Models of Decision Making MIS

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Models of Decision

Making

MIS

ANGAD DEEP SINGH SEHDEVA 3191

ANISH PADHI 3192

TYD


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INTRODUCTION

A Management Information System (MIS)provides information that organizations require to manage

themselves efficiently and effectively. Management information systems are typically computer

systems used for managing five primary components

1.

Hardware

2.

Software

3. Data (information for decision making)

4. Procedures (design, development and documentation)

5. People (individuals, groups, or organizations)

Management information systems analyse and facilitate strategic and operational activities. MIS Helps

in the study of how individuals, groups, and organizations evaluate, design, implement, manage, and

utilises systems to generate information to improve efficiency and effectiveness of decision making.

Most leading organisations (or colleges of business administration) have an MIS department,

alongside departments of accounting, finance, management, marketing and others.

A management information system gives the business managers the information that they need to

make decisions. Early business computers were used for simple operations such as tracking inventory,

billing, sales, or payroll data, with little detail or structure. Over time, these computer applications

became more complex, hardware storage capacities grew, and technologies improved for connecting

previously isolated applications. As more data was stored and linked, managers sought greater

abstraction as well as greater detail with the aim of creating significant management reports from the

raw, stored data.

Originally, the term "MIS" described applications providing managers with information about sales,

inventories, and other data that would help in managing the enterprise. Over time, the term

broadened to include: decision support systems, resource management, human resource

management, enterprise resource planning, enterprise performance management, supply chain

management, customer relationship management, project management and database retrieval

applications.


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Most Management Information Systems specialize in particular commercial and industrial sectors,

aspects of the enterprise, or management substructure.

Management information systems (MIS), produce fixed, regularly scheduled reports based

on data extracted and summarized from the firms underlying transaction processing systems

to middle and operational level managers to identify and inform structured and semi-

structured decision problems.

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are computer program applications used by middle

management to compile information from a wide range of sources to support problem solving

and decision making.

Executive Information Systems (EIS) is a reporting tool that provides quick access to

summarized reports coming from all company levels and departments such as accounting,human resources and operations.

Marketing Information Systems (MIS) are Management Information Systems designed

specifically for managing the marketing aspects of the business.

Office Automation Systems (OAS)support communication and productivity in the enterprise

by automating work flow and eliminating bottlenecks. OAS may be implemented at any and

all levels of management.

School Information Management Systems (SIMS) cover school administration, and often

including teaching and learning materials.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)facilitates the flow of information between all business

functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside

stakeholders.


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MODELS OF DECISION MAKING

A management information system (MIS) is an organized combination of people, hardware,

communication networks and data sources that collects, transforms and distributes information in an

organization. An MIS helps decision making by providing timely, relevant and accurate information to

managers. The physical components of an MIS include hardware, software, database, personnel and

procedures.

Management information is an important input for efficient performance of various managerial

functions at different organization levels. The information system facilitates decision making.

Management functions include planning, controlling and decision making. Decision making is the core

of management and aims at selecting the best alternative to achieve an objective. The decisions may

be strategic, tactical or technical. Strategic decisions are characterized by uncertainty. They are future

oriented and relate directly to planning activity. Tactical decisions cover both planning and controlling.

Technical decisions pertain to implementation of specific tasks through appropriate technology. Sales

region analysis, cost analysis, annual budgeting, and relocation analysis are examples of decision-

support systems and management information systems.

There are 3 areas in the organization. They are strategic, managerial and operational control.

Strategic decisionsare characterized by uncertainty. The decisions to be made in the area of strategic

planning are future oriented and relate directly to planning activity. Here basically planning for future

that is budgets, target markets, policies, objectives etc. is done. This is basically a top level where up-

to-the minute information on the food items ordered and breaks out percentages showing sales of

each item versus total sales is provided. The top level where strategic planning is done compares the

weekly sales totals versus food costs, allowing planning for tighter cost controls. Executive support

systems function at the strategic level, support unstructured decision making, and use advanced

graphics and communications. Examples of executive support systems include sales trend forecasting,budget forecasting, operating plan development, budget forecasting, profit planning, and manpower

planning.

The decisions to be made in the area of managerial control are largely dependent upon the

information available to the decision makers. It is basically a middle level where planning of menus is

done and whenever an order is voided, the reasons for the void are keyed in which later helps in

management decisions, especially if the voids are related to food or service. The managerial control

that is middle level also gets customer feedback and is responsible for customer satisfaction.


