Q, How can MIS be classified ?

Classification of MIS:- Over the years, though MIS has come across a
significant change in its approach, from an elementary concept to an
advanced discipline, MIS is still considered to be in its evolutionary stage.
Therefore, it is difficult to classify the information system under MIS
distinctly. However, you can categorize these information systems on the
basis of their roles in the operations and management of business as
follows:- 1]Operations support systems 2]Management support systems
3]General support systems
1. Operations Support Systems:- In an organization, when a transaction
takes place, data are produced as a by-product of the transaction. These
data are then processed to carry out operations for supporting the business
of the organization. The information systems, which are used to support
such data, are called operations support systems. The operations support
systems allow you to perform various tasks such as efficient processing of
business transactions, supporting organizational communications and
updating databases of the organization. You can find the following different
types of operating support systems in an organization:
a]Transaction Processing Systems: A Transaction Processing System (TPS)
allows you to process and record data and helps produce reports from the
processed data. It also represents the automation of the general routine
processes which are used to support business operations in an organization.
TPS can process data using any two methods, batch processing and real-time
processing. For example, many retail stores use TPS with the capability of
real-time data processing which helps to capture and transmit sales data
immediately. You can also use the batch processing method for the same
TPS by providing the information after a fixed period of time such as weekly
or monthly. B]Process Control Systems: A Process Control System (PCS)
monitors and controls the physical processes in an organization. While
monitoring the physical processes, PCS handles the architecture and
mechanisms involved in the physical process. An example of a PCS is the
electronic sensors linked to computers used in pharmaceutical industries
that help in monitoring the chemical process and the adjustments need to
be performed.
C] Office Automation Systems: Office automation systems refers to those
Information systems in which computer and communication technology
Applications are used to process office transactions and office activities at all
levels of an organization. The office automation systems provide secretarial
Assistance and enhanced communication facilities at different level of
Management that helps improve the productivity of the managers at
different levels. The office automation system performs various activities
such as typing, mailing, scheduling of meetings, conferences, etc. To perform
these activities, you can use the following office automation systems:
a]Word Processing: Word processing enables you to create computer
assisted documents such as reports and memos using textual data which
are entered via a keyboard. b]Electronic Filing: Electronic filing allows you to
store incoming and outgoing documents on a magnetic disk that you can use
for future reference. C]Electronic Mail: Electronic mail (e-mail) uses the
telecommunication network and software applications to transfer different
documents among several computers connected through a network.
2. Management Support Systems:- Management support systems include
those information systems which emphasize on providing information and
support for effective decision-making by the managers of an organization.
The various management support systems are as follows: A]Management
information system, b]Decision support system, C]Executive support system
A]Management Information System:- Management information system is
the information system that takes data as input and processes the data to
convert it into information as the output. Figure shows the processing of
management information systems:
- A management information
system uses TPS to get the input
data for processing. It processes
the data received from TPS to
support a wide range of
organizational functions and
management processes. Therefore,
the information generated from the
management information system
can be used for the control of operations and management along with
various short-term and long-term planning. Management information
system also helps provide analysis and planning of data and support
decision making.
B]Decision Support System:- Decision Support Systems (DSS) are
information systems that support decision-making in an organization.
DSS is also used in planning and error handling in the organization. A
DSS has three elements, namely database, model base and user
interface. The database specifies the accumulation of data from the
master files and external sources. The model base specifies a library of
models which help in manipulating and analyzing
The data in the desired way. The user interface allows a user to
communicate with DSS. C]Executive Support System:- Executive Support
System (ESS) extends the management information system and includes the
functionality of a DSS that helps support the decision-making of the chief
executives in an organization. Therefore, ESS is an extensive and broad
information system that includes different types of DSS and is more specific
and person-oriented than other information systems. Apart from decision-
making, an ESS also provides additional facilities such as data analysis and
electronic mail. 3. General Support Systems:- The information systems
under MIS that perform both the roles of operations and management are
categorized as general support systems. The various general support
systems are as follows: A]Business Expert System: A Business Expert
Systems (BES) is an advanced and knowledge-based information system that
acts as an expert to provide knowledge-specific solutions to application
areas which include medical, business and engineering. The main elements
of a BES are as follows: 1-Knowledge base: It contains information about the
specific area for which the BES can provide expert information.
2-Inference engine: It specifies how you can deduce an inference from the
stored data and rules. 3-User interface: It allows a user to communicate
with BES. B]Knowledge Management Systems: A Knowledge Management
System (KMS) is a knowledge-based information system that helps support
in creation and distribution of business knowledge to the managers and
other employees of an organization. KMS also helps in providing quick
feedback to the employees and improving business performance of the
organization.
C]Strategic Information Systems: A Strategic Information System (SIS) is an
information system that helps an organization in achieving strategic
advantage over its competitor by applying Information Technology (IT) to
the products and services of the organization. Therefore, any information
system such as TPS, DSS, ESS, etc., which uses IT for leveraging an
organization in the competition can be referred to as SIS.
D]Functional Business Systems: A Functional Business System (FBS) helps
support the various function areas such as production, marketing and
accounting of an organization. Examples of FBS include Financial Information
System, Production Information System, Marketing Information System, etc.
Q2 Describe the measures to be taken to protect a digital firm.?
Protecting the Digital Firm:- You can protect a digital firm by using various
software such as firewalls and antivirus that help prevent unauthorized
access to private networks. Following are the security mechanisms that are
used to protect the information in a digital firm: 1]Firewall 2]Intrusion
Detection Systems 3]Antivirus Software 4]Securing Wireless Networks
5]Encryption and Public Key Infrastructure
1. Firewall:- Firewall is a security software which is used to prevent
unauthorized users from accessing private networks. Firewall software
controls the flow of incoming and outgoing network traffic. It is generally
placed between the private internal networks of an organization and un-
trusted external networks such as the Internet. There are two types of
firewalls: a]Personal firewalls: It is a software application which filters traffic
entering or leaving a computer. b]Network firewalls: It is a firewall that
filters all traffic entering or leaving the connected networks. Network
firewall runs on a dedicated network device or computer positioned on the
boundary of two or more networks.
// The firewall acts as a gatekeeper that examines the identity of each user
in a network. It identifies names, Internet Protocol addresses, applications
and other characteristics of incoming traffic. It checks this information
against the access rules that are programmed into the system by the
network administrator. It prevents unauthorized communication into and
out of the network, allowing the organization to enforce a security policy on
traffic flowing between its network and the Internet. In large organizations,
the firewall often resides on a computer which is dedicated for this work.
Following are the types of firewall screening technologies that are used with
the firewall to provide firewall protection: A]Packet Filtering b]Network
Address Translation (NAT) c]Application Proxy Filtering
(a) Packet filtering:- The data, which are transmitted over a network, are
divided into packets of specific size. The size and structure of the data
packets are determined by the underlying communication protocol which is
being used by the communicating networks. Each data packet is divided into
two parts, packet header and data part. The packet header contains the
information regarding the host network and the destination network. The
Data part of the packet contains the data which are needed to be
transmitted from one computer to another. The packet filtering screening
technology examines the selected fields in the headers of data packets
flowing back and forth between the trusted network and the Internet. This
filtering technology can save the computer from many types of attacks. The
stateful inspection of data packets provides additional security by
determining whether or not a packet is a part of an ongoing communication
between a sender and a receiver. It helps set the state tables to track
information over multiple packets. The packets can be accepted and
rejected based on whether they are part of an approved conversation to
establish a legitimate connection. Packet filters are host-based or appliance-
based applications which block or allow network traffic based on a set of
rules defined by the network administrator. The packet filters which are
used commonly on various versions of UNIX are ipf, ipfw(FreeBSD), pf
(OpenBSD), iptables (Linux) and ipchains (Linux). The administrator starts
the packet filtering process on the network device and composes the set of
rules which are applied to the incoming network traffic.
(b) Network address translation (NAT):- It allows a local area network to
use one IP address for internal addresses and another IP address for outside
public addresses. It can provide another layer of protection when static
packet filtering and stateful inspection are employed in the local network.
NAT uses the IP addresses of the host computer of the organization to
prevent sniffer programmes outside the firewall from accessing the internal
network. A sniffer programme is network-monitoring programme that can
be used for both unauthorized and authorized network management
functions. Before NAT, the network administrators used to face difficulty in
reserving the IP addresses for a particular computer system or task. NAT
provided a way to deal with the Ipv4 address shortages. NAT allows the
networks which require a Class B IP range or a block of Class C network
addresses to connect to the Internet with single IP address. To implement
NAT, you need the computer systems which require true bidirectional
and seamless connectivity supplied with a real IP address. It also allows
you to use the computer systems that do not provide services to outside
users which are kept away behind NAT with only a few IP addresses used to
enable Internet access. (c) Application proxy filtering:- It examines the
application content of IP data packets. It uses a proxy server to stop
the data packets entering into the organization’s private network that are
originated outside the organization. It passes a proxy to the other side of the
firewall to communicate with the outside world. If a user outside the
organization wants to communicate with a user inside the organization, the
outside user first talks to the proxy application and the proxy application
communicates with the internal computer of the firm. Similarly a computer
user inside the organization goes through the proxy to talk with computers
which are outside the organization network. There is one more type of
firewall, called application proxy firewall. In a proxy firewall, every packet is
stopped and checked by the firewall before entering and leaving the
organization network. The packet is then examined and compared to the
rules which are configured into the firewall by the network administrator. To
go out of the organization network, the packet needs to pass the firewall
examinations. If a packet passes the firewall examination, it is re-created
and allowed to send out of the organization network. The distortion and re-
creation of every packet allows the application proxy firewall to prevent
unknown attacks. These unknown attacks can prove harmful to the
organization network because of the loopholes in the TCP/IP protocol suit.
These attacks are not easily prevented by the packet filtering firewall.
To implement application proxy firewall, you need a separate application
proxy for each application. For this, you require an HTTP proxy to control the
Web traffic, an FTP proxy for file transfers and a Gopher proxy for Gopher
traffic.
2. Intrusion Detection Systems:- An intrusion is an entry to the prohibited
area by a software programme. An intrusion detection system detects such
unauthorized access into the computer by the software programmes, mainly
from the Internet. The commercial security vendors provide intrusion
detection tools and services to protect against unauthorized network traffic
and attempts to access files and databases by unauthorized computer
programmes from the Internet. This system provides a full-time monitoring
tool placed at the most vulnerable points of corporate networks to detect
intruders continually. If an intrusion is detected, this system generates an
alarm to alert the network administrator. It also uses the scanning software
which looks for patterns indicative of known methods of computer attacks
such as wrong passwords. It also checks to see if important files have been
removed or modified and sends warnings of vandalism or system
administration errors. The network administrators can also use the intrusion
detection tools in a customized manner to shut down a particularly sensitive
part of a network, if it receives unauthorized access.
3. Antivirus Software:- Antivirus software consists of computer programmes
which help identify and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious
software from a computer. Antivirus software uses two different techniques
to accomplish this task: A] Scanning of files to look for signatures of virus
matching in an available virus dictionary. B] Identifying the behavior of any
computer programme which indicates the presence of virus. This analysis
may include identification of data captures and port monitoring. When the
antivirus software examines a file, it refers to a dictionary of known viruses
that the authors of the antivirus software have identified. If a piece of code
in the file matches any virus identified in the dictionary, then the antivirus
software can take one of the following actions: a]Attempts to repair the file
by removing the virus from the file. B]Restricts the file in a way such that it
remains inaccessible to other programmes and its virus can no longer
spread. c]Deletes the infected file. However, most antivirus software is
effective only against viruses already known when the software was written.
The antivirus software must be continually updated for maintaining their
effectiveness. Although the dictionary approach can effectively restrict virus
outbreaks in the right circumstances, virus authors have tried to stay a step
ahead of such software by writing oligomorphic, polymorphic and more
recently metamorphic viruses. 4. Securing Wireless Networks:- These
networks provide Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) specification to the vendors
of Wi-Fi equipment. This specification can also work with future wireless
LAN products and can update the equipment. WPA improves data
encryption by replacing the static encryption keys that are harder to crack.
WPA provides a mechanism based on the Extensible Authentication Protocol
(EAP) that works with a central authentication server to authenticate each
user on the network before the user can join it.
5. Encryption and Public Key Infrastructure:- Encryption is the coding and
scrambling of messages to prevent unauthorized access to the data.
Applying a secret numerical code, called encryption key so that the data
can be transmitted as a scrambled set of characters, can encrypt a message.
To read the encrypted data, it can be decrypted with a matching key. There
are several methods of encryption, but public key encryption is the most
popular encryption method. The public keys are mathematically related to
each other so that the data which are encrypted with one key can be
decrypted using only the other key. Communicators first create separate
pairs of private and public keys to send and receive message. The public key
is kept in a directory and the private key is kept secretly. The sender
encrypts a message with the public key of the recipient. On receiving the
message, the recipient uses the private key to decrypt it.
Q3] What are the various components of DSS ? What are its types ?
Mention its applications as well.
Ans:- IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION SYSTEM IN DECISION MAKING:-
Decision Support System (DSS) is a model that helps the management of an
organization in taking decisions related to the functioning of the
organization. DSS involves three phases: intelligence, design and choice.
