warehouse system. - Store and manage the data in a multidimensional database system. - Provide data access to business analysts and information technology professionals. - Analyze the data by application software. - Present the data in a useful format, such as a graph or table.
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Application of MIS Cross Functional MIS
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Application of MIS
Cross Functional MIS
Conceptually the applications of Information Systems in the real world can be classified in several different ways. For Example: Several of information systems can be classified as either operations or Management Information Systems.
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Application of MIS
Information Systems
Operations Support System
Management Support Systems
Transaction Processing System
Process Control System
Enterprise Collaboration System
MIS
DSS
EIS
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Application of MIS
Operations Support Systems:
Transaction Processing System
Processes data resulting from Business transactions, update operational databases and produce business documents e.g. Sales ,Inventory and Accounting Systems.
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Application of MIS
Process Control Systems
Monitor and control industrial processes e.g. Petroleum Refining, Power generation, Steel production etc.
Enterprise Collaboration Systems

Support team, workgroup and enterprise communications and collaboration e.g. e-mail, chat, videoconferencing groupware systems.
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Application of MIS
Management Support Systems
MIS Provide Information in the form of prespecified reports and displays to support business decision making e.g. Sales Analysis, Production Performance and Cost Trend reporting systems.
Decision Support Systems Provide interactive

adhoc support for the decision-making process of managers and other business professionals. e.g. Product Pricing , Profitability forecasting and Risk Analysis Systems.
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Application of MIS
Executive Information Systems
Provide critical information from many sources tailored to the information needs of executives e.g. Systems for easy access to analysis of business performance, action of competitors and economic development to support strategic planning.
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Application of MIS
Other Categories of Information Systems
Expert Systems Knowledge- based systems that provide expert advice and act as expert consultant to users e.g. credit application advisor, process monitor and diagnostic systems.
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Application of MIS
Knowledge Management Systems
Knowledge based systems that support the creation, organization and dissemination of business knowledge within the enterprise e.g. intranet access to best business practices, sales proposal strategies and customers problem resolution systems.
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Application of MIS
Strategic Information Systems
Support operations or management process that provide a firm with strategic products, services and capabilities for competitive advantage. E.g. Online Stock trading, shipment tracking and e-Commerce systems.
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Application of MIS
Functional Business Systems
Support a variety of operational and managerial application of the basic business functions of a company e.g. information systems that support applications in accounting, finance, marketing , operations management and human resource management.
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Enterprise Resource
Planning - The ERP
Course Developed by - K.K.Nigam
What is ERP ?
ERP is an integrated Software Package, that takes care of almost all the activities in an organization in a cohesive manner. ERP is a integration of Resources (Men, Material, Machine and Money)
Enterprise Resource Planning

It addresses all the needs of the Enterprise. It is a generic Software solution that can be customized as per the needs of the organization, but at times the organization may also need to change its processes/workflows etc. to accept the Software package.

The essence of ERP or the purpose of implementing an ERP is to streamline the processes and and get the required information at the right time to take right decisions.

ERP integrates the functional modules tightly. It does not only posts the transactions to the relevant module but also maintains the data integrity throughout the life of the package.

This implies that the data once entered is made available to every other module that needs that. This leads to significant improvements by way of improved consistency and integrity of data.

ERP is Process oriented as such it uses the process view. Earlier Software were using the functional view, which used to focus a particular function e.g. Stores Inventory,Financial module etc. The process view provides a much better insight into the organizational systems.

To implement such a demanding software high performance computing, availability of systems, high availability of storage, highly reliable networks etc. are required, all within the specified budget.

ERP is the only Software whose deployment decisions are made in the corporate boardrooms and not by EDP/MIS departments. ERP today is the single most expensive piece of general-purpose software.

Need of ERP:
The need of ERP deployment has risen to keep a check and control the common resources of the organization which are: Men, Material, Machine and Money. Out of the four Ms the most crucial and critical resources are Men and Money.
ERP- Possible Benefits

Right information /decision helps in
- Increased Revenue - Decreased Inventory /Operating Cost - Improved Market Share - Reduction in Overheads
Factors Responsible For ERP

- Sluggish Sales - Increasing Raw Material Cost - Increasing Manpower Cost Globalization Competition Avoid Obsolescence

Decisions cannot be based on hunches or experience alone, they have to have some basis and that basis has to be the data the information and of course some analytical tools.