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The decisions to be made in the area of operationalcontrol pertain to implementation of specific

tasks through appropriate technology. This is basically a lower level where the waiter takes the order

and enters it online via one of the six terminals located in the restaurant dining room and the order is

routed to a printer in the appropriate preparation area. The items ordered list and the respective

prices are automatically generated. The cooks send out of stock message when the kitchen runs out

of a food item, which is basically displayed on the dining room terminals when waiter tries to order

that item. This basically gives the waiters faster feedback, enabling them to give better service to the

customers. Transaction processing systems function at the operational level of the organization.

Examples of transaction processing systems include order tracking, order processing, machine control,

plant scheduling, compensation, and securities trading

The business decision-making is sequential in nature. In business, the decisions are not isolated

events. Each of them has a relation to some other decision or situation. The decision may appear as a

snap decision but it is made only after long chain of developments and a series of related earlier

decisions.

The decision-making process is a complex process in the higher hierarchy of management. The

complexity is the result of many factors such as inter-relationship among the experts of decision-

makers, a job responsibility, and a question of feasibility, the codes of morals and ethics and a

probable impact on business.

The personal valuesof the decision-maker play a major role in decision-making. A decision otherwise

being very sound on the business principle and economically rationality may be rejected on the basis

of the personal values, which are defeated if such a decision is implemented. The culture, the

discipline and the individual commitment to goals will decide the process and success of the decision.

The decision-making process requires creativity, imagination and a deep understanding of human

behaviour. The process covers over a number of tangible and intangible factors affecting the decision

process. It also requires a foresight to predict the post-decision implication and a willingness to face

those implications. All decisions solve a problem but over a period of time they give rise to a number

of other problems.

The need of information system in organization is to support the decision-making process. The

managers must be aware of problems before decision can be made. A problem exists when the real

situation is different than the expected one. After the problem has been identified, the cause of

existence of the problem must be identified and then the solution to the problem has to be found.


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The decision-making processcan be divided into three main phases:

Intelligence: searching the environment for condition calling for decisions. The phase consists

of determining that a problem exists.

Design: during this phase a set of alternative solution is generated and tested for feasibility.

Choice: in this phase, the decision-maker select one of the solution identified in the design

phase.

Thus, the decision process follows the sequence from intelligence to design and from design to choice.

It is possible to get back from one phase to another and whole process may be repeated. It is very

important to distinguish between programmed and non-programmed decision.

If a decision can be based on a rule, method or even guidelines, it is said to be programmed decision.The effectiveness of rule can be analysed and then rule can be reviewed and modified from time to

time for an improvement. The programmed decision-making can be delegated to the lower level in

management.

A decision which cannot be made by using a rule or a model is the non-programmed decision. Such

decisions are infrequent but the stakes are usually larger. Therefore, they cannot be delegated to the

lower level. The MIS in the non-programmed decision situation can help to some extent, in identifying

the problem, giving the relevant information to handle the specific decision-making situation. The

MIS, in other words, can develop support system in the non-programmed decision-making situation.

Advertising budgets, new product decisions and similar problems illustrate the non-programmed type

of decision that cannot be automated.


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TYPES OFDECISIONS

The types of decisions are based on the degree of knowledge about the outcomes or the events yet

to take place. If the manager has full and precise knowledge of the event or outcomes which is to

occur, then the decision-making is not a problem. If the manager has full knowledge, then it is a

situation of certainty. If he has partial knowledge or a probabilistic knowledge then it is decision-

making under risk. If the manager does not have any knowledge, whatsoever then it is decision-making

under uncertainty.

A good MIS tries to convert a decision-making situation under uncertainty to the situation under risk

and further to certainty. Decision-making in the operational management is a situation of certainty.

This is mainly because the manager in this field, has full knowledge of environment, and has a

predetermined decision alternative for choice or for selection.

Decision-making at the middle management level is of the risk type. This is because of the difficulty in

forecasting an event with 100 percent accuracy and the limited scope of generating the decision

alternatives.

At the top management level, it is a situation of total uncertainty on account of insufficient knowledge

of the external environment and the difficulty in forecasting business growth on a long-term basis.

A good MIS design gives adequate support to all the three levels of management


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TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING SYSTEMS

The decision-making systems can be classified in a number of ways. There are two types of systems

based on the managers knowledge about the environment. If the manager operates in a known

environment then it is a closed decision-making system. The conditions of the closed-decision making

systems are:-

I.

The manager has a known set of decisions alternatives and knows their outcomes fully

in terms of value, if implemented.

II. The manager has a model, a method or a rule whereby the decision alternatives can be

generated, tested and ranked for selection.

III. The manager can choose one of them, based on some goal or objective criteria.

Few examples are; a product mix problem, an examination system to declare pass or fail, or

acceptance of the fixed deposits.

If the manager operates in an environment not known to him, then the decision-making system is

termed as an open decision-making system. The conditions of this contrast closed decision-making

system are:-

I.