During the intelligence phase of DSS, the main objective of the management
is to identify the problem for which the decision needs to be taken. In the
design phase, all possible solutions for the problem are determined. After
determining all the possible solutions for the problem in the design phase,
the best solution is selected in the choice phase. The criterion for choice
phase varies from problem to problem. Therefore, it is necessary to go
through these phases repeatedly until an optimum solution is achieved. DSS
is useful in the organizations where the managers need to take decisions
that deal with complex data and need to use several methods to find the
best solution. Concisely, you can say that DSS is a computer-based system
that helps endusers to use data and models for solving unstructured
problems in an organization. DSS helps the management in taking various
decisions such as the following: 1]Optimum product mix 2]Alternative
loading pattern 3]Alternative assignment of jobs and machines
4]Alternative material, tools and process. // These decisions are supported
by various programming models, simulation techniques, material planning
systems and planning and scheduling systems.
Types of DSS{Decision Support System}:- DSS provides various support
systems such as data-driven DSS and knowledge-driven DSS which help
identify the appropriate decisions. Following are the different types
of DSS: 1]Communication-driven DSS: This provides support to internal
teams including partners in organizing business meetings in an organization.
Communication driven DSS is implemented in an organization using either
Web or client server technology. Some of the examples of communication-
driven DSS are chats and instant messaging software, net-meeting systems
and online collaboration. 2]Data-driven DSS: This helps the managers, staffs
and product or service suppliers of an organization in taking organizational
decisions. Data-driven DSS helps filter only the required information from a
database or data warehouse in order to obtain specific results for specific
objectives. Data-driven DSS is implemented in an organization using the
mainframe and client server technology. 3]Document-driven DSS: This is
used for larger base of user groups. Document driven DSS helps search Web
pages and documents related to an organization on the basis of certain
keywords and search items. Document-driven DSS is implemented in an
organization by using either the Web or a client server technology.
4]Knowledge-driven DSS: This covers a broad range of users which includes
all the users of the concerned organization as well as the individuals such as
consumers of a business working with that organization. Knowledge-driven
DSS is also known as knowledge base. Knowledge-driven DSS helps the
management in taking managerial decisions and selecting suitable products
or services. Knowledge-driven DSS is implemented in an organization by
using either the client server technology or the Web.
5]Model-driven DSS: This helps the management in evaluating several
available decisions and selecting the best decision out of them. Model-
driven DSS is primarily used by the managers and staff members of an
organization. This DSS can also be used by the other individuals associated
with the organization depending upon the type of model set-up, scheduling
and decision analyses. Model-driven DSS is implemented in an organization
by using the client server technology, the Web and the software or
hardware in stand-alone computer systems.
Components of DSS:- DSS contains various components that help manage
information for the decision making process of an organization. Following
are the components of DSS: 1]User interface: It is a means through which a
user interacts with the machine or a device. The term user interface is often
used in the context of computer systems and electronic devices.
2]Database: It is a collection of current and historical records stored in a
systematic manner. The information retrieved from the database can be
used in decision making by the DSS of an organization. The computer
programme used to manage and query a database is known as a Database
Management System (DBMS). 3]Network: It is a collection of terminals,
computers, servers and components which allow the information flow and
sharing of resources among different users. 4]DSS software system: It is a
collection of mathematical and analytical tools used to perform various
operations on the information stored in a database. The DSS software
system provides information necessary for the decision making process of
an organization.
Applications of DSS:- DSS is a computer-based system that provides the
information used for accounting, strategic planning and decision making in
an organization. The various DSS applications include the following:
1]Business and management: DSS provides information that help in
strategic planning and decision-making process. DSS generates payrolls,
inventory and financial reports to assist the top management in decision-
making process of an organization. For example, Executive dashboards and
other business performance software allow faster decision making,
identification of negative trends and better allocation of resources of the
organization. 2]Banking: DSS enables the employees of banks to perform
day-to-day banking transactions easily and efficiently. For example, the bank
loan officer can use DSS to verify the credit of a loan. 3]Railway: In railways,
DSS can be used to test the equipment on a regular basis and also to set
time for the arrival and departure of trains. DSS helps reduce worn-outs and
defective rails and in turn reduces train accidents due to derailment.
4]Hospitals: DSS can be used in hospitals for various purposes such as
medical diagnosis. 5]Airlines: DSS can be used for various purposes such as
flight scheduling and passenger demand forecasting. 6]Oil refineries: In oil
refineries, DSS can be used to determine the potential drilling sites for oil.
Q.What are the advantages of DBMS ?
Ans- OVERVIEW OF DBMS:-Database Management System (DBMS) is a
software solution that allows you to create and maintain databases in which
you can store the data. It basically refers to a system which helps store and
retrieve the data systematically from a database. The different users such as
database manager perform separate roles to manage the database in DBMS
which supports multiple-layered architecture that provides physical and
logical data independence. You can use DBMS to define a database that
involves specifying the data types, structures and constants for the data to
be stored in the database. DBMS also allows you to construct and
manipulate a database. Constructing a database is a process of storing data
on some storage medium such as floppy drive, compact disk (CD) or hard
disk drive (HDD). Manipulating a database involves performing functions
such as querying the database to retrieve specific data, updating the
database to reflect changes made by the user and generating reports from
the data. Following is the description of few basic terms of DBMS
terminology: 1]Database: A database is a collection of interrelated data. For
example, you may have recorded the names, telephone numbers and
addresses of the employees in an indexed addressed book or on a diskette
using a personal computer and software such as MS ACCESS or MS EXCEL.
This recorded information is a collection of related data with an implicit
meaning and hence is a database. 2]Defining a database: It involves
specifying the data types, structures and constants for the data to be stored
in the database. 3]Constructing a database: It is a process of storing the real
data on some storage medium with the help of a DBMS.
4]Manipulating a database: It involves performing functions such as
querying the database to retrieve specific data, updating the database to
reflect changes made by the user and generating reports from the data.
5]Database system: The database and DBMS software together is called a
database system.
Features of DBMS:- To understand the basics of database management
systems, you must know the terms and definitions that are used in DBMS
technology. These terms and definitions constitute DBMS terminology.
DBMS is a software programme which may run on a user machine or a
server computer. The DBMS accepts queries from users and responds to
these queries. A DBMS has the following features:
1]Structured data: DBMS enables you to structure the data as tables,
records or objects. 2]Query language: A DBMS provides a query language
such as SQL to process the user requests. 3]Multi-user access: DBMS allows
several users to access the data stored in a database. At the same time, it
provides security features which restrict some users from viewing or
manipulating the data. 4]Data dictionary: DBMS provides a data dictionary
which contains the structure of a database. 5]Data abstraction: It allows a
Database Administrator (DBA) to logically separate the data from the
programmes which use the data. There are three levels of abstraction in a
database: external, conceptual and internal. The external level represents
the user view of the database, conceptual level allows you to map internal
and external levels, and the external level represents the operating system
and DBMS level.
Functions Performed in DBMS:- In DBMS, several people play important
roles in organizing and manipulating the data. These roles are assigned to
people according to the work performed by them in creating and
maintaining the DBMS. The various roles performed in DBMS are as follows:
1]Database administrator 2]Database designers 3]Database users
4]Database manager
1]Database Administrator:- DBA is responsible for making the strategy and
policy decisions regarding the organization of data in the database. DBA also
provides technical support in implementing the decisions which are taken by
the data administrator. DBA performs the following functions: a]Defining
the conceptual scheme for a database b]Defining the internal schema for a
database c]Coordinating with users d]Defining security and integrity
constraints for the database e]Defining dump and reload policies for a
database f]Monitoring performance and responding to changing
requirements
2]Database Designers:- A database designer identifies the data to be stored
in a database. The database designer is also responsible for choosing the
right database structure to represent and store the data in the database.
The tasks of identifying the data and choosing the structure are performed
before the implementation of a database. The database designer
communicates with the various database users to understand their
requirements before selecting the database structure.
3]Database Users:-The database users are the people who need to interact
with DBMS. The database users can be categorized according to their
requirements of data. The people who interact with DBMS to retrieve data
are called the naïve users and the people who interact with DBMS to make
some changes in the database are called the developers.
4]Database Manager:- The database manager refers to the software that
helps use and management of the data stored in a database. The database
manager handles the requests of database users to access the data items
from database. The database manager
also provides facilities such as support for
a query language, to retrieve and update
the database. The facilities provided by
the database manager depend on the
design of the database manager. For
example, if the data manager is designed
to handle one request at a time, then
multiple users cannot access data
simultaneously. Figure shows the various
kinds of roles performed in the DBMS.
Q. Levels of Abstraction/Architecture of DBMS:- The DBMS architecture is
designed so that the storage details of data in a database are hidden from
users. The users accessing a database need to work with data only rather
than having any concern for how the data is physically stored in the
database. The DBMS architecture allows you to perform following functions:
1]Different user views of the database to be created for users. It provides a
customized view to each user accessing the same data from the database.
Each user view is independent and any change to a view does not affect
other user views. 2]It allows the internal structure of the database to remain
unaffected by changes made to the physical storage of data.
3]It allows the database administrator to change the structure of a database
without affecting the user views of the database. The architecture of DBMS
is also called American National Standards Institute/Standards Planning and
Requirements Committee (ANSI/SPARC) model. The ANSI/ SPARC model or
DBMS architecture is divided into three levels which are as follows:
1]Internal: It specifies the way in which the data are physically stored in a
database. The internal or physical level of the database system architecture
also provides description of the relationship that exists between different
data. 2]External: It specifies the way in which the data stored in a database
are viewed by the users. 3]Conceptual: It specifies the level of interaction
between the internal level and external level of system architecture.
Figure shows the
representation of the different
levels of DBMS architecture.
To understand the concept of
levels in DBMS architecture,
consider an employee database
that contains details such as
employee number and
department number of an
employee. The internal level of
architecture for the employee
database can be represented as
follows:
In the preceding example for the internal level, employee data is
represented by stored record types Stored_emp which is twenty bytes long.
The Stored_emp consists of four stored fields which are prefix, emp, dept
and pay. The prefix contains control information such as flags or pointers.
The other data fields represent three properties number, department
number and pay of employees and also the records stored in Stored_emp
are indexed by using an index. //At the conceptual level, database
contains information about an entity.
For example, for an employee database, the conceptual level includes
information such as employee number, dept_number and salary about the
employee entity. The conceptual level of architecture for the employee
database can be represented as follows:
At the external level, the view of the database
consists of two fields, employee
number and salary. The external view shows
only the fields that a user needs to view. For example, for an employee
database the external level of architecture consists of two fields, emp# and
salary and can be represented as follows:
The various data fields can have different names
in the various views of a database. For example, the employee number at
the internal level is represented by emp and at the conceptual level it is
represented by employee number.
Benefits of DBMS:- DBMS provides various advantages that make it useful
for storing and maintaining the data. Following are the advantages of DBMS:
1]Preventing data redundancy 2]Restricting unauthorized access
3]Persistent storage 4]Multiple user interfaces 5]Integrity constraints
6]Backup and recovery of data
1]Preventing Data Redundancy:- Unlike the traditional file system that
allows data redundancy, as each user group needs to maintain separate files
for data processing applications, DBMS prevents data redundancy. For
example, consider the database of an organization that stores information
about the employees working in the organization. The user groups such as
the accounts department and human resource department of the database
need to use the employee information from the database. The accounts
department needs to store employee information regarding pay roll and
query for the leaves taken by the employees. Similarly, the HR department
needs to store the employee information for querying about the leaves and
application forms, information about any company-specific issue and
performance-related updates. In addition, other groups might also need to
store the same data in separate files. Therefore, storing the same
information causes data redundancy and has following disadvantages:
a]You need to perform a logical update such as entering the data for a new
employee in each of the files maintained by the various user groups.
B]The storage space is wasted when same data are stored repeatedly.
C]The files representing the similar data may become inconsistent if each
user group updates the files independently. In the database approach of
storing data, the information such as employee name or date of joining is
stored at a single place in a database. Therefore, storing data in a database
prevents data redundancy and saves the storage space.
2]Preventing Unauthorized Access:- In the database approach of storing
data, multiple users can access the data stored in a database, however only
some users are authorized to modify the database. For example, for the
financial data stored in a database, only a few users are allowed to access
and modify the financial information stored in the database. In addition, for
security purpose, you can also specify the users allowed to retrieve and
update the information stored in the financial database of an organization.
3]Persistent Storage:-The database provides persistent storage for data
structures such as class definitions in C++ and programme variables used in
programming languages. If the data structurewhich is a programme variable
used in a programme, is not stored in a permanent file, then the value of the
programme variable is discarded when the programme terminates. The data
structures can be stored permanently in the DBMS. The data stored in the
DBMS are called persistent data because the data can be called by another
programme even after the programme in which it was being used is
terminated. 4]Multiple User Interfaces:- The DBMS provides multiple user
interfaces for users with varying levels of technical knowledge. For example,
the query language for users and programming language interface for
application programmers. 5]Integrity Constraints:- When you store data in a
database, you can specify the integrity constraints for the data. DBMS allows
you to define and implement these constraints. For example, you can
specify a constraint that each value in the employee_id column must have a
unique value. The database designers need to identify the integrity
constraints while designing a database.
