CHAPTER 10

Management Information Systems
Classic Models and New Approaches

Classic Management Functions

• Planning: Devising short-range and long-range plans for the organization.
• Organizing: Deciding how to use resources such as people and materials.
• Staffing: Hiring and training workers.
• Directing: Guiding employees to perform their work in a way that supports the organization's goals.
• Controlling: Monitoring the organization's progress toward reaching its goals.

Flattening the Pyramid

• As more managers use computers for more functions, less specialization is required and the number of managerial levels decreases.

MIS

• A management information system (MIS) can be defined as a formal business system designed to provide information for an organization.
• Although MIS departments no longer control all computing resources in an organization, they still usually control corporate data.

Decision Support Systems

• A decision support system (DSS) is a computer system that supports managers in nonroutine decision-making tasks.
• DSS's make use of models, mathematical representations of real-life systems, often using simulations.
• An executive support system (ESS) is a DSS especially made for senior-level executives.

Managing Personal Computers

• Personal computers first entered businesses with little warning and very little planning.
• Over time, management problems such as incompatibility grew.
• Many organizations have since established acquisition policies, limiting the number of vendors, establishing standards, and limiting support to specific hardware and software.
• Tracking where computers are remains a problem.