The manager does not know all the decision alternatives

II. The outcome of the decision is also not known fully. The knowledge of the outcome may

be a probabilistic one.

III. No method, rule or model is available to study and finalize one decision among the set

of decision alternatives.

IV. It is difficult to decide an objective or a goal and therefore, the manager resorts to that

decision, where his aspirations or desires are met best.

Deciding on the possible product diversification lines, the pricing of a new product, and the plantlocation, are some decision-making situations which fall in the category of the open decision-making

system.

The MIS tries to convert every open system to a closed decision-making system by providing

information support for the best decision. The MIS gives the information support, whereby the

managers know more and more about environment and the outcomes, he is able to generate the

decision alternatives, test them and select one of the alternatives. A good MIS achieves this.


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HERBERT SIMON MODEL

Decision-making is a process in which the decision-maker uses to arrive at a decision. The core of this

process is described by Herbert Simon in a model. He describes the model in three phases as shown

in the figure below:

I.

Intelligence: raw data collected, processed and examined, Identifies a problem calling

for a decision.

II. Design: inventing, developing and analysing the different decision alternatives and

testing the feasibility of implementation. Assess the value of the decision outcome.

III. Choice: select one alternative as a decision, based on the selection criteria.

In the intelligence phase, the MIS collects the data. The data is scanned, examined, checked and

edited. Further, the data is sorted and merged with other data and computations are made,

summarized and presented. In this process, the attention of the manager is drawn to all problem

situations by highlighting the significant differences between the actual and the expected, the

budgeted or the targeted.

In the design phase, the manager develops a model of the problem situation on which he can generate

and test the different decision alternatives, he then further moves into phase of selection called as

choice.

In the phase of choice, the manager evolves selection criteria such as maximum profit, least cost,

minimum wastage, least time taken and highest utility. The criterion is applied to the various decision

alternatives and the one which satisfies the most is selected.

In these phases, if the manager fails to reach a decision, he starts the process all over again and again.

An ideal MIS is supposed to make a decision for the manager.

An example of the Simon model would illustrate further its use in the MIS. For example, a manager

finds on collection and through the analysis of the data that the manufacturing plant is underutilized

and the products which are being sold are not contributing to the profits as desired. The problem

identified, therefore, is to find a product mix for the plant, whereby the plant is fully utilized within

the raw material and the market constraints, and the profit is maximized. The manager having

identified this as the problem of optimization, now examines the use of linear programming (LP)

model. The model is used to evolve various decision alternatives. However, selection is made first on

the basis of feasibility and then on the basis of maximum profit.


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The product mix so given is examined by the management committee. It is observed that the market

constraints were not realistic in some cases and the present plant capacity can be enhanced to

improve the profit. The same model is used again to tool the revised position. Therefore, additional

data is collected and an analysis is made to find out whether the average 20 percent utilization of the

capacity can be increased. A market research for some products is made and it is found that some

constraints need to be removed and reduced. Based on the revised data linear programming model is

used and a better optimum solution is obtained.


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CONCLUSION

It is necessary to understand the concept of decision-making as they are relevant to the design of the

MIS. The Simon model provides a conceptual design of the MIS and decision-making wherein the

designer has to design the system in such a way that the problem is identified in precise terms.

In the design phase of the model, the designer is to ensure that the system provides models for

decision-making. These models should provide for the generation of decision alternatives, test them

and pave way for the selection of one of them. In a choice phase, the designer must help to select the

criteria to select one alternative amongst the many.

The concept of programmed decision-making is the finest tool available to the MIS designer, whereby

he can transfer decision-making from a decision-maker to the MIS and still retain the responsibility

and accountability with the decision maker or the manager. In case of non-programmed decisions, the

MIS should provide the decision support systems provide a generalized model of decision-making.

The methods of decision-making can be used directly in the MIS provided the method to be applied

has been decided. A number of decision-making problem calls for optimization, and operational

models are available which can be made a part of the system, the optimization models are static and

dynamic, and both can be used in the MIS. Some of the problems call for a competitive analysis, such

as payoff analysis. In these problems, the MIS can provide the analysis based on the gains, the regrets

and the utility.

The concept of the organizational and behavioural aspects of decision-making provides an insight to

the designer to handle the organizational culture and the constraints in the MIS. The concepts of the

rationality of a business decision, the risk awareness of the managers and the tendency to avoid an

uncertainty, makes the designer conscious about the human limitations and prompts him to provide

a support in the MIS to handle these limitations. The reliance on organizational learning makes the

designer aware of the MIS and makes him provide the channels in the MIS to make the learning

process more efficient.