6] Backup and Recovery of Data:- The data stored in a database can be
recovered in case of hardware or software failures with the help of backup
and recovery subsystem of DBMS. For example, if hardware failure occurs
when the database is being updated, then data stored in the database are
restored and the programme is resumed from where it was interrupted.
TYPES OF DATABASE:- Nowadays, there also exist three new types of
databases: parallel database, distributed database and object-oriented
databases. Parallel databases use parallel processors for computing. These
databases use high-speed processors, memory and disks. Parallel
databases uses relational data model which uses SQL query language to
manipulate the data. //Distributed Databases (DDBs) store data over a
computer network. In these databases, data may be stored in multiple
computers located at the same physical location or spread over a network.
It also helps in solving many problems such as data distribution and
transaction processing. Another type of database is the object-oriented
databases. These databases use the object-oriented programming languages
such as C++ or java. Object-oriented databases have salient features that are
inheritance, encapsulation and polymorphism.
Parallel Database:- Parallel database architecture follows parallel dataflow
architecture with new designs used for high speed of database while
processing relational database queries. In parallel database systems, the
relational data model is used; for parallel dataflow, relational queries and
various relational operators, which are composed of parallel dataflow
graphs, are used. Parallel database
supports the concept of pipelined
and partitioned parallelism. When
the output of one operator is used
as the input of the other operator,
then the two operators can work in
a series which in turn is called
pipelined parallelism. When the
input data are partitioned among multiple processors and memories, then
this partitioned data and execution is known as partitioned parallelism.
Figure shows the partitioned and pipelined parallelisms. The dataflow
approach of the parallel database systems needs a message-based client-
server operating system to interconnect the parallel processes that requires
high-speed network to interconnect the parallel processors. Parallel
database systems are built from conventional processors, memories and
disks and they have highly parallel architecture. Parallel systems have two
properties that are linear speedup and linear scale up. When run on a four
times larger system, the linear speedup design performs a one-hour job four
times faster, whereas ten times bigger system scaleup design performs ten
times bigger job at the same time. Following are the advantages of parallel
database: 1]Higher performance: Higher speedup and scaleup can be
attained with CPU availability. Synchronization activities improve the
performance in which lock operation is a processor and message intensive.
2]High availability: In the parallel database, nodes, which are also called
terminals, are apart from each other so the entire system will not get down
if the failure occurs. System continues to provide data access to the users
when the surviving nodes recover the failed node. The availability of data,
even if there is a node failure, shows higher database availability.
3]Greater flexibility: There is more flexibility in parallel database, as you
can allocate or deallocate instances as per your requirements. You can
allocate more instances as the database demand increases. Once the
instances are no longer required, they can be deallocated. 4]More users:
Parallel database technology makes it possible to enable a single system to
serve thousand of users simultaneously.
Q] Name and Describe the Components of an Information System?
Ans:- INTRODUCTION INFORMATION SYSTEM:- Information is defined as
the processed form of data that is used for decision-making. There are
various types of information such as strategic and tactical. The quality of
information is determined on the basis of several factors such as
completeness and accuracy. Information helps create a system which is
defined as a collection of elements such as manpower and production. You
need to integrate all the elements of the system to achieve the
organizational goals. There are various types of systems such as physical
and abstract and open and closed.
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM:- Information is a
processed form of data. According to Davis and Olson, ‘Information
is data that has been processed into a form that is meaningful to the
recipient and is of real or perceived value in current or prospective actions
or decisions.’ An organization uses various types of information to control
different elements such as employees, resources, operations and
environment of the organization. Information is also required in the
decision-making process so that right decisions can be taken at the right
time. // A system which processes information to control the environment
and activities of a business organization is generally known as information
system. In other words, an information system is a set of interrelated
elements which help the management of an organization in maintaining
information of the entire organization in a proper way. Maintenance of
information includes handling of activities related to data collection,
processing, retrieval and distribution in a well-mannered way. The
information system is also responsible for storing all the information related
to employees, products, and
external environment of the
organization. Information provided
by the information system is useful
in decision-making and control
process of the organization. It also
helps managers and workers in
analysing problems by providing
necessary information to them. The information system is a type of data
processing systems which collects the data from different sources, processes
that data and generates information from the data to use them for different
applications within the organization. For example, in business context, the
information system collects data from various systems such as finance and
sales systems at the supplier side. The information system processes the
data and generates information for the customer. Customers provide
feedback to the supplier depending on the information processed by the
information system. Figure shows the information system in business
context. The information system helps to manage and store information to
perform various functions such as decision-making, documentation of
business activities and generation of reports for the analysis of
organizational operations. There are various terms that are used in the
information system. They are as follows: 1]Data: These are the raw material
that can be a number, a fact, a sound, a picture or a statement gathered
from different sources. Data represent something that exists in the real
world such as business processes and employee details.
2]Information: It is a meaningful data or a processed data. It defines the
relation between different types of data. 3]System: It is a collection of
components that help in achieving a common objective. For example, in a
human-machine system, the machine element consists of hardware and
software to perform computation and human makes decisions based on this
computation.
Role of Information System:- Nowadays, every organization needs an
effective information system because it helps the organization in dealing
with various changes that occur in global economies and business
enterprises. The information system makes communication possible with
inside as well as outside members of an organization.This means that the
information system makes communication possible within an organization
and ensures that all relevant information is conveyed to all the members in
the organization. An information system provides flexibility to the
organization in adopting new methods and technologies by making flow of
information more fluent and effective. It also conducts trade and business
management of the organization on a global scale.
Components of Information System:- An information system consists of two
types of components—abstract system components and physical system
components. Abstract system components perform the operations such as
collecting input data, processing the data and generating information from
that data. Physical system components consist of various elements
such as hardware, software and human resources. There are a few more
components of the information system which are as follows:
1]Data: These are the input that the system takes to produce information.
2]Hardware: A computer and its peripheral equipment such as input, output
and storage devices are called hardware. 3]Software: Software are
application programmes or set of instructions that process the input data
using computers, generate information and store information for future use.
4]Network: It is a collection of computer systems connecting to each other
for communication to share the information. 5]Manpower: Information
system professionals and users who perform various organizational
operations such as analysis of information, designing and constructing
information system and maintenance of information system. They may be IT
experts, managers and workers.
6]Graphical User Interface (GUI): This is an interface for the users of
information system to work with information on the computer system. A
usercan operate, process and retrieve information from the computer
storage using GUI.// The components of
information system describe the
functioning of the system. An information
system takes the input data from the
users of the information system to
perform the business operations. The
users interact with the computer to process the data using GUI. After
processing of data, the information is retrieved at the user’s end.
Types of Information System:- Different types of information are used in
performing different functions of an organization. Based on the use and
purpose of information, information can be broadly categorized into the
following types: 1]Strategic information 2]Tactical information 3]Operational
information //Different levels of management such as top, middle and lower
use different types of information. For example, top management uses
strategic information, whereas lower management uses operational
information. Figure shows the various types of information.
Strategic Information:- Strategic information helps the top management to
devise the strategies that need to be implemented in an organization. The
strategic information is vital for decision making in an organization and
generally used for long-term planning. For example, the top management of
an organization needs strategic information to plan for adopting new
technologies for increasing the production in an organization.
Tactical Information:- Tactical information helps the middle-level
management to devise the strategies that need to be implemented in an
organization. Tactical information is vital for making control-related
decisions in an organization. This information is generally obtained from the
records of the day-to-day activities in an organization. For example, the
regional sales manager of an enterprise need to forecast the future sales of
the products on the basis of sales records of past three-four years. In such
cases, the daily records maintained by an organization are the basis of
collecting tactical information. Information obtained from external sources
such as competitor records also has a deep impact on tactical information.
Operational Information:- Operational information helps the lower-level
management to devise the strategies that need to be implemented in an
organization. Operational information is vital for making decisions required
on a day-to-day basis and used for short-term planning. Operational
information generally consists of work status, customer orders and stocks
in hand related information.
Quality of Information System:- Information should contain various
attributes to ensure that information worth the cost of its generation.
Quality of information is measured in terms of its various attributes which
are as follows: 1]Timeliness 2]Accuracy 3]Relevance 4]Adequacy
5]Completeness 6]Explicitness 7]Exception-based
1]Timeliness:-Timeliness is one of the major attributes of information which
refers to the pre-specified period of time it takes to reach the intended
recipients. Timeliness plays a vital role in the decision-making process of the
management in an organization. According to B.K.Chatterjee, 1974,
‘Information delayed is information denied.’ Consider an example where the
accounts officer requires financial report on 1st of every month.
Any delay in providing information results in delay in the decision making
process by the accounts officer. Timeliness ensures that information
intended for a recipient should be accurate, timely and contemporary to the
most current readings. 2]Accuracy:- According to John G. Burch and Gary
Grudnitski, ‘The information that is free from mistakes and errors is clear,
and accurately reflects the meaning of data on which it is based.’
Information is said to be accurate if it provides required facts and figures to
the intended recipient. Information can be presented to the intended
recipient in different Formats such as tabular form or graphical form. In
1975, H.C. Advani accepted the importance of accuracy by stating that the
‘wrong information given to management would result in wrong decisions.’
At the same time, he advocated that the accuracy should be within limits or
as desired and should not be achieved by delay in time limits. Delivery of
accurate information helps the management to gain the confidence of the
employees. Representation of accurate information also helps the
management to take right decisions at the right time which leads to the
success of an organization.
3]Relevance:- Relevance is another key attribute of management
information systems that determines the need and requirement of the
information. A piece of information is said to be relevant, if it is able to solve
the problems of what, when and why for the intended recipient. Relevance
of information depends on the requirement of intended recipient of the
information. For example, the sales report information is relevant only to
the sales engineer and the work status of the employees is useful only to the
production manager. 4]Adequacy:- Adequacy of information helps
determine whether or not the information presented in the information
system is adequate for making the organizational decisions. Lack of required
information can lead to incorrect decisions, whereas, overload of
information create chaos in the information system. Therefore, the
information required by an organization for taking managerial decisions
should be enough and to the point. Adequacy
of information also helps ensure that the report generated using the
information represents the complete picture of operational processes in an
organization. 5]Completeness:-Completeness and accuracy go hand in hand,
that is, the information which is adequate may or may not be complete in all
respects. The completeness of the information means that the information
covers all the details required by the management of an organization in
order to take the managerial decisions.
6]Explicitness:- Explicitness of information helps ensure that the
information presented to the management does not require further analysis
of the information on the part of the management. The explicit information
is able to clearly depict the meaning and purpose of the report without any
further scrutiny of the information. 7]Exception-Based:- The most
contemporary concept of representing the information is the one that is
based on exceptions. Exception-based information ensures that only the
information that is required by the management is delivered to the client.
Exception-based information helps the management in saving time, cost and
efforts which are required to evaluate the information. Whenever an
exception-based report is sent to the management, it directly focuses on the
target piece of information.
Q. Discuss Dimensions of Information System:- Information presented to
the management has its dimension in terms of cost, business and technical
issues involved. The various dimensions of information are as follows:
a]Economic b]Business c]Technical a]Economic Dimension:- The economic
dimension of information determines the cost involved in obtaining the
information and the benefits that are derived from the information. Based
on the cost and benefits analysis of the information, economic dimensions
of the information are evaluated. Following are the factors that are
determined during the cost and benefit analysis:
1]Cost of information: It determines the total cost involved in obtaining the
information. The cost of information includes: a] Cost of acquiring the data
from different data sources b]Cost of maintaining the data in the database
c]Cost of generating the accurate information from the data stored in the
database d]Cost of communicating the information to the intended
receiver .2]Value of information: The value of information is determined on
the basis of the benefits that can be derived from the information. For
example, a company develops two products, A and B, and the benefits
derived from product A equals to 20 and the benefits derived from product
B equals to 30. The difference between the benefits of the two products is
10 units. If you add some information, the benefits derived from product
increases from 20 to 40 and the cost of information increases by 20 units.
Now, the difference between the benefits of the product A and B is again 10
units with the additional cost of 20 units for cost of information. The actual
value of information needs to be calculated through simple mathematics.
You need to subtract the cost involved in obtaining the information to
determine the actual value of the information.
B]Business Dimension:- The business dimension of information helps
determine the relevance of information at the various levels of the
management. The business dimension of information at the top-level
management is totally different from the business dimension of information
at the lower-level management. The difference in business dimension arises
from the difference in the level and nature of work performed at the various
levels of the management. C]Technical Dimension:- The technical dimension
of information covers the technical aspects of information such as the
volume of information to be stored in the database and type of database.
The type of database helps store the information in the database. The
technical dimension covers the storing capacity of the database and the
time required to retrieve information from the database.