The user require flexible reporting tools to extract the information as and when they need it without depending on an information systems department to produce the report.

Complexities of ERP
The task of ERP implementation is not simple. It has both its complications/problems and advantages. It brings total overhaul to the working of the organization, as such it is bound to have problems. But these problems/complications may be viewed as Reengineering processes or functions.

Barring few unskilled or semi skilled workers, almost everybody in the organization will be affected by the ERP implementation. Everybody has to prepare himself for this change. They must be made clear that ERP, after implementation will bring phenomenal improvement in their working.

Generally Complications are due to:
- Change in Hardware - Change in Software or the - Changes in Procedures

The Hardware change should always be smooth whether it is up-gradation of Hardware or replacement of Hardware. The Software obviously is going to be changed (because of ERP), therefore the staff/user must be taken into confidence and given sufficient / required training so as to bring the change in work culture.

It is quite possible that due to certain changes , the staff/user may be required to be re-located/transferred. All these eventualities must be made clear to the users,so that these problems should not crop up at a later date.

We are well aware that change is always resisted. Generally change is not welcome in the organizations. Resistance may be due to following: - People do not like the Software - Fear of losing/transfer/re-location the job - Some may have genuine problem also But on the whole reluctance to change is common phenomena.

Some common apprehensions/ problems could be :
- Connectivity is not smooth with Server - Software/Package asks more details - No shortcuts are available - Confidentiality/importance is feared - Own weaknesses get highlighted etc.

Therefore before giving a green signal to the users to start using the package, following care must be taken:
- Connectivity problem should not be there - Thorough testing of Software must be done - Proper Training must be imparted - Support must be immediately available

Users should be given what they want:
- The Screens/forms should be designed in such a way that it should be complete in all respects for that particular user. - Checks and Controls must be built into the system so as to maintain the Data integrity and Data Quality
- Un-necessary options/choices should not be provided

- Data entered once should become integral part of the database and will be used by number of users,throughout the organization. - The Screens must be so designed so that the user feels comfortable while working. - Fields provided on the screen must be easily understood

- Sufficient space must be available for entering the data - Rolling of screen horizontally must be avoided
- Color scheme must be designed keeping aesthetic sense in mind i.e. they should not give pain to the users eye etc.

ERP and the Infrastructure
1.Before deciding to go for the Implementation, it is necessary, to ascertain that the required infrastructure is in place. 2. The ERP vendor or implementer must inform the organization about these requirements. 3.Organization in its turn must ensure that the required infrastructure is in place.
Generally, the management or the team responsible for implementation tries to cut the costs in these areas.

Integrated Data Model
1. Adequate study must be conducted before finalizing the Database. 2. Data Modeling is the most critical part of Designing the Database, because Database is the backbone of the of the ERP. 3. The database must have perfect interlinking of the tables so as to closely link the relevant fields of Employees, Customers and Suppliers etc. the database should be able to instantaneously update all the relevant fields of different tables as and when a transaction takes place anywhere in the organization.
Common Modules of

Modules Covered in a Typical Manufacturing environment
- Financial Accounting - Sales & Marketing - Purchase and Stores/Inventory - Human Resources including Payroll - Production Planning & Control - Logistics
Customer Relationship Management
What Is CRM?
Customer Relationship Management CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a company-wide business strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer loyalty.
What is the goal of CRM?

The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers. If it works as expected, a business can:

- Provide better customer service - Make call centers more efficient - Cross sell products more effectively - Help sales staff close deals faster - Simplify marketing and sales processes - Discover new customers - Increase revenues

Once thought of as a type of software, CRM has evolved into a customer-centric philosophy that must permeate an entire organization. There are three key elements to a successful CRM initiative: - People - Process and - Technology.

It's a strategy used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is not correct.
Customer Relationship Management It would be better to think about CRM as a process that will help bring together lots of information about customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends.

CRM may be viewed as an Integrated system of Web enabled software tools and databases accomplishing a variety pf Customer-focused business that support tools The three phases of the relationship between the business and its customers. These are: - Acquire - Enhance - Retain

Acquire:
A business relies on CRM software tools and databases to help it acquire new customers by doing a superior job of contact management, sales prospecting , selling ,direct marketing and fulfillment. The goal of the CRM function is to help Customers perceive the value of a superior product offered by the company.