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Management Information System - Decision

support in public

administration. Case study of

the Hungarian CentralStatistical Office

dr. Jzsef KRPTI

Hungarian Central Statistical Office

[email protected]

Above a certain size of the organization, whether privateor public, the decision makinglevel of the management requires digested information to

receive support in the form of

exact and relevant data or reports. These data are areflection of the most importantstrategic and operational elements of the specificorganization, giving an overview of theactivities and results of planning, production, marketing,sales, customer relations, cashflow etc. depending on the core activity of the company. The

quality of these data is of the

utmost importance, since the top management of large

organizations derives its high leveldecisions mostly from such digests instead of going

down in the depth of the coreactivity components. As the supporting InformationTechnology went through asignificant development during the last decades, and business

intelligence solutions were

developed, more and more attention was drawn to thesetechnologies in the privatesectors companies and large or central public

administration institutions as well. Thearticle displays a brief case study of the design and

implementation of such a management

information system (MIS) in the Hungarian Central

Statistical Office in detail. Theimplemented system had to comply with several


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expectations, where some of them were

specified for public administration. As the dailyapplication of an MIS is still rare inHungarian public administration, the efforts of the officewere almost exclusively basedon international good practices and the definition of our own

needs.

Keywords: Information technology, businessintelligence, management information system, report,dashboard, OLAP, public administration, intranet,database, Key Performance Indicators.

1 Introductory notes

The need to manage an organization by examiningthe feedback information of

its operation is an obvious demand of the topmanagement of all organizations.This requirement itself is as old as the first trulymanaged societies and


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organizations of several thousands of years ago. The way how the leaders of asociety or an organization actually did this activity, went through an obviousdevelopment depending on the size of the managed structure and - certainly - the

technical and scientific level of the given entity. The development of thediscipline of (management-) controlling woke up always higher expectations and

a permanently emerging burden on those organizational units, which had theresponsibility of reporting on the activities to the top managers. For a very longtime, this function was mostly and clearly considered as a specific sub-role ofaccounting, but the information requirements have progressively exceeded thelimits of the financial / accounting areas. However, the lack of sufficientinformation and data integration did not make it possible to explore the opportunities

of such information to the full.

As the modern Information Technology (IT) in the nineteen-seventies gave a broaderopportunity for more and more companies to computerize several areas of their operation,including the already mentioned accounting, the inventories, even some demographic data onsales etc. the management discovered that they have a wide selection of historic business data like

never before. It became clear that these data could be used for further purposes, but theyd

require a certain filtering and prioritization.

The emerge of the integrated IT solutions for business companies like ERP systems,business process management and so on boosted the amount of information what a company

produced about its own activities. This resulted in a completely new battlefield where responseto information needs became more and more hard to find, since the complexity and

fragmentation of the information was exponentially growing, as IT tools began serving suchpurposes in more and more sophisticated ways.

2 From business intelligence to the MIS

Fifty years of evolution in IT gave importance to a new definition called business

intelligence.1 In the given context business was a collection of activities forwhatever purpose, and intelligence was interpreted as the ability to apprehend

the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards

a desired goal. This definition is still acceptable for the activity it describes. The

application of different business intelligence (BI) tools in the operation of anenterprise is becoming nowadays a key issue. Even small or medium size

enterprises start discovering the opportunity of using the information, which is

1see H.P. Luhn s referred pioneering article on business intelligence


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produced during their own activities, on detailed customer analysis and sales forecastingfrom historical data for example.

Especially larger enterprises are those ones, where another level of informationmay also be needed, not for the operation itself, but for a summary of facts. This

purpose is served by management information systems, which can really play an

important role, as theres a natural demand from the top management to receive

up-to-date or at least very timely, relevant information on the operation of theenterprise. This service was done on paper in the form of different reports for avery long time, and it is still being in use. The problem is that usually the topmanagement requires a complex set of indicators, data or reports, which content

are mostly in the hands of several responsible units within the organization. Sothe term MIS is commonly used to refer to the group of several informationmanagement methods tied to the automation or support of human decisionmaking, integrating different data sources. Theres no common agreement on a

more specific definition, since the content of management information systems is

not really an object for standardization. A good MIS should rather refer to theactual needs of the specific users who are intended to use it. It may containstatistics, accounting information, payroll information, customer data and so on.There are only two assumptions: MISs are to support decision making with their

digested and integrated content, and they are not the systems where operators of

different areas implement their actual activities.

Based on these statements we could agree on the following definition: The management

information system in the 21st

century is an IT solution that extracts timely, relevant and wideranging data from the transactional2 systems of an enterprise, for the purpose of anintegrated overview and matching of data from different sources, ready for analysis of themost important information and serving the goal of supporting the high level decision making.