Effects of Information System:- When an organization wants to grow in the
global market, then it must concentrate on the effectiveness of its
information system. The information system affects the finances and
working environment of organizations. Following are the impacts of
information system on an organization: 1]Economic impacts
2]Organizational and behavioural impacts 1]Economic Impacts:-
Implementation of the information system in an organization has resulted in
decreasing the number of employees. Information system is slowly
substituting other capital forms such as, buildings and machinery and thus,
reducing the cost of the organization. No organization can produce
everything it needs, so when an organization takes over some other
organization to take care of their mutual needs, the cost that is required for
transaction is called transaction cost and each firm tries to reduce the
transaction cost. Traditional market system is high-priced as it has to deal
with distant supplier, take care of insurance and travel to obtain information
about required products. The information system can reduce their
transaction cost by getting into contracts with suppliers for getting their
supply of products. Reduction in management costs enables the firms to
increase the revenues. The information system reduces the cost and shifts
the transaction cost curve inwards, thus
opening up the possibility of revenue growth
without increasing the size of an organization
as shown in Figure which explains the
phenomenon of revenue growth. The
information system also helps in reducing the
cost incurred while communicating within an
organization. With the growth of firm, several
costs such as agency costs and coordination cost rise because the owner has
to spend more money to supervise and manage the employees.
According to Agency Cost Theory, the firm is viewed as a ‘nexus of contract’
among self-interested individuals rather than as a unified, profit maximizing
entity (Jensen and Meckling 1976). As firms grow in size and complexity, the
agency cost rises because the owner must
apply more efforts to supervise and manage
the employees. This phenomenon is shown
in Figure, where the information system has
shifted the agency curve down and to the
right, which enables the firms to expand
while lowering agency costs. Figure explains Agency Cost Theory.
2]Organizational and Behavioural Impacts:- You can understand complex
organization using sociology-based theories.
These theories explain how and why
organizations are changing with the
implementation of information system
application. Following are the impacts of
information system on an organization:
1]Flattened organization: Information
system has changed the organizational
structure to flattened organization.
Flattened organization provides lower-level
employees with more knowledge. Managers
take less time to reach a decision as they get required information correctly
on time so a flattened organization needs less number of managers.
Traditional organizations were not efficient and inert to changes. Figure
explains the difference between traditional and flattened organization.
2]Emergence of virtual firms: These firms are not restricted to any
geographical boundary and are connected to its employees, managers,
customers, suppliers and assets by telecommunication networks. For
example, ABC Florist Ltd can sell fresh flowers directly to customers. This
organization receives orders from telephone calls or through their Web site.
The information system has changed the way of handling, evaluating and
analysing data about organization.
3]Increasing flexibility of organization: The information system has made
firms more flexible, as they can react quickly to the changing needs of
market and customers.
4]Ensuring the System Quality:- A system quality can be defined as the
performance of software quality assurance techniques which help improve
the quality of data used in the information management system. The quality
of the system depends on the methodologies and the tools used to maintain
the quality of the software which is used to maintain the management
information system in an organization. To ensure the system quality, you
also need to analyze the security vulnerabilities, data quality audits and data
cleansing.
Q]List Down and Describe The Software Quality Assurance
Methodologies? Ans- To maintain the quality standards for software, you
need to perform various tasks such as using a suitable systems development
methodology and ensuring optimum
utilization of available resources to handle different software quality
problems. Following are the methods to handle software problems:
1]Structured methodologies 2]Structured analysis 3]Structured design
4]Structured programming
1]Structured Methodologies:- In structured methodologies, structured
refers to the approach which is carefully employed in a step-by-step manner
and methodologies are the process-oriented methods. So structured
methodologies is a collection of methods used to develop, analyze, design
and implement any document in an information system. Its primary function
is to provide a proper sequence to the entire development process.
2]Structured Analysis:- Structured analysis provides a logical graphic model
of information which depends on the information flow in a system. The
components of a system are divided into modules by using a Data Flow
Diagram (DFD). DFD is a graphical representation of the components of a
system and shows the flow of different processes of the system. Every
process contains some information regarding the functioning of the system.
3]Structured Design:- Structured design provides a set of design rules and
techniques used to provide clarity and simplicity to a programme.
Structured design helps reduce the time and effort required for coding,
debugging and maintenance of a programme. In structured design,
each level is defined in a proper way and the lowest level describes the
actual processing that occurs at the design time. In this design, a top-down
structure chart is created which shows each level of design, the relationships
with other levels and its place in the overall design structure.
4]Structured Programming:- Structured programming follows a structured
design to write software programmes which are easy to write, understand
and modify. Structured programming defines the control paths that can be
easily understood and modified. These programming structures include only
one entry point and one exit point. Following are the three basic constructs
which are used to create a structured programme in a system:
a] Sequence b] Selection c] Iteration
// A structured programming consists of a number of logical units called
modules which performs one or more operations in a programme. Modules
are represented as boxes in a structured programme. A sequence construct
executes statements in the order in which they appear, one by one, with
controls passing unconditionally from one statement to the next. For
example, a programme executes Statement A, then Statement B and then
Statement C and passes the control to the calling statement. A selection
construct is a logic pattern in programming where the stated condition
determines which of the two alternative instructions can be chosen. For
example, in a programme, if C is true, then statement D is executed. If C is
false, then statement F is executed. Iteration construct is a logic pattern
where actions are repeated until conditions are met. For
example, in a programme, if E is true, statement F is executed and control
returns to E. If E is false, E is skipped and the control passes to the next
statement. // Software Quality Assurance Tools:- A system uses a number
of techniques for the analysis and design of a software programme. The
design phase of a software programme can be implemented by using the
standard language called Unified Modelling Language (UML). It allows
developers to represent various views using various types of graphical
diagrams and various models to integrate these views during analysis,
design and implementation of a software programme. Following are the
various tools which can be used to develop a software programme:
a]Computer-Aided Software Engineering b]Software Matrices c]Testing
a]Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE):- Computer-aided software
engineering helps automate the task involved in the development of
different software systems. This helps in minimizing the amount of rework
which is done by the developer to add functionality in an existing software
programme. CASE provides automated graphics facilities for creating charts
and diagrams, screen and report generators, data dictionaries, extensive
reporting facilities, analysis and checking tools, code and documentation
generators. CASE provides various tools to increase the productivity and
quality of software by using the following techniques: 1]Implement a
standard development methodology and a design discipline
2]Improve communication between users and technical staff
3]Organize and connect design components and provide rapid access to
them 4]Automate check error-prone portions of analysis and design phase
of a system 5]Automate check code generation, testing and control in a
system// B]Software Matrices:- Software matrices allow the information
systems department and the users to jointly measure the performance of
the system and identify problems as they occur.C]Testing:- Testing begins at
the design phase to test a specific design document by a small group
of people. In the testing period, when errors are found in the source code at
the coding time, then these errors are eliminated at the debugging time.
INFORMATION SYSTEM IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF BUSINESS:- Information
system deals with the functional areas of the business. The business
activities are grouped on the basis of functions such as production and
finance performed by a specific department of a business organization.
These departments are commonly termed as the functional areas of the
business. These functional areas have unique information needs and require
information system support that is specifically designed for a particular
functional area. In addition, MIS is an integration of information systems
that are designed to support the functional subsystems of the business. Each
subsystem requires applications to process all the information related to a
particular functional area. Initially, it should be noted that each functional
subsystem contains applications for transaction processing and strategic
planning. Secondly, different functional systems should be considered
dependent on each other. It is so because all functional systems are the part
of the organizational system and interact with other subsystems with the
help of information. Lastly, it should be considered that there is no standard
classification of such subsystems in an organization. A manufacturing
organization includes the following set of functions: a]Production
b]Marketing c]Finance and accounting d]Materials e]Personnel systems
f]Logistics g]Information processing
Information systems that are developed around the functional areas of a
business organization are known as functional information systems. Various
types of functional systems include: 1]Financial Information System
2]Marketing Information System 3]Production/Manufacturing Information
System 4]Human Resource Information System 5]Decision Support System
6]Group Decision Support System 7]Executive Support System
Marketing Information System:- The term ‘marketing’ is a broad term and
includes many functions. All activities that are necessary to direct and
facilitate the production and usage of goods and services for a society are
included in marketing. Marketing information system provides information
about various functions of the marketing system of an organization.
Marketing is another functional area of a business organization that is
engaged in marketing or selling the organizational products to the
customers. In the words of professor Philip Kotler, marketing information
system is defined as ‘A social and managerial process by which individuals
and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and
exchanging products of value with others.’ The concept of marketing has
assumed a great importance in every field, irrespective of the degree of
industrialization. The concept of modern marketing is that it focuses its
attention on the customers. The organization earns profits after
satisfying the needs and requirements of the customer. In addition, it
achieves profits through an integrated and corporate-wide set of marketing
activities. Marketing not only includes the activities like selling, advertising
or distribution of products but also involves the interaction of several
business activities. The objective of these activities is the satisfaction of the
needs and desires of the customers. Thus, in this approach, before the
production of the product, marketing comes into focus. It means the needs
and desires of the customers are understood and then the product is
designed as per the preferences of the customers.
Various important Marketing Functions: 1]Marketing identification: It
means that the determination of the potential buyers and their
characteristic is important in order to satisfy the needs and desires of the
customers. 2]Purchase motivation: It refers to the assessment of various
social, economic and psychological forces that influence the purchase
behaviour of the market. 3]Product adjustment: It includes all such activities
that are necessary to match the product and services offered in the market.
As the needs and desires of customer keeps on changing, an equivalent
adjustment is required in terms of product planning.
4]Physical distribution: It refers to the actual movement of goods from
points of production to points of consumption. The function involves
decisions regarding optimum integration of transportation, warehousing
and merchandising economics. 5]Communication: It refers to the
communication of information and messages between buyers and sellers.
This function includes decisions about activities such as personal selling and
sales promotion. 6]Transaction: It refers to the inclusion of activities such as
invoicing and billing that are needed to facilitate the transfer of title of
ownership of goods or services between the parties involved in a
transaction. 7]Post-transaction: It refers to the feedback about the
performance of the product or service that is obtained from the customer,
so that quality product or service may be assured for the satisfaction of the
customer. //To carry out the mentioned marketing functions, the marketing
manager needs timely, accurate and relevant information to take an array of
decisions. Thus, every organization needs to organize the flow of marketing
information to its marketing managers. This marketing information is developed
with the help of internal company records, marketing intelligence activities,
marketing research and marketing decision support analysis. Figure shows the
concept of marketing information system.
Various options used in marketing information system are as follows:
1]Transaction: It specifies that the reports on orders, sales, prices, inventory
levels and receivables are obtained from the internal records of the
organization.The analysis of this information helps marketing managers in
identifying the important opportunities and problems. Sometimes,
marketing managers need focused studies of specific problems and
opportunities for which they collect marketing research data. Such research
data could be gathered through marketing survey, a product-preference
test, a sales forecast by region or an advertising-effectiveness study.
2]Marketing intelligence: It specifies the relevant developments in the
marketing environment. The marketing intelligence type of data can be
collected by reading books, newspapers and trade publications, and by
talking to customers, suppliers and distributors. To arrive at marketing
decisions, a marketing manager needs information on different aspects of
marketing. The marketing information systems consist of statistical
techniques and decision models that assist marketing managers in carrying
out better analyses and decisions. Marketing information system, after
collecting various types of data, processes the data and distributes the
processed data and information to the marketing managers for further
decision-making process.
Human Resource Information System:- Human resource information system
supports the functions of human resource management of an organization.
The human resource management function is also known as personnel
management. Human resource information system also deals with
employee compensation, wages, salary administration, labour relations and
employee services and benefits. // Various options used in human resource
information system are:- 1]Transaction: It is the basis for various types of
output information or analysis. These data include employee number, name,
qualification, experience and joining date of the employee. They also include
the categories and grades of posting and daily performance of the
employees. 2]Environmental: It includes data about the availability of
personnel, trends in the labour force, competition, market offerings to the
employees, government and labour laws. The human resource information
system gathers environmental data from journals, news items, research
studies, seminars and informal talks by the managers.
3]Organizational Plans: It provides an important input data to the human
resource information system. On the basis of these data, future planning for
recruitment and job assignment is done. The human resource information
system processes all these types of data to convert it into information which
supports decision-making of human resource managers.
Various important functions of the human resource management are:-
1]Manpower planning: It involves taking decisions about the present and
future manpower needs in an organization. 2]Staffing: It involves
recruitment, selection and placement of employees in an organization. It
also involves the development of new sources and the need for attracting a
large number of potential applicants. The recruitment process is followed by
selecting the right person from the large number of potential candidates.
The selection process involves development of application blanks, valid and
reliable tests, interview techniques, employee referral systems and
evaluation and selection of personnel in terms of job specifications.
3]Training and development: It involves training and development of the
employees to bridge the gap between the job requirements and
competence or ability of an employee. It also develops lower level managers
to assume higher level responsibilities. It is a continuous activity that
includes the following tasks: o Identification of training and development
needs of personnel at all levels. o Development of suitable training and
employee development programmes. 4]Performance evaluation: It involves
evaluating the performance of an employee at work in terms of pre-
determined standards and norms. Evaluation or performance appraisal
includes the formulation of performance appraisal plans, development of
appraisal techniques and programmes. 5]Separation activities: It involves
promoting employee-employer relations that may come to an end due to
the resignation of an employee, lay-off, death or retirement. Separation
activities also analyzes the causes for increased labour turnover in an
organization. Human resource management is also responsible for the
wages and salary administration, sustaining and maintaining the workforce
in an organization and maintaining healthy and peaceful labour-
management relations.
