ROLE OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
The role of the MIS in an organization can be compared to the role of the heart in the body. The information is the blood and MIS is the heart. In the body, the heart plays the role of supplying pure blood to all the elements of the body including the brain. The heart works faster and supplies more blood when needed. It regulates and controls the incoming impure blood, processed it and sends it to the destination in the quantity needed. It fulfills the needs of blood supply to the human body in the normal course and also in crisis.
The MIS plays exactly the same role in the organization. The system ensures that appropriate data is collected from the various sources, processed and send further to all the needy destinations. The system is expected to fulfill the information needs of an individual, a group of individuals, the management functionaries: the managers and top management.
Here are some of the important roles of the MIS:
i. The MIS satisfies the diverse needs through a variety of systems such as query system, analysis system, modeling system, and decision support system.
ii. The MIS helps in strategic planning, management control, operational control, and transaction processing. The MIS helps in the clerical personnel in the transaction processing and answers the queries on the data pertaining to the transaction, the status of a particular record and reference on a variety of documents.
iii. The MIS helps the junior management personnel by providing the operational data for planning, scheduling, and control, and helps them further in decision-making at the operation level to correct an out of control situation.
iv. The MIS helps the middle management in short term planning, target setting and controlling the business functions. It is supported by the use of the management tools of planning and control.
v. The MIS helps the top level management in goal setting, strategic planning and evolving the business plans and their implementation.
vi. The MIS plays the role of information generation, communication, problem identification and helps in the process of decision-making. The MIS, therefore, plays a vital role in the management, administration, and operation of an organization.