The best management information systems are comparable to the dashboard of a car, where the

most important data during the operation are reflected by specificgauges. Although the outlookof MISs may vary from very graphical to very dry tabular or even textual format, the comparison

is reasonable.

2 We consider those systems transactional where the purpose of the IT system is to

support an activity in the core production value chain or in the area of supporting administrationalactivities of an enterprise.


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3 Managing information in the Hungarian CentralStatistical Office

Public administration, especially in the Eastern or Central European countrieswas (and to some extent - still is) suffering from fragmentation, unclearresponsibilities and insufficient information flow in the hierarchy of theorganization. This situation resulted in several attempts and results at different

public administration organizations in Hungary as well, as more and more

decision makers realized in administration, that a more effective tool is requiredfor better operation. This chapter will introduce the situation from an insiders

point of view.The Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) has launched a verycomprehensive strategy from 2005. During the last years the development ofsubject matter areas in statistics and dissemination, the institutional relations and

also the organizational and management reforms resulted in a more qualitative,effective and transparent statistics office. A major role in institutionalmanagement was given among other plans to process management, a new,resource based program planning system, the evaluation and analysis of the

performance of programs - in a significantly different way, in parallel with thecentral public administration requirements - and the introduction of a newmanagement information system which was intended to collect and presentdifferent operational data and reports in a standardized way. As this plan was

set in the HCSO Strategy3, the office had a countrywide organizational structurewith 19 local (county) units and approximately 1800 employees. Although theorganization went under a very major reform by creating 6 regional officesinstead of the county office structure in 2005, and this was followed by thespecialization of the regional offices for a given subject matter area withnationwide responsibility (!) in 2007, the size and structure of the organization of

HCSO remained similar to a quite large enterprise.

The top management of HCSO has stated that for a more effective control on the

different operations of such a large organization, a management informationsystem would be useful. There were several actual reasons to underline this idea.

First of all, the operational information was required more and more in astandardized form from top management, but the sources of information were

very dispersed within the organization. We introduced new managementtechniques, taken from the market sector like starting projects for differentdevelopment purposes, but the monitoring was not solved properly, yet. Thefurther communication and feedback of presidential reports was also not solved -

there was only a one way information flow within the organization with much

3 HCSO Strategy 2005-2008


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less feedback from top to down. Finally, there was an emerging demand to form a more

transparent operation on mid-level management, too, which also required a solution of the

information flow.

Based on these statements within the organization, the president of the office suggested tostart a new development project, where the goal was to create a tailor made MIS for themanagement of HCSO. Since the resources were not sufficient for implementing the entireidea in practice, it was decided that the project would consist of two phases. The first phasewas a preparatory phase, where the collection of MIS requirements, system planning andthe framework concept were finalized.

The first phase of the project stated in Spring 2005 and was finished by thatAutumn. During these months the first step was to sort out the different demandsof the management, since the basic idea was to extend the use of the MIS to the

heads of departments as well. Interviews with different management memberswere carried out, which resulted in a catalogue of a possible content.

In parallel with that, a definition study was prepared on the current status ofinformation flow in practice, then a recommended scheme for reporting rules,technical solution and content was designed. It was continuously envisaged that

the information should not serve as a tool of power but a fundament for gooddecision making. This approach was highly appreciated among the members ofmid-management level and they were very supportive during the first phase.

The fundamental findings of the 2005 definition study could be summarized as the

following:a) Information presence

All kinds of operational information are present, what usually managers of taskswould need for their work, but sometimes they are a bit hard to find, since somemanagers simply dont know about the existence of a specific information.

b) Information definition and standardization

Some groups are well defined, but some groups are not standardized and are hard

to compile in a useful format. That means that the owners of the data are usually

forced to create unique queries and collections of data. This is also reflected inthe behavior of the managers who require the information: they change theirideas on content very quickly avoiding the smallest chance of creating such astabile query, which could result in some time series for analysis later on.

c) Quality

Correlating with the previous point, the fulfillment of different quality aspectsvaried highly. There were some very timely but completely irrelevant operationinformation, but some of the most important are not possible to be presented in


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real time, just in a given time lag. There were very accurate information or data, usually comingdirectly from a transactional system, but there were requirements which only could have beenfulfilled by manual work, resulting in a greater risk of errors and discrepancies.

d) Accessibility

There were several source IT systems with usually very different technicalplatforms, lots of ad hoc activities were required to produce reports even fromautomatized systems, and there was no single pipeline for information requests

but usually managers needed to ask for specific information on their own.

This analysis pointed very quickly and clearly at those areas, where a development

was to be achieved by the project and it fully confirmed that the demands of the topmanagement were righteous.