Financial Information System:- A financial information system is defined as
a subsystem of the organizational management information system that
supports the decision-making process of financial functions at the
organizational levels. Brief description of each of the financial decisions that
a financial manager needs to take is as follows:
1]Capital budgeting: Allocates the funds for long-term assets that yield
benefits/returns in the future. For example, funds allocated for land,
building and machinery. It should be noticed that before investing in the
long-term assets, the financial manager should evaluate the prospective
profitability of the new investment. 2]Financing: Refers to when, where and
how to acquire funds to meet the investment needs of the organization. The
financial manager needs to decide about the proportion of equity and debt
capital. In addition, he needs to determine the areas where the use of debt
capital affects the return and poses a risk to shareholders. The return on
equity may increase, but so will the risk. So, there needs to be a proper
balance between the return and the risk. 3]Dividend: Relates to the
dividend policy of the organization. A decision whether the organization
should distribute all profits or retain them or distribute a portion and retain
the balance is taken by the financial managers.
4]Current asset management: Refers to the management of current assets
of the organization in order to safeguard the organization against illiquidity.
Illiquidity refers to the situation when someone does not posses cash.
Investment in current assets affects the profitability, liquidity and risk of an
organization. If the sufficient funds are not invested in current assets, the
organization may become illiquid. But the organization would lose
profitability if idle current assets would not earn any profits. Thus, a suitable
trade-off needs to be achieved between profitability and liquidity.
// Financial information systems also include accounting systems as these
systems are concerned with recording the business transactions. Such
transactions include wages, salaries and all other types of income and
expenditure related to an organization. The records of these transactions
become the basis for preparing periodic or annual profit and loss accounts,
balance sheets, etc. in the organization. Accurate and precise financial
information system needs to be supplied to the financial manager in order
to perform the above activities and functions. These systems involve large
amounts of data which are concerned primarily with historical and internal
information. Financial information systems are computerized: a]To provide
information and analytical support to financial managers to aid them in their
decision-making. b]To improve the speed and accuracy of reporting.
//Figure shows a financial information system.
Various terms used in the above
figure are explained as follows:
1]Transactional data: It includes
credit applications and payment
vouchers and these data are the basis
of any type of organizational analysis.
2]Financial intelligence data: These are collected from banks and stock
markets and processed to determine their impact on the economy of the
organization. 3]Organizational plan: It depicts the objectives of the
organization. The organizational plan needs to be reflected in the output of
the financial information system which may be in the form of financial plans.
//Software packages on financial accounting such as Tally and BMS that
provide complete information on the financial accounting are available in
the market. The financial planning software packages namely IFPS are used
for managerial decision making at higher levels.
Production/Manufacturing Information System:- Manufacturing is another
important functional area of an organization that is engaged in producing
goods from raw materials. It should be considered that manufacturing is
not an activity for every organization that deals in selling of goods. Some of
the organizations can only be involved in the trading business. Trading of
goods means buying goods
from one organization and
selling it to the customers.
Such organizations that deal
in trading of goods are also
called merchandising
organizations. A production or manufacturing information system provides
information on the production or operation activities of an organization and
facilitates the decision-making process for the production managers of the
organization. Production management is an area that deals with decision
making related to the production process so that the resulting goods and
services are produced in accordance with the quantitative specifications and
demand schedule with the minimum cost. Figure shows the manufacturing
information system. The main decisions to be taken in the manufacturing
system are related to the following :-
1]Product design: It includes the development of entire product through all
initial stages until actual manufacturing starts. It also includes activities such
as preparation of drawings and developmental efforts involved in the
product design. Nowadays, Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer
Aided Engineering (CAE) approaches are used in designing products.
2]Plant location: It determines how an organization is established at a
particular place. Plant location is a continuous process as there is always
scope for making improvements over the existing design. However, it must
be kept in mind that the decision of plant location is dynamic in nature and
thus, location study needs continuous monitoring.
3]Plant layout: It involves arranging machines, equipment and other
services within a pre-designed building to ensure steady, smooth and
economical flow of material. Similar to the plant location, plant layout is also
a continuous process that provides scope for making improvements over the
existing design. Plant layout designs can be prepared using mathematical
and simulation models that are created with the help of computers. The
plant layout software can be used to establish a new plant or improve an
already existing one. 4]Production planning: It is responsible for planning,
directing and controlling the material supply and other production
processing activities. The task of production planning is accomplished by
using the following options: a]Routing: Determines the path or route over
which each piece of raw material needs to travel during the transformation
of raw materials into the finished product. b]Scheduling: Decides the time
for carrying out each operation in a production process.
c]Loading: Provides information about whether the workload is greater or
lesser than the capacity of the equipment. It also helps determine the
situation when a particular equipment or machine will be available for work
on each order or item.
5]Production control: It regulates an orderly flow of material and
coordinates various production operations. The production control activity is
carried out in order to ensure that the desired items are produced in the
right quantity with the desired quality at the required time and at the
optimum cost. 6]Quality control: It refers to the activities that ensure that
the finished product confirms to the standard specifications laid down either
by the manufacturer or the customer. Various techniques that are used in
controlling the quality of a product include inspection, statistical quality
control and control charts. 7]Workforce: It includes data about the labour
market and performance of workers. The workforce data are essential for
production scheduling and plant utilization. 8]Environment: It includes data
related to technology trends, raw material prices, labour force economics
and dynamics. The environmental data help the production manager to plan
and control activities related to the production processes in a better way.
The manufacturing information system gathers different types of data from
various sources. After gathering data, it processes data to transform them
into meaningful information. This information is then provided to the
production managers to facilitate decision making at the various levels of
management. Information that is required for manufacturing decisions is
processed from data that are gathered from a wide variety of sources. These
various types of data are discussed as follows: a]Production: It includes
production orders, assembly orders, finished items and scrap.
b]Inventory: It includes data related to the inventories of raw materials,
goods in process and finished goods. c]Supplier: It provides information
about the sources of raw materials. The materials manager maintains the
supplier data.
Q] Write Down The Features Of Various Fact Finding techniques?
Ans:- FACT FINDING TECHNIQUE:- Fact finding technique is a process of
ensuring that the information gathered is the actual required information.
To gather the actual required information, you need to use the fact-finding
techniques. The various types of fact finding techniques are:
1]Review of Literature, Procedures and Forms 2]On-site observation
1]Review of Literature, Procedures and Forms:- Various kinds of reports
and records that store the information related to the existing system are
maintained in an organization. These reports and records can provide
valuable information related to the organization, its operations and activities
to the system analysts. A review of available documentation is a logical
starting point when seeking insight into a system. It helps people gain some
knowledge about the organization or to perform operations by themselves
before they impose upon others. Procedure manuals and forms are
excellent sources of information because they describe the format and
functions of the present system. Update manuals can provide lots of
information which saves a lot of time. Recent developments in the area of
Information Technology (IT) have made it possible to avail all the updated
documentations about most of the systems within a short span of time.
The existing forms can provide a clear understanding about the transactions
that are handled in the organization. An input form can be used to identify
the various data items that are captured for processing. An output form or
report can be used to evaluate the performance of the process or to notice
different information products that are being generated from the system.
A]Analysing quantitative documents:- Each of the quantitative documents
has a specific purpose and an audience to which they are targeted. Various
reports are used for decision making such as sales, production and inventory
reports. Sales reports might help the decision maker to readily spot the
trend. These reports supply strategic overviews of the organizational plans.
Beyond these key reports, many summary reports are used by the decision
makers to provide the background information and spot exceptions to
normal circumstances.
B]Performance reports:- Performance reports provide the information
related to the performance of the system. It helps in analysing the varying
trends in the performance and in implementing the required changes.
Following are the main functions of the performance reports: a]They report
the actual versus the intended performance. b]They help the systems
analyst to assess the size of the gap between the actual and intended
performance. c]They indicate whether this gap is widening or narrowing.
d]These performance reports show whether the goals are achieved or not.
C]Records:- Records are maintained to help the system analyst determine
the functioning of the system. The records are maintained daily, monthly or
yearly based on the requirements and the time period specified for
analysing the reports. Following are the main functions of records:
a]They provide a periodic update of what is occurring in the organization.
b]They help the analyst to check for errors in amounts and totals.
c]They help in observing the number and type of transactions.
d]By inspecting the records, the systems analyst can think about improving
or changing the recording form design.
e]It helps find instances when computers can simplify the work further.
D]Data capturing forms:- Data capturing forms helps in collecting the
specific information related to the requirement of the system. Following are
the factors to be considered while using data capturing forms:
a]The organizational system is to be understood before changing the
information flow in the organization. B]Blank forms, along with their
instructions for completion and distribution, can be compared to filled-in
forms for analysing the collected information. It also verifies whether the
people who are supposed to receive the forms actually get them and follow
the standard procedures for using, storing and discarding the forms.
E]Analysing qualitative documents:- Analysing the qualitative documents
helps understand how the organizational members engage in the process of
organizing. The types of qualitative documents are memos and sign-on
bulletin boards and in work areas, manuals and policy handbooks.
F]Memos:- Memos are qualitative documents which help in providing the
details regarding the daily activities of the organization. Maintenance of
memos on daily basis helps in understanding the environment of the
organization. Following are the functions of memos: A]Analysis of memos
provides insight into the metaphors that guide the organization’s thinking.
B]While analysing memos, it should be determined who sends the memos
and who receives them. c]Memos represent the clear picture of the values,
thoughts and beliefs of the employees of an organization.
G]Manuals:- Manuals are the qualitative documents pertaining to the
working area of any system. These manuals can be based on the functioning
of an organization or the system and help in analysing their performance.
Following are the facts related to the manuals: a]Systems analysts should
examine the organizational manuals, computer system manuals and
different kinds of online manuals. b]Manuals present the ideal way in which
machines and people are expected to behave. c]Examining the current
manuals helps determine the way things ought to happen.
H]Policy handbooks:- Policy handbooks are the documents that provide the
information regarding the policies and rules of the organization or the
system. Following are the facts related to the policy handbook:
1]They indicate the company’s ideal way of doing things and achieving goals.
2]Some computer policies may appear on the screen whenever a particular
programme is run. 3]Sometimes the members are not aware of some
particular policies. 4]Policies are sometimes purposely avoided in the name
of efficiency or simplicity. // Unfortunately, documentation seldom
describes a system completely and often it is not up to date. A search of
literature through professional references, user manuals, textbooks and
company or government publications can be availed. Sometimes it is
difficult to get certain reports and publications. Sometimes, it may be too
expensive and time-consuming. Record inspection can be performed at the
beginning of the study as an introduction which can help the analyst to
understand the history of the system as well as later on the study.
2]On-Site Observation:- On-site observation allows analysts to gain
information they cannot obtain by any other fact-finding methods. With
thorough on-site observation, you can gain the firsthand information.
Whereas by reviewing the documents, you get only secondary information.
This method is really useful, when analysts want to observe how
transactions are handled, when and where the documents are captured,
how the data flows or activities are carried out and so on. According to
Harper Boyd and Ralph Westfall, observation is the process of recognizing
and noting the people, objects and occurrences to obtain information.
The objective of on-site observation is to get as close as possible to the
actual system being studied. As an observer, analysts follow certain rules.
While observing, they are more likely to listen than talk with a sympathetic
and genuine interest when information is conveyed. Proper care is taken not
to argue with the persons being observed. Observation provides a more
tangible perspective of what is described in the documentation. It also
brings out the aspects of the documentation that are incomplete or
outdated. // On-Site observation methods:- When humans are observed,
four alternative observation methods are considered which are as follows:
1]Natural observation: Natural observation takes place in a setting such as
at an employee’s work place. 2]Contrived observation: It takes place in a
set-up by the observer such as laboratories. For example, checking bugs in
the individual system and checking the progress of trainees in a training
programme. 3]Obtrusive observation: Obtrusive observation takes place
with the knowledge of the respondent. For example, visiting of external
auditor in the organization comes under obtrusive observation.
4]Unobtrusive observation: It takes place without the knowledge of the
respondent. For example, surprise internal audit comes under unobtrusive
observation. 5]Direct observation: Direct observation takes place when the
observer observes the system at work by being physically present at the
actual work place. 6]Indirect observation: This type of on-site observation
makes use of secondary devices such as video cameras to capture
information. For example, daily proceedings of the bank may be observed
with the help of video camera. 7]Structured observation: Structured
observation is a type of on-site observation that takes place in a formal way
in which each activity in the observation process is predefined. For example,
while tracing the route of sales invoice in a system.
8]Unstructured observation: In this type of on-site observation, observer
observes whatever might be pertinent at the time. For example, observer
wants to create a list of activities of production supervisor by observing him
from the remote location.
Q.What is ERP? What are the objectives and The ERP challenges?