Enhance:
Web-enabled CRM account management and customer service and support tools help keep customers happy by supporting superior service from a responsive networked team of sales and service specialists and business partners.

Retain:
CRM analytical software and databases help a Company proactively identify and reward its most loyal and profitable customers to retain and expand their business via targeted marketing and relationship marketing programs.

Customer Life Cycle
Acquire
Enhance
Retain
CRM Functional Solutions
Direct Marketing
Cross-Sell and Up-Sell
Proactive Service
Sales Force Automation
Customer Support

What are the keys to successful CRM implementation?
- Break your CRM project down into manageable pieces by setting up pilot programs and short-term milestones. Starting with a pilot project that incorporates all the necessary departments and groups that gets projects rolling quickly but is small enough and flexible enough to allow tinkering along the way.

- Make sure your CRM plans include a scalable architecture framework. - Don't underestimate how much data you might collect (there will be LOTS) and make sure that if you need to expand systems you'll be able to. - Be thoughtful about what data is collected and stored. The impulse will be to grab and then store EVERY piece of data you can, but there is often no reason to store data. Storing useless data wastes time and money. - Recognize the individuality of customers and respond appropriately. A CRM system should, for example, have builtin pricing flexibility.
Customer Relationship Management Which division should run the CRM project?
The biggest returns come from aligning business, CRM and IT strategies across all departments and not just leaving it for one group to run.

What causes CRM projects to fail?
Many things. From the beginning, lack of a communication between everyone in the customer relationship chain can lead to an incomplete picture of the customer. Poor communication can lead to technology being implemented without proper support or buy-in from users. For example, if the sales force isn't completely sold on the system's benefits, they may not input the kind of demographic data that is essential to the program's success.

What industries are leading the way in CRM implementations?
As in most leading-edge technology implementations, the financial services and telecommunications industries set the pace in CRM. Other industries are on the CRM bandwagon include consumer goods makers and retailers and high tech firms.
Supply Chain Management
Supply Chain Management What
is
Supply Chain Management ?


Supply Chain Management is the management of the entire value-added chain, from the supplier to manufacturer right through to the retailer and the final customer. SCM has three primary goals:
- Reduce inventory - Increase the transaction speed by exchanging data in real-time, and - Increase sales by implementing customer requirements more efficiently.

The design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of:
- Creating net value - Building a competitive infrastructure - Leveraging worldwide logistics - Synchronizing supply with demand, and - Measuring performance globally.

Following are five basic components of SCM:
1. Plan This is the strategic portion of SCM. You
need a strategy for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for your product or service. A big part of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, costs less and delivers high quality and value to customers.

2. Source Choose the suppliers that will deliver the
goods and services you need to produce your product. Develop a set of pricing, delivery and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for monitoring and improving the relationships. And put together processes for managing the inventory of goods and services you receive from suppliers, including receiving shipments, verifying them, transferring them to your manufacturing facilities and authorizing supplier payments.

3. Make This is the manufacturing step. Schedule
the activities necessary for production, testing, packaging and preparation for delivery. As the most metric-intensive portion of the supply chain, measure quality levels, production output and worker productivity.

4. Deliver This is the part that many insiders refer to as
logistics. Coordinate the receipt of orders from customers, develop a network of warehouses, pick carriers to get products to customers and set up an invoicing system to receive payments.

5. Return The problem part of the supply chain.
Create a network for receiving defective and excess products back from customers and supporting customers who have problems with delivered products.
Virtual Reality
What is Virtual Reality?
Artificial Intelligence
Virtual reality (often called VR) is generally speaking an attempt to provide more natural, human interfaces to software. It can be as simple as a pseudo 3D interface or as elaborate as an isolated room in which the computer can control the user's senses of vision, hearing, and even smell and touch. A technology that is computer generated and allows the user to interact with data that gives the appearance of a threedimensional environment. The user can "enter" and "navigate" the "3-D world" portrayed as graphic images and change viewpoint and interact with object in that world as if "inside" that world.
Virtual reality (VR) describes an environment that is simulated by a computer. Most virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic goggles, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers. Virtual reality is a simulated multidimensional environment created by computer technology. It is used extensively in training and entertainment
VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language VRML allows to create "virtual worlds" networked via the Internet and hyperlinked with the World Wide Web. Aspects of virtual world display, interaction and internetworking can be specified using VRML without being dependent on special gear like head-mounted devices (HMD). It is the intention of its designers to develop VRML as the standard language for interactive simulation within the World Wide Web.
Executive Support System
What is Executive Support/Information System