Due to the mentioned lack of resources, the management information system was

not constructed in the coming year of 2006. Instead, a paper based MIS was

launched which meant that the top and mid-level management started receivingcontinuous standardized reports without asking for them at all. This practice had

some very good consequences and looking backwards we can be really satisfied

that this practice was introduced prior to the implementation of the IT system.The reasons were the following: during the launch period in the first months ofthe Paper based MIS the content, the format, the responsibilities and the

frequency of the introduced reports were clarified. We implemented severalchanges in content based on the first feedbacks of the managers, who received

these reports, and we were also able to define the real owners of the specificdata, who were asked in writing by the president to fulfill the data requirements.

It took about a year to get acquainted with the reports and information. Theentire process was coordinated by the Planning department, which is a unit with

similar tasks as a controlling unit has at enterprises. This department becameresponsible for operating the paper based - and later on the IT supported - MIS.

4 Implementation of the MIS with IT support

Since some resources were revealed during 2006, the second phase of the project was able to bestarted in late Summer. By this time we already had some experience with the paper basedoperation and were able to refine and define the information needs of the upcoming users.

We had some basic decisions by this time which oriented the project in thedirection of selecting a specific IT tool for the purpose, and these decisions were


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connected to the parallel reconstruction of the Intranet site of HCSO. Since it was decidedthat the new Intranet portal will use a portal software which is highly usable for MIS

purposes as well, the project accepted this environment as the starting point.

The project had to face several challenges during the automation process of the

different data sources, since data were on heterogeneous platforms ranging from

Oracle to Microsoft through unique developments. The essence of these data had

to be integrated into one single database, which is an sql database with OLAPfunctionality4. On the other hand we also had easier tasks to solve, because wewere offered to use the embedded services of the portal framework likedocument management, calendars for specific purposes, version history, survey

and forum possibilities, so we started experimenting how different data could bepresented in the best way.

On technical side, we realized that the new MIS is simple and easy to handlethrough a web browser, there is a personalization possibility and we can solvethe full integration with the Microsoft Office environment in HCSO. Thefinalized MIS uses now the regular Intranet platform of the HCSO, being achapter of it.

5 Main advantages of the IT based solution

We defined the main expected advantages of the MIS as the automatic creationand publication of reports with unified format and fixed content (standard

reports), a platform to reach the detailed database and analyze it (in first line forhelping analysts of MIS but it is open to all who are interested in details), the easy

publication of tailor made analyses, the possibility to monitor key processesin a transparent wayand distribute information in a very wide circle (news, documents, graphs, tables etc.) throughthe portal.

The main difference of the IT supported MIS compared to a paper based system is the fact thatstandard reports are now required through a single pipeline, the Planning department. Ifthe top management considers an information requirement important, it becomes astandard report which will be developed andproduced regularly from the time it was introduced.

That means that the amount of single, direct information queries from managers to theowner of data was reduced and due to the common agreement on the content of reports, we areable to produce time series in specific areas.

4 For a detailed description see E.F. Codds 12 rules on on-line analytical processing


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We also succeeded to decrease the information distribution via e-mails, since sendingdocuments for opinion and approval, and sending large report files with graphs and tables werea burden on the e-mail system. Now these files are stored on line on the server of MIS, ready to be

reached.

We also are able to orientate the users to key topics, as MIS has an own startingpage with a clear

structure and a headlines-column.

Maybe the most important outcome is that the regular monitoring of theoperational information is mostly automatized, and embedded into regularHCSO processes as a process quality aspect itself. The owners of informationusually fulfill their obligation to give data without additional burden, since we

introduced the standardized reporting on most areas to use at least mostly thetemplates they were already using for a different purpose, or to document theirown work anyway.

6 The different participant roles in MIS

Basically four specific roles are separated in the HCSO for the managementinformation system. The Database administrator is responsible for access

management, operation supervision (log files etc.), hardware-softwaremaintenance and updates, patches. Hes the real IT specialist in the circle. TheMIS Content administrator is the supervisor of automatized input processes,and is responsible for semi-automatic data conversion from standard files. Therole also includes the management of news and documents, as a general content

manager of MIS, so basically nobody else is entitled (with some exceptionsbelow) to publish something or to insert some changes or new lines in thedatabases. The content administrator is also responsible for the support of users

on the service, while we have to point it out, that this participant is not an ITspecialist, rather a so called power user of the applications. There are further

Subpage administrators in MIS, because some of the parts are maintained

directly by separate persons. An example of that is the calendar of travels andsubject matter meetings abroad, where the International division has the soleresponsibility to maintain the embedded calendar directly. The fourth role is the

Data owners role who doesnt maintain MIS directly. Instead the data ownerchecks, or sometimes also sends their automatically produced datafiles or themanually created data table or documents to the MIS Content administrator, who

disseminates the data on the portal after a check.