Ans:- Enterprise Resource Planning System{ERP}:- ERP system is a type of
information system that is used to integrate all the data and processes of
the organization into a cohesive system. ERP system is regarded as the
enterprise-wide framework that includes all the major departments of the
organization such as sales, marketing, production, inventory management,
accounts, finance and human resource department. These departments are
considered as the backbone of the organization. ERP system is the cross-
functional enterprise framework that handles the processes related to all
the departments and helps the organization to use the available resources in
an efficient manner. This system helps the organization to analyze the
production capacities and logistics management and take decisions about
the financial implications. The ERP system follows the philosophy of
handling and integrating all the processes at all levels. The ERP system also
manages the resources of the organization in an efficient manner so that it
can satisfy the needs of the customers in a convenient manner. This system
enables the management of the organization to view the business as a
whole rather than having a small view of the business functions. This helps
the management to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization.
The changes that are required to be incorporated in the business processes
can be easily done with ERP system with no extra effort, because changes
have to be incorporated in one place that affect the complete process of
information system automatically. Figure shows the typical ERP system in
which the sales order processing interact with the inventory system, work
order maintenance and accounts receivable subsystems. Therefore, the ERP
system integrates the marketing, production and finance of business. The
ERP system also integrates the other business activities such as production
planning, production scheduling, procurement of raw materials and
Material Resource Planning (MRP).
ERP system consists of different modules such as manufacturing,
distribution, sales, accounting and human resource (HR) management.These
modules further consist of different processes under them. For example, the
manufacturing module consists of material requirements planning,
production planning and capacity planning processes.Figure shows the
major functional components of the ERP system.
ERP Challenges:- Companies have to
face many problems while
implementing the ERP system. The
first problem the organization has to
face is about the selection of the ERP
vendor. Most organizations face ERP
challenges in three areas which are:
1]Integration of ERP modules:-Different ERP vendors sell their ERP software
package consisting of production planning, inventory control, finance and
HR. The organizations have to install all these modules in the beginning
phase of ERP implementation. The companies also have to purchase some
other ERP modules from different vendors. The integration of the modules
purchased from different vendors is one of the major challenges for the
organizations. 2]Integration of e-business applications: E-Business
applications consist of strategies, technologies and processes that integrate
the internal and external business processes electronically. E-Business
software system falls into four categories.
These categories are: o Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) o Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) o Supply Chain Management (SCM) o
Knowledge Management (KM)
3]Integration with legacy systems: A legacy system is the existing computer
system or application implemented in the organization to handle different
business processes. This legacy system consists of vast amount of data that
are crucial for the survival, operations and expansions of the organizations.
Integration of ERP systems with the legacy systems requires the installation
of the third-party software that can be used as an interface between the ERP
systems and the legacy systems.
Q] SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE:- System Development Life Cycle is a
set of activities carried out by the systems analysts and system designers to
develop an information system. The concept of System Development Life
Cycle (SDLC) model comes from the system life cycle which is defined as the
period of time that starts with the conceptualization of a system and ends
when the functioning of the system is over. In other words, SDLC models
represent descriptive and diagrammatic model of a software product with a
series of identifiable phases through which the software product goes
during its lifetime. The fundamental need for using a life cycle model is to
provide a basis that helps in controlling the various activities required for
developing and maintaining a system. In addition, it establishes a
precedence ordering among the various activities and helps the
development team in facilitating and understanding the activities involved in
the project. The primary task of the development team, while developing a
system, is to identify a suitable life cycle model and follow the model
throughout the life cycle of the product. Adhering to the life cycle model
helps them in developing the system in a systematic and disciplined manner.
Another need for using a life cycle model is that it helps in defining the entry
and exit criteria for every phase of the system life cycle. This enables the
system project managers to easily monitor the progress of the system
development process and also helps in controlling and systematically
organizing the various activities of its life cycle.
1]Enables effective communication:- SDLC enhances the understanding of
the system life cycle and provides a specific basis for the execution of
software development life cycle.
2]Facilitates process reuse: System development is a time-consuming and
expensive activity; therefore, the system development team utilizes the
existing processes for different projects. 3]Effective: The reusable system
life cycle models provide an effective means for system development. Some
of the well-known SDLC models include the following: A]Classic waterfall
model B]Prototyping model C]Spiral model D]Rapid Application
Development (RAD) model E]Incremental model F]V Model G]Build and fix
model H]Evolutionary development model I]Synchronize and Stabilize
Model.
// SDLC follows a phased approach for the development of the system. In
the phased development process, the process that is used to develop
information system is divided into phases. Each phase ends with a defined
output. The division of the development process into phases lowers the
overall cost of the development because each phase handles a different part
of the entire software development process. In addition, the phased
development process allows you to check the quality of the information
system and progress of the development process at the end of each phase.
Phases of SDLC:- A general process model consists the following phases:
 Requirement analysis  Software design  Coding  Testing
 Implementing and evaluating
A]Requirement Analysis:- The requirement analysis phase determines the
functionality of information system and constraints under which the system
will work. The requirement analysis phase is divided into two activities,
problem analysis and requirement specification. In problem analysis, the
problem that will be solved by the information system is determined.
After the problem is analysed, the requirements are specified in the
requirements specification document. The requirements specification
document specifies all the functional and non-functional requirements,
input and output format of all the phases of the information system
development process and the constraints under which the system will work.
B]Software Design:- In the software design phase, solution to the problem
that is analysed in the requirement analysis phase is planned. This phase is
the most crucial phase as it affects all the later phases of the information
system development process. Software design involves specifying the
methods that can be used for dealing with the problems that can occur
during the system development process. Some of the problems that can
occur in the system development process are as follows:
1]Problem of scale: The problem of scaling arises because different sets of
methods are used to develop a large software project as compared to the
methods used to develop a small software project.
2]Problem of quality: Problem of quality arises if the quality of software
cannot be determined using single parameter and the parameters, on which
the quality depends, are specific to a software project. The goal of a
software project should be to satisfy the quality that is specified before
developing the project process. Reliability of a software project determines
the quality of the software and the unreliability of software is due to the
defects in the software. A defect in software is defined as a problem that
causes software crash or incorrect output.
3]Problem of productivity: Productivity of a software project is determined
by the manpower employed for developing the software. If the productivity
of the manpower employed to develop software is high, the cost of the
software will be low. 4]Problem of cost: The cost of developing software
includes the cost of resources involved in the software development process
such as hardware and manpower. The cost of software is measured in terms
of total number of persons-months spent in the software project including
the cost of overheads such as hardware and tools. Persons-months are
defined as the amount of work done by a person in one month.
5]Problem of scheduling: The scheduling of a software project is affected
by the market competition which specifies that the time involved in the
development of software must be small as compared to the other software
in the market. The software projects where the schedule and cost of
projects exceed the predicted limits are categorized as runaway projects. To
reduce the problem of unreliability and delays, organizations need to take
advice from the consultants of the organizations to improve the
performance of Information system of the organization.
6]Problem of consistency: Problem of consistency is one of the major
challenges that affect the software development process. The problem of
consistency arises if a software project does not repeat the successful
results of previous software projects and the consistency in the quality of
the previous software projects. The main aim of an organization involved in
software development is to develop high quality products consistently with
high productivity. // The output of the software design phase is in the form
of three documents: architecture design, high-level design and detailed
design. The architecture design document specifies software as a collection
of different components and the relationship between the components. The
high-level design document specifies the modules and their specifications
that are required to develop the software. A module is a collection of
components that are dependent on each other for their functioning. In
addition, the high-level design document specifies the data structures that
are required to implement the modules. The detailed design document
specifies the implementation logic of the modules specified in the high-level
design document.
C]Coding:- In the coding phase, the modules designed in the software design
phase are implemented using a programming language. The purpose of this
phase is to implement the modules in an optimized manner. In addition, the
code should be simple to read and understand. An optimized code reduces
the testing and maintenance effort. The output of the coding phase is the
software that satisfies the information system requirements.
D]Testing:- The purpose of the testing phase is to detect defects in the
information system. This phase detects defects in all the previous phases of
a system development life cycle. Testing of information system involves:-
1]Unit testing: It involves testing of different components of the information
system to ensure whether or not the components are functioning correctly.
2]Module testing: It involves testing of modules to ensure whether or not
the modules are functioning properly. 3]Subsystem testing: It involves
testing of subsystems to ensure whether or not the subsystems are
functioning properly. A subsystem is a collection of dependent modules.
4]System testing: It involves testing of the complete information system.
System testing detects the errors that occur in the software due to
interaction of subsystems and modules.
5]Acceptance testing: It involves testing of the software with the user-
supplied, real-time data to demonstrate the use of software to the user.
// The testing phase is the most time-consuming phase of the SDLC. To test
information system, a test plan is developed that specifies all the testing-
related activities, schedule of testing-related activities, resources for the
testing-related activities and guidelines for testing. The test plan also
specifies all the units to be tested and the conditions under which the units
of the system will be tested. After developing a test plan, a test case
specification document is developed which specifies the test cases for all the
units of the system. After developing the test case specification document,
testing is done by using test cases and the actual results are compared with
the predicted results. The output of the testing phase is in the form of two
types of reports, test and error reports. The test report contains the test
cases and corresponding results of executing the test cases. The error report
contains the errors occurred during testing and the solutions to the errors.
Implementing and Evaluating the System:- Implementation is a process of
ensuring that the information system is operational and then allowing the
users to use and evaluate it. Implementing a system also involves training
the users to handle the system. The systems analyst needs to plan for a
smooth conversion from the old system to the new one by converting files
from old formats to new ones. The total evaluation of the system is done in
this final phase. After the system is installed, it must be maintained for the
following two reasons: A]To find out system errors B]To enhance the
system’s capabilities
Training:- Training is a process of providing knowledge about the system to
the users. Systems analyst engages in educational processes with the users
through training. The trainer and the trainee determine training strategies.
The systems analyst ensures that all the end users affected by the new
information system are properly trained.
Possible training sources include the following:- 1]Vendors 2]Systems
analysts 3]External paid trainer 4]In-house trainers 5]Other system users
Guidelines for training are: 1]Establishing measurable objectives
2]Using appropriate training methods 3]Selecting suitable training locations
4]Employing understandable training materials
Following are the objectives of a training programme:
1]To enhance communication among the members of the development
team. 2]To provide knowledge about the new system to the employees of
the company. 3]To increase user awareness 4]To obtain support for the new
system from the top management 5]To provide information to the
employees and the top management about the problems and issues that
can be handled by the new system.
Conversion:- Conversion is the method to replace the old system with the
new one. A conversion plan includes a description of all the activities that
must occur during the implementation of a new system. Following are the
five strategies for converting the old information system into the new one:
1]Direct changeover 2]Parallel conversion 3]Gradual (Phased) conversion
4]Modular Prototype conversion 5]Distributed conversion
Security of computer facilities, stored data and information generated are
part of a successful conversion. The three interrelated aspects of security
are: 1]Physical Security 2]Logical Security 3]Behavioural Security
Evaluation:- Many different evaluation approaches are available for
evaluating information systems including cost-benefit analysis, the revised
decision evaluation approach and user involvement evaluation. The
information system utility approach is a comprehensive and useful
technique for evaluating and measuring the success of a developed system.
Following are the utilities that are used to evaluate the system:
1]Possession utility: It answers the questions who should receive the
output. 2]Form utility: It answers the question what kind of output is
provided to the decision maker. 3]Place utility: It answers the question
where the information is distributed. 4]Time utility: It answers the question
when the information is delivered. 5]Actualization utility: It involves how
the information is introduced and used by the decision maker.
6]Goal utility: It answers the question whether the output has value in
obtaining the objectives of an organization.
Q]SUBSYSTEM AND UPGROWTH IN ORGANIZATIONS:- An information
system consists of many subsystems. Subsystem refers to a part of
information system that plays a specific role in the working of information
system. An information system becomes effective only when all its
component subsystems work properly. Subsystems have a great importance
for the end-users of the information system since the subsystems are the
integral part of any type of information system. These subsystems are as
follows:
1]Real-Life Business Subsystem:- Real-life business subsystem is responsible
for collecting information about the organization and its business
environment. This information is very important to implement an
information system in the organization because the information system
of the organization must be compatible with each and every business
activities of the organization. 2]Production Subsystem:- Production
subsystem is responsible for collecting all the information provided by the
production department of the organization. The production department of
the organization deals with the decision-making related to the production
process so that the resulting goods and services are produced in accordance
with the quantitative specifications and demand schedule with minimum
cost. 3]Marketing Subsystem:- Marketing subsystem is responsible for
collecting information about acquisition, transportation, storage and
delivering of the product of the organization. All the data, which are
required for the marketing subsystem of the information system, are
gathered from the records of the marketing department of the organization.
4]Personnel Subsystem:- Personnel subsystem is responsible for
maintaining information such as records of account, employees and finance
of the organization. It also provides a way to record information in the
storage medium of the information system from the terminal ends of
the information system. 5]Material Subsystem:- It is responsible for
collecting information about materials used in different departments
of an organization. It is also called material handling system of information
system because it provides required material to different departments of
the organization at the right time. All inventory and stock-related
information is handled by this subsystem of the organization. Financial
Subsystem.
6]Financial Subsystem:- Financial subsystem is responsible for collecting all
the information related to financial management of the organization.
Financial management of the organization provides following information:
A]Historical cost of the product produced by the organization
B]Income sources of the organization C]Cost required to purchase materials
and machines for the production D]Account status of selling products
E]Funds and resources available from the outsiders such as banks and
financial institutions F]Estimated and actual budget of the organization
Decomposition of System:- Decomposition of system refers to the division
of system into various subsystems. The decomposition of system into
various subsystems allows you to perform complex tasks with greater ease.