Executive Support System (ESS) is a reporting
tool (Software) that allows you to turn your organization's data into useful summarized reports. These reports are generally used by executive level managers for quick access to reports coming from all company levels and departments such as billing, cost accounting , staffing, scheduling, and more.

An Executive Information System (EIS) is a
computer-based system intended to facilitate and support the information and Decision making needs of senior executives by providing easy access to both internal and external information relevant to meeting the strategic goals of the organization. It is commonly considered as a specialized form of Decision Support System (DSS).

The emphasis of EIS is on graphical displays and easy-to-use user intefaces. They offer strong reporting and Drill Down capabilities. In general, EIS are enterprise-wide DSS that help top-level executives analyze, compare, and highlight trends in important variables so that they can monitor performance and identify opportunities and problems.

- Information systems at the strategic level of an organization designed to address unstructured Decision making through advanced graphics and communications - They combine data from both internal and external sources help senior executives spot problems, identify opportunities, and forecast trends - Provide data on the organizations environment - Increasingly drawing information from the Internet - Provide access to news services, financial market databases, economic information, and other useful public data

Developing an ESS
- Determine EIS requirements - very difficult - Create a facility for environmental scanning very difficult - Seamless integration of data from inside and outside organization - Provide early indicators of problems in the organizational environment (threats or opportunities) - Can be seen as "spying" on other managers work - Handle stakeholders with care

Advantages and Disadvantages of EIS
Advantages - Easy for upper-level executives to use - Extensive computer experience is not required in operations - Provides timely delivery of Summarized information - Information provided enables better understanding - Filters data for management - Improves to tracking information - Offers efficiency to decision makers

Disadvantages
- Functions are limited - Can not perform complex calculations - Hard to quantify benefits and to justify implementation of an EIS - Executives may encounter overloaded information - System may become slow, large, and hard to manage - Difficult to keep current data - May lead to less reliable and secure data - Small companies may encounter excessive costs for implementation
Security! Why?
Security
Computer security is the effort to create a secure computing platform, designed so that agents (users or programs) can only perform actions that have been allowed. This involves specifying and implementing a security policy. The actions in question can be reduced to operations of access, modification and deletion. Computer security can be seen as a subfield of security engineering, which looks at broader security issues in addition to computer security.
Security
In the Computer Industry, security refers to techniques for ensuring that data stored in a computer cannot be read or compromised by any individual without having proper authorization. With the fast proliferation of Internet , the security threats are also increasing with almost the same speed. To keep a check and control the threats that are coming from the Internet is big problem. Lots of measures/software are being developed /deployed to tackle this menace.
Security
Security Management has become a very big concern
for every organization throughout the world. The objective of Security Management is to maintain accuracy , integrity and safety of all information system processes and resources. Thus effective Security Management can minimize errors, frauds, and losses from such threats.
Security
Types of Security Risks :
- Steal confidential documents - Execute commands on the server host machine by an intruder - Gain information about the Web server's host machine that will allow them to break into the system. - Launch denial-of-service attacks, rendering the machine temporarily unusable. - The misuse of personal information knowingly or unknowingly provided by the end-user.
Security
A security policy must be in place that should lay out your organization's policies with regard to:
- Who is allowed to use the system - When they are allowed to use it - What they are allowed to do (different groups may be granted different levels of access) - Procedures for granting access to the system - Procedures for revoking access (e.g. when an employee leaves) - What constitutes acceptable use of the system - Remote and local login methods - System monitoring procedures - Protocols for responding to suspected security breaches
Thank You

Management Information System: Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

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Introduction to

Management Information System

Let us first try to understand What is

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Office Automation Systems (OAS)

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Strategic Advantage with MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

The list of potential sustainable competitive advantage characteristics is very long.

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

What is Systems Approach ?

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam

Systems Approach to MIS

Course Developed by K.K.Nigam