The system is based on a generally issued an open handbook , which explains in

detail if which specific department of HCSO has to deliver which dataset, by


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what frequency and deadlines, in what format. The handbook is also supplied with templatesfor the reporting obligations wherever possible.

7 Current content of HCSOs management

information system

The MIS is under a systematic revision every year, inserting new demands and filtering outnot required services from the content. The current setup of the MIS contains 6 chapters as

indicated below in picture 1.

Since HCSO introduced a standardized nomenclature for its programs and thedifferent steps of the workflow (activities) also, these nomenclatures becamewidely and obligatorily used for the identification of human resource andfinancial data in planning, the electronic working time registration (electronictime sheets), project monitoring and accounting also. The nomenclature codes as

unique identifiers make it possible to survey the different programs from severalaspects, as the different sources of information can be linked together by the use

of these common identification codes. This is the basis for the comprehensivepresentation of information.

The presentation itself takes place in five different ways according to the type of content and

the type of the data source. Most parts in MIS are covered with standard reports, whichusually have only one dimension that can be changed, and thats the reference period (time).These reports are created from an OLAP database directly when you click on them, andtheir content in tabular format cannot be changed by the user.

For a more sophisticated analysis or for the creation of time series, thefundamental databases behind the standard reports can also be reached by adynamic OLAP tabulation query, where the user is able to select differentdimensions and combine them freely. Some of the information are also presented

on graphs, where the restructuring of the table produces immediately a newgraph also on the intranet page. The data from these tables can also be exported

to Excel, but the MIS database certainly can not be overwritten.

The third form(s) of presentation are two, specifically developed embedded

applications on the portal. In the case of the project monitoring system eachproject has a subpage with document library and several unique services, likeautomatic deadline monitoring for project tasks etc. In the case of investmentmonitoring all partner accounts and project accounts can be monitored at aglance, from the point of view of their financial investment requirements.


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The fourth and most simple way of presentation is the case, when certain informationcan not be inserted in to a database, because it would make no sense to do so. In these cases we

publish the original source document that can be a .doc or .xls or .pdf file etc.

The fifth way of presentation is through the embedded services of the portal software, inthe case of the business travels for example, which I already mentioned.

- budget and financial data

Organizational

Information

- HR information

- Internal education

- Internal audit reports and tables -

public procurement

- Annual program plans

MIS

Portal

Production

information

Developmentinformation

- Monthly resource usage data

- New programs, tasks

- Dissemination performance

- Strategic development plans BSC indicators

- Development projects monitoring application -

Investment monitoring application

- GRANT and other international projectinformation

HCSO Knowledge base

+ 2- Subpages for internal committees

- Metadata of the MIS files

- Other useful information and docs on planning,

International contact lists, abbreviations etc.

-International travel calendar of HCSO officersand visiting delegations (with involved

documents)

- Document management of top levelmanagement meetings and board meetings

Picture 1.

The chapters of HCSOs Management Information System

8 Experiences so far

During the project the top management has realized that the potential of theimplemented system is much higher then expected. In order to that the finaldecision on the starting of MIS made it possible for every single member of staff

in HCSO to use the system and look at its information. The purpose of that was


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the fact, that HCSO - being a public administrationorganization - is committed to give a transparentoverview on its operation for all employees and hasno financially confidential information which isthe case mostly in the private sector. So we

currently have more than one thousand potentialusers. A part of the users (approximately 150)already have received a detailed training on the useof the system, and we still plan organizing more of that.

The wide use of the MIS is promoted internally, and the

Planning department has also made comprehensiveanalysis documents from its content. A member ofthese - the annual report on HCSOs 2007operation - is now under final editorial check andwill also be published on HCSOs website, to

enhance the transparency of the office reflected to thesociety.

The president and other managers are more and more

used to the fact that they

have a standard service in their hands, what they areusing always more often.On the other hand, the employees of HCSO feel the

importance of the gesture of

making the system available for them, even thoughwe clearly have to see, thatthis intention is far beyond a management

information system, its already

rather an Organizational Information Management

System which can be used

for several purposes.

The evolution is going on - we always collect newdemands from the users to find out how this servicecould even satisfy them even more for decision making

or for just general information.