Moreover, the division of system into various subsystems leads to the
hierarchical representation of the operations. A system is divided into
smaller units until the smallest unit of the system becomes manageable at
the system level. Figure shows the decomposition of a system.
The decomposition of a system
can be best exemplified by the
hierarchical arrangement of
various departments in an
organization. Consider the
example of an organization
where multiple units integrate
with each other to achieve a
common objective. In such an
organization, the system is decomposed into various departments such as
marketing, production, finance, materials and personnel. The production
department is further categorized into various departments such as
manufacturing, sales and promotion. The task assigned to the promotion
department can be further divided into different sub departments such as
advertising, publicity and selling. The decomposition process of a system
into several smaller subsystems is used to analyse the structure and working
of an existing system. It also helps in the design, development, and
implementation of a new system. The process of decomposition helps to
identify and separate the subsystems that can work independently in a
system and decouple them to achieve efficient results.
Decoupling refers to the phenomenon in which the interaction between
subsystems and other elements of the system disappears. It allows the
subsystem to function independently. It minimizes the adverse effect of a
subsystem on other subsystems. In some cases such as inventory
management, decoupling allows the production processes to function
efficiently instead of delaying all the processes due to the unavailability of
a few resources.
Upgrowth in Organizations:- In the following section, we will discuss Nolan
stage model to understand the various features of information system
correspond to the stages of growth.
The Nolan Stage Model: IS Planning Framework:- Nolan stage model is
developed by Richard Nolan in 1974 to provide framework for information
system planning in which the various features of information system
correspond to the stages of growth. This model very clearly explains the
stage by stage development of an information system in an organization.
Initially, the model consisted of four stages; initiation, expansion or
contagion, formalism or control, and maturity or integration. The basic
principle behind this model is that an organization must go through each
stage of growth before progressing to the next stage. This model is named
as contingency model because it states: ‘if these features exist then
the information system is in this stage.’ Nolan four stage model not only
helps an analyst to diagnosis the stages of information system within an
organization, but also helps him to understand the reasons for success or
failure of the system in an organization and thereby assists in developing
solutions to take the functions ahead. Later on, in 1979, Nolan
recommended that these four stages are not sufficient to depict the growth
of IT in an organization so; he enhanced his four stage model to six stage by
introducing stage 5 and stage 6. Different stages of this model are shown in
Figure. This growth curve takes the shape of a double ‘S’. It shows that
thegrowth rises sharply in the first and the second stage and then become
stable by the end of the third stage. Again for the fourth stage, growth
increases but only to get a steady shape at the last stage of the growth
curve.
 Stage 1: Initiation:- The first growth stage
is known as initiation stage. During this
stage, information technology is
introduced into the organization. The
organization buys and installs computer
systems, and few applications are
computerized to meet the basic
organizational needs. However, at this
stage the number of users using the computers is less due to unfamiliarity
with the new technology. Thus, this stage is characterized by decentralized
control and minimal planning. Since most medium and large-sized
companies have already installed computer systems, this stage has already
been achieved by most of the organizations. Stage 2: Contagion:- This stage
is also known as expansion stage. This is the phase when most of the
organizations wish to have an access to the computer hardware, develop
software and have the trained manpower working. Every organization head
wishes to have some computer resources controlled by them. This leads to
the uncontrolled growth of computer resources and variety of IT
applications. Due to which budget goes high and becomes the cause of
concern for management. Stage 3: Control:- This stage is also known as
formalism stage. During this stage, management notices that benefits
derived from MIS activity are not in proportion to the actual expenditure
spent on it. So, organizations exercise control over resources by
implementing various formal control processes and standards. At this stage,
the management puts some constraints in sanctioning the budgets. The MIS
budgets are also checked with the result so that the users get aware of the
fact that information technology should not be misused.
Stage 4: Integration:- This stage is also known as maturity stage. By this
stage, organizations gain enough experience and maturity in IS applications.
So, this stage mainly focuses on the integration of applications so as to avoid
duplications of efforts and systems. In this stage, controls are adjusted and
planning is performed in well-organized manner hence, this stage is called
the ‘stage of perfection’.
Stage 5: Data administration:- This stage puts emphasis on managing
corporate data rather than IT. So, management of data becomes the crucial
step at this stage. Database administrator (DBA) plays an important role in
the management of data. Since the data is being stored, used, manipulated
and processed from integrated files in the database, it is the responsibility
of DBA to plan, supervise, control and secure the data.
Stage 6: Maturity:- This is the final stage of enhanced Nolan model. It shows
that application portfolio (tasks like orderly entry, material requirements
planning, etc.) is completed and hence information flows within an
organization. It is assumed that by this stage, the applications have been
incorporated into the organizational functioning and these are as per the
strategic requirements of the organisation.
Q]MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM(MIS)
Management Information System or MIS is a well-structured method which
combines the principles, theories and practices of management using an
information system. MIS plays an important role in business organization for
planning and decision-making process. It provides managers with different
tools which help organize, evaluate and run their departments efficiently.
MIS also provides information to the employees at various levels of
management for performing their respective jobs. In other words, MIS is an
integrated computer-based user-machine system that provides information
to support the operations, management analysis and decision-making
functions in an organization. Various terminologies used in the definition are
as follows:- 1]System consists of computer hardware and software, manual
procedures, models of analysis, planning, control, decision-making
information and a database. 2]Integration helps to eliminate redundancy in
the information and incompatibility of hardware and software. It can be
achieved by following standards, guidelines and procedures.
3]Computer-based means that the designers of MIS must have knowledge of
computers and their use in data processing. 4]User-machine means that the
systems designer should understand the capabilities of an individual as a
decision-maker and machine as a data-processor.
5]Database is the collection of interrelated information stored in the form of
fields, records and files. Databases are designed to offer an organized
mechanism for storing, managing and retrieving information.
Definition of MIS:- After understanding the overview of MIS by studying the
concept of management, information and system, now you need to define
and understand the term MIS as a whole. MIS is an integrated system which
collects, maintains, correlates and selectively displays information to meet
the specific needs of the various levels of management. It helps in making
decisions and taking actions for fulfilling the objectives of an organization.
The definition of the term ‘Management Information System’ varies
from person to person. There are various definitions of MIS given by
different authors which are as follows: According to Schwartz, ‘MIS is a
system of people, equipment, procedures, documents and communication
that collects, validates, operates on transformers, stores, retrieves, and
present data for use in planning, budgeting, accounting, controlling and
other management process.’ According to Coleman and Riley, ‘An MIS (a)
applies to all management levels; (b) is linked to an organizational
subsystem; (c) functions to measure performance, monitor progress,
evaluate alternatives or provide knowledge for change or collective action,
and (d) is flexible both internally and externally.’ According to Davis and
Olson, ‘[MIS is] an integrated user-machine system designed for providing
information to support operational control, management control
and decision-making functions in an organization. The information systems
make use of resources such as hardware, software, men, procedures as well
as supplies.’
Goals of MIS:- MIS is the most common type of management support
systems. Various goals of MIS in an organization are as follows:
1]To provide information to managerial end-users to support their day-to-
day decision-making needs. 2]To produce reports for specific time periods
designed for managers responsible for specific functions in an organization.
For example, departmental expense reports and performance reports.
3]To provide correct information to the concerned manager at the right
time. 4]To help in carrying out regular and routine operations
5]To control, organize and plan better business operations
Limitations of MIS:- There are fundamental weaknesses in an organization,
such as improper management and unclear organizational functions. When
the organization decides to implement an MIS, the following problems
directly affect and limit an MIS: a]Organizational framework: Some
managers think that they can solve a company’s shortcomings using MIS.
MIS does not help to achieve this goal without a good planning and control
within the framework of an organizational structure. MIS must be built on
top of a management system that includes the organizational arrangements,
structure and procedures for adequate planning and control.
b]Generation of information: The lack of managerial and operational
applications to the MIS makes a great impact because it implies that the
process of management is not being performed well to generate the
information. The information is the raw material of decision-making for MIS
and if information is not being generated, disseminated and used for
management, then no system manual or computer is going to solve the
organizational problems. c]Managerial participation: The most striking
characteristic of the successful company is that the development of MIS has
been viewed as a responsibility of the management. Their success is
attributed directly to the fact that managers are required to become
involved in the design of their own systems. This includes both top
management and operating line management. Moreover, the president
of the organization needs to take a personal interest and participate directly
in defining what work the computer should do for the company.
Significance of MIS:- The primary goal of MIS is to improve the management
of an organization and for achieving this, timely and reliable information on
various fields such as marketing, finance, and human resource of the
organization play a significant management role. This information is
obtained through a logical and well-structured method of collecting
information and processing of the collected information. MIS helps the
decision makers to carry out the decisions in their organizations. In today’s
business environment, MIS is of great significance and it is considered as
important as the five M’s related to the business industry which are money,
minutes, materials, men and machines.
The significance of a planned, analysed, designed and maintained MIS is as
follows: 1]Provides timely, useful and reliable information that helps in the
progress and growth of the business and management infrastructure in a
situation of increased business complexities. This information can
significantly help the management in taking quick, rational and speedy
decisions. 2]Supports the business processes and operations of the
organization that help in globalization and liberalization of the organizations
and enables the organization to compete both locally and globally.
3]Provides Management Information (MI) at various stages of decision-
making in an organization that helps assist the decision makers to take
decision in an organization.
Elements of MIS:- MIS, due to its significant contributions in the
management field, has gradually become a part of most of the organizations
and the organizations must have a good understanding of MIS. To
understand MIS, you need to understand the elements such as
management, information and
system of MIS in detail. Figure shows
the elements of MIS.
A]Management:- The term management is defined as the art of getting
things done through people by dividing them into organized groups and
assigning each group a different activity. Later, the outcomes of all the
activities performed by each group are appended together to accomplish
the final goal. In other words, you can define management as the process of
achieving the business objectives of an organization by making the best
decisions that involve optimized combination of manpower, resources and
working environment of the organization. The key person involved in the
management of an organization is the manager who needs to perform
different activities in a systematic way to carry out the process of
management. The manager plans about a project by setting goals and
objectives and implement procedures, rules, programmes, budgets,
strategies and schedules to achieve the plan. The various activities
performed by a manager are as follows:
1]Planning: Planning is the process of determining the goals and objectives
of a project before starting the implementation of the project. Planning
helps bridge the gap between the current and the final position of the
project. 2]Organizing: Organizing is the process of arranging the activities
which are required to meet the objectives determined in the planning for a
project. In an organization, the manager organizes the various activities by
performing the following steps: oDivides the activities as per the planning of
the project oAllocates the activities to individual employee or a group in the
organization oProvides authority to the employee or the group for
performing the activities 3]Staffing: Staffing is the process of assigning the
right person for the right job. It means allocating a job to a person as per
his/her skills or identifying the persons in the organization that are suitable
for accomplishing a particular job. 4]Directing: Directing helps the manager
to achieve the pre-determined goals and objectives by guiding and
motivating the people involved in the project. The directing process
includes: oEnabling communication among the employees of the
organization oProviding motivation to the employees to work properly
oProviding leadership quality that helps lead the employees of the
organization to perform their respective activities
5]Controlling: Controlling is a process which helps ensure that the
organizational activities are performed as per planning. The controlling
process involves the following actions: oSetting standards for measuring the
performance of the organizational activities. oMeasuring the actual
performance of the employees oComparing the final project with the
planned project and determining the deviations, if any. oTaking corrective
actions for resolving the deviations found in the final project.
//The manager controls the work performance by setting the performance
standards and avoiding deviations from the standards.
B]Information:- Information is a very valuable resource that is required by
the management of an organization to run the business. Information is the
processed data that are provided to the decision makers or managers to aid
them in their project. Figure shows the
relation of data with the information.
In an organization, the concept of data and information is relative to each
other. The information for one person may be the data for another person.
The type of information utilized in the different management levels of an
organization depends on the nature of the jobs performed by the managers
at those levels.
The various types of information in an organization can be:
1]Structured: Structured information is well defined and thus, its processing
isnot difficult. For example, the proper monthly production schedule for a
particular product is a structured information.
2]Unstructured: Unstructured information is not well defined and thus,
processing the information becomes difficult. For example, prediction on the
future of an organization is an unstructured information.
3]External: External information is the information which is achieved from a
source located outside the operations of the organization. The external
information helps the top management to carry out their future plans and
policies. For example, population growth in the market, in which an
organization serves, is external information.
4]Internal: Internal information is the by-product of the various internal
operations performed in the organization. This information helps operation
management of the organization to carry out their plans. For example, the
total purchase conducted by the organization in a particular week is internal
information.
C]System:- The system in MIS is defined as a set of elements that are joined
together to achieve a common objective. These elements are interrelated
and interdependent. A system is made up of various subsystems which in
turn are composed of other subsystems. A system has three elements,
namely, inputs, process and output. Inputs are outputs into a system that
are processed by using a transformation process which help convert the
input into the desired output or result of the system. For example, in an
information system, data are inputs which are processed to convert into
information as the output of the system. Similarly, in a manufacturing plant,
raw materials are the inputs which are processed for converting them into
the desired end products.