References

H.P. LUHN: A Business Intelligence System,IBM Journal, October 1958.

online available at:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/024/ibmrd0204H.pdf

HCSO Strategy 2005-2008, Hungarian CentralStatistical Office, Budapest 2005


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Download at:

http://portal.ksh.hu/portal/page?_pageid=37,59

5444&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

E.F. CODD: Providing OLAP (On-line AnalyticalProcessing) to User-Analysts:

An IT Mandate written by Codd E.F., CoddS.B., and Salley C.T. , Codd

& Date, Inc. 1993.An abstract is available online at: http://www.fpm.com/refer/codd.html


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ANALYSIS

Above a certain size of the organization, whether private or public, the decision making level of the

management requires digested information to receive support in the form of exact and relevant

data or reports. These data are a reflection of the most important strategic and operational elements

of the specific organization, giving an overview of the activities and results of planning, production,

marketing, sales, customer relations, cash flow etc. depending on the core activity of the company.

The quality of these data is of the utmost importance, since the top management of large

organizations derives its high level decisions mostly from such digests instead of going down in the

depth of the core activity components. As the supporting Information Technology went through a

significant development during the last decades, and business intelligence solutions were developed,

more and more attention was drawn to these technologies in the private sectors companies and large

or central public administration institutions as well. The article displays a brief case study of the design

and implementation of such a management information system (MIS) in the Hungarian Central

Statistical Office in detail. The implemented system had to comply with several expectations, where

some of them were specified for public administration. As the daily application of an MIS is still rare

in Hungarian public administration, the efforts of the office were almost exclusively based on

international good practices and the definition of our own needs

The emerge of the integrated IT solutions for business companies like ERP systems, business process

management and so on boosted the amount of information what a company produced about its own

activities. This resulted in a completely new battlefield where response to information needs became

more and more hard to find, since the complexity and fragmentation of the information was

exponentially growing, as IT tools began serving such purposes in more and more sophisticated ways.

The best management information systems can be made comparable to the dashboard of a car, where

the most important data during the operation are reflected by specific gauges. Although the outlook

of MISs may vary from very graphical to very dry tabular or even textual format, the comparison is

reasonable.

Public administration in the Eastern or Central European countries was suffering from fragmentation,

unclear responsibilities and insufficient information flow in the hierarchy of the organization. This

created a lot of problems as a lot of decisions were being made based on insufficient and unclear data,

but as the Hungarian Government realized the importance of decision making using MIS it made a

two-step process to initiate this drive.


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Every Government department maintains an archive and records units for the proper storage and

archiving of all records produced by the organization. The international community in the form of

donor agencies has on several occasions helped the Government in funding and setting up modem

information systems for government bodies, and these systems have been stocked with modem

technologies. Through local as well as overseas training, Uganda has built up the capacity for the

effective management of information systems and services.

OBSERVATIONS:

Planning and implementation of information technologies is an involved and complicated endeavor,

and becomes more so with each new innovation. It is no longer enough to simply automate clericaltasks or transfer reams of data into a computer. Todays technologically savvy organization must make

use of integrated information systems, which will not only allow them to process data and perform

clerical tasks but also provide services in a more effective and user-friendly way. Integrated municipal

information systems can offer better ways to provide for government administration and service

deliveries but getting there is no easy matter.

Over the course of the last decade public organizations have increasingly made use of the process of

strategic planning. It should be noted that strategic planning arose out of the private sector as a

process designed to minimize risks and maximize profits, by establishing formal planning systems to

replace, older, informal, intuitive methods. Because it has been a primarily private sector project,

most of the research and writing done on the topic focuses on market share and profit. This factor

does not detract from the reality that strategic planning can certainly have an impact on a public

organizations success and effectiveness.

Strategic planning is a tool that can be used by organizational decision-makers to enhance their

decisions and help them make more informed choices. In order to be effective, strategic planning must

be ongoing, always adapting to the changes in organizational environment and direction. If used in a

proactive manner, strategic planning can assist or facilitate direction, consensus, and resource

prioritization.


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SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTH

Managers tended to view MIS as operational tools and did not recognize their impact on the

organization

managers perceived a gap between industry claims of what MIS could do and the difficulties

of their organizations in duplicating those claims

managers tended to view MIS as critical to the organization only when it impacted their

needs for information or servicesotherwise they failed to see their facility as a resource

managers constantly focused on financial justification for MIS investments

top management had become increasingly action-oriented with a short-term focus to the

detriment of long-term planning especially for MIS

WEAKNESS

The decision making takes a long

Lot of hierarchical levels this leads to improper dissemination of Data

Set rules may act as hindrances

Lack of Autonomy

Lack of skill in the management

OPPORTUNITIES

Will make things much more streamlined

Can curb corruption

Storage is made easier and less cumbersome

Quick retrieval of data is possible

THREATS Constant fear of getting hacked

Loss of data due to hardware crashes

Bigger investment

Documents

Models of Decision Making MIS