MIS Model:- The information system is considered to be evolved through
three different levels of systems which are as follows:
1]Conceptual Model: At the start of adopting of MIS, conceptual model is
used to specify the functionality of MIS in the organization. It is the first level
of development of information system in an organization. At this level,
experts think about such a system in which entire information of
organization flows from one place to another place without the intervention
of any person. At this level, all objectives of MIS are set by the management
of the organization. 2]Logical Model: It is the middle level of development
of information system in an organization. In this model, all objectives which
are decided at the middle level are logically implemented. In other words,
logical model of MIS provides a logical system design which involves
understanding about the flow of data and information among various
subsystems of MIS. Logical model of MIS includes large number of Data Flow
Diagrams (DFD) and Flow charts. 3]Physical Model: It is the last level of
development of information system in an organization, i.e., it is the actual
implementation of MIS in an organization. Testing and evaluation processes
related to MIS are also implemented at this level of development of
information system in an organization. Physical model of MIS contains
software, programmes, data files and documentation related to MIS.
Characteristics of MIS:- MIS exhibits different characteristics which help
specify the approach, design and development of MIS. The various
characteristics of MIS include the following: 1]System approach: MIS follows
the system approach which implies a step by step approach to the study of
complete system of an organization and its performance in the light of the
objectives of the system. In doing so, MIS takes a comprehensive view of the
subsystems that operate within the organization.
2]Management-oriented: The management-oriented characteristic of MIS
implies that top-down approach needs to be followed for designing MIS. The
top-down approach suggests that the system development starts with
determining management requirements and overall business objectives. In
addition, the development plan of MIS should be derived from the overall
business plan. 3]Need-based: The design and development of MIS should
meet the information required by the managers at different levels of
management such as strategic planning, management control and
operational control. This implies that MIS needs to provide the requirements
for the managers throughout the management hierarchy of the
organization. 4]Future-oriented: The design and development of MIS should
not be restricted to the past information. It should also look into the future
aspects on the basis of the predictions made for the system.
5]Integrated: MIS has the ability to produce meaningful information
because of the integration concept. It means taking a comprehensive view
of the subsystems that operate within the organization. An integrated
system which blends information from several operational areas is a
necessary characteristic of MIS. For example, to develop an effective
production scheduling system, it is necessary to balance the integration of
the following factors: oSet-up costs oWork force oOvertime rates
oProduction capacity oInventory level oCapital requirements
oCustomer services Thus, integrated approach blends information from
several operational areas. 6]Common data flows: The common data flow is
an economically sound and logical concept that supports several basic
principles of system analysis that include avoiding duplication, combining
similar functions and simplifying operations. The integration concept of MIS
helps maintain the common data flow by avoiding duplication and
redundancy in data collection, storage and dissemination.
7]Long-term planning: The development of MIS is a long process. This
involves detailed planning of the system and analysis of the future
objectives and requirements of the organization. While planning the MIS,
the designer needs to be cautious that the system should not be an
outdated one. 8]Subsystem concept: The development of MIS allows you to
understand the subsystem concept which helps view the system as a
combination of various subsystems. These subsystems are more meaningful
and easy to plan. 9]Central database: The development of MIS allows an
organization to collect data at a central location. Each information of an
organization regarding inventory, personnel and customers is stored in the
central database. MIS is responsible for collecting, validating and placing the
information in the central database for the use of the management.
Functions of MIS:- The prime objective of MIS in an organization is to obtain
management information which can be used by the managers of the
organization for decision-making. To meet this object, MIS needs to perform
the following functions: 1]Collecting data: MIS helps collect data from
different external and internal sources of an organization. MIS can perform
this function using both manual and computerized techniques. The manual
techniques include recording data on physical medium such as paper, while
the computerized technique specifies collecting data directly using the
computer terminals. 2]Processing data: Processing the data includes
converting the collected data into the required management information.
To process the data, you need to perform various activities such as
calculating, comparing, sorting, classifying and summarizing the data. These
data processing activities organize, analyze and manipulate captured data by
using various statistical, mathematical, operations research and other
business models. 3]Storing information: MIS allows you to store both
processed and unprocessed data used in an organized manner for future
use. The stored data in MIS is organized into fields, records, files and
databases. MIS also allows you to store information as an organizational
record that is not immediately required.
4]Retrieving information: MIS helps retrieve information from its databases
when users request for the information. MIS either allows to distribute the
retrieved information or sends for further processing as per the
requirements of the users.
5]Disseminating management information: Disseminating MI involves
dividing and distributing the
retrieved information to the users of
the information. Disseminating MI
can be performed in two ways,
periodic and online. Periodic
dissemination is performed through
reports and online dissemination is
performed through computer
terminals. Figure shows the various functions performed by MIS.
Structure of MIS:- The structure of MIS does not follow any universally
accepted framework which makes it a difficult concept to understand.
However, different management gurus have provided different approaches
to describe the structure of MIS that depend on the constituent components
and functions of MIS. The structure of MIS can be described by using the
following approaches: a]Physical components b]Information processing
functions c]Levels of management activities d]Decision support
A]Physical Components:- You can understand the structure of MIS by
analysing the physical components used in the information system of an
organization. The various physical components used in an information
system are as follows: 1]Hardware: Hardware refers to the components of
an information system that includes the physical data processing equipment
and the peripheral devices used in the information system. The examples of
hardware are Central Processing Unit (CPU), monitor, keyboard, printer, disk
drives, etc. 2]Software: Software refers to the written instructions or
programmes that are used to manage the operations of the hardware in an
information system. The two major categories of software are: system
software and application software. System software includes various
operating systems such as Windows and Linux, while application software
includes various application specific programmes such as Word, Excel and
PowerPoint. 3]Database: Database refers to an organized collection of data
used by application software in an information system. Examples of
databases include Access, MySQL, etc. 4]Procedures: Procedures refer to a
written set of steps which helps operate an information system.
5]Operating personnel: Operating personnel refers to the manpower
involved in operating an information system. Various operating personnel
include system administrator, computer operator, database administrator,
system analyst, system manager, etc. 6]Input and output: Input refers to
the data entered into an information system and output refers to the data
which is received from the information system after the processing of the
input data.
Information Processing Functions:- You can also describe the structure of
MIS with the help of its various information processing functions which
explains the functionality of MIS. Figure shows the information processing
functions of MIS. The following information processing functions of MIS help
explain the functionality of MIS:
1]Processing transactions: MIS helps
process a transaction which you can
define as an activity performed in an
organization. The processing of the
transaction can be internal or external
to the organization. Examples of
transaction include making a purchase,
manufacturing a product, etc.
2]Maintaining master files: MIS
handles the creation and maintenance
of the master file in an organization.
Master files are those files that stores
mainly permanent data and used as the
primary source of information to perform an activity in the organization. For
example, to prepare the salary of an employee,the primary requirements
are the employee’s basic pay, traveling allowances, deductions, etc., which
is generally stored in the master files of the employees.
3]Producing reports: MIS helps produce various reports in an organization.
These reports may include the output generated by the MIS, the scheduled
tasks for MIS or some ad hoc requests to MIS. 4]Processing enquiries: MIS is
also used to process enquiries that help you understand and maintain the
data used in MIS. To process the enquiries, MIS generally uses its databases
and follows some previously scheduled or ad hoc format for the enquiries.
5]Processing interactive support applications: MIS contains various
interactive applications which help support the planning, analysis and
decision-making of the system.
Q] Levels of Management Activities:- MIS structure can also be described by
using the levels of various management activities performed within the
organization. The levels that help describe the structure of MIS
are as follows: 1]Strategic planning level: The strategic planning level of
management activities specifies the long-term plans which are based on the
business objective of the organization. The various activities included in the
strategic planning level are deciding the product mix, planning market
strategy, identifying environmental factors for the plans, etc.
2]Management control level: Management control level of activities
specifies the internal activities performed by one or more managers. The
various management control level activities include acquisition and
organization of resources, structuring organizational works, recruiting and
training personnel, etc. 3]Operational control level: The operational control
level of management activities specifies short-term plans and decisions for
the currents operations in the organization. The various operational control
level activities include determining production levels, defining inventory
levels, etc.
Decision Support:- You can also define the structure of MIS on the basis of
how it supports in decisionmaking of an organization. A decision in an
organization depends on the structure which is provided to make the
decision. A structured decision is generally pre-planned, whereas a highly
unstructured decision is not pre-planned. The structured decisions
are regular and well-defined and they can be processed with the software
instructions related to MIS. Therefore, structured decisions are called
programmable and many of the programmable decisions are also
automated. An unstructured decision is called non-programmable and they
are irregular. You can also find decisions in an organization that are more or
less structured and contain both programmable and non-programmable
elements. These decisions are called semi-structured decisions.
Q} COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES:- The basic meaning of hub is ‘centre.’ We
know that the central part of a wheel is called a hub. But this term is used
not only in a mechanical system but also in electrical, electronics and
computer systems. A node in a computer network is also called a hub. In
computer network, a hub is a physical device that serves as a central
connection point to the network devices and thereby connects them to each
other. A USB hub connects many USB devices through a single port. Hubs
are the most commonly used networking hardware devices. Since hubs are
expensive they are being replaced by switches which are comparatively
cheaper. As such a hub contains no active electronics. A hub cannot extend
a LAN beyond its specified cabling distance. But hubs organize cables. They
faithfully relay data signals to computers connected to the LAN in the
system. Hubs are used with twisted pairs. Ports available on the hub connect
devices on the network. Computers and devices are connected to individual
ports via network cables through the hub. When there are LANs that
outnumber the size of a hub, another hub can be used by attaching it to the
existing hub using a short cable. This is called daisy-chaining. Hub contains a
number of ports which are usually 4, 8, 16 or 32 in number. They simply
recover incoming data to the port in a binary form, and transmit these to
the other ports. A hub, like a repeater operates at the physical layer of the
OSI reference model, and for this reason it is also known as a multiport
repeater. A hub does the job of connecting machines together, in a star
topology. All communication received or sent by the machine comes
through a hub. There are broadly three types of hubs: active, passive and
intelligent. Active hubs are those that are connected
to a source of electrical power. These refresh signals
before sending them to the ports. Passive ports are
those that simply forward the signal to all the connected hosts, as it is.
Intelligent hubs detect errors and also act like active hubs.Passive hubs do
not amplify the incoming signals prior to their broadcast. Active hubs, on the
other hand, amplify signals like a repeater. A passive hub is also called a
concentrator and an active hub is termed as a multi-port repeater.
Intelligent hubs have extra features over and above an active hub.
An intelligent hub is stackable having capabilities of remote management via
SNMP. It is also supported by a virtual LAN (VLAN) support.
LAN, MAN AND WAN:- // Communication networks are broadly
categorized into the following three categories:
A]Local Area Network
(LAN):-LAN technology
connects people and
machines within a site. A
LAN is a network that is
restricted to a relatively
small area. LANs can be
defined as privately owned networks offering reliable-high-speed
communication channels that are optimized to connect information
processing equipment in a small and restricted geographical area, namely,
an office, a building, a complex of buildings, a school or a campus. A LAN is a
form of local (limited-distance), shared packet network for computer
communications. LANs interconnect computers and peripherals over a
common medium so that users are able to share access to host computers,
databases, files, applications, and peripherals. They can also provide a
connection to other networks either through a computer, which is attached
to both networks, or through a dedicated device called a gateway. The
components used by LANs can be categorized into hardware,
cablingstandards and protocols. The various LAN protocols are Ethernet,
Token Ring, TCP/IP, SMB, NetBIOS and NetBeui, IPX/SPX, Fibre Distributed
Data Interchange (FDDI) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM).
B]Metropolitan Area Network (MAN):- A MAN covers large geographic
areas such as towns, cities or districts. By linking or interconnecting smaller
networks within a large geographic area, information is conveniently
distributed throughout the network. Local libraries and government
agencies often use a MAN to
establish a link with private
industries and citizens. A MAN
may also connect many MANs
together within an area that is
than that covered by a LAN. The
geographical limit of a MAN may
span a city. Figure depicts how a MAN may be available within a city.In
MAN, different LANs are connected through a local telephone exchange.
C]Wide Area Network (WAN):- This technology connects sites that exist in
diverse locations. WANs connect larger geographic areas, such as New Delhi,
in India, with other parts of the world. The geographical limit of a WAN is
unlimited. Dedicated transoceanic cabling or satellite uplinks may be used to
connect this type of network. Hence, a WAN may be defined as a data
communications network
covering a relatively broad
geographical area to connect
LANs together between different
cities with the help of
transmission facilities provided
by such common carriers as telephone companies. WAN technologies
operate at the lower three layers of the OSI reference model. These are the
physical data link and network layers. Figure explains the WAN, which
connects many LANs together. It also uses the switching technology
provided by local exchange and long distance carriers.
Packet switching technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM),
Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS), Frame Relay and X.25 are used
to implement WAN along with statistical multiplexing to allow devices to use
and share these circuits. The difference between MAN and WAN may be
understood only from the services that they use. WAN uses both the local
and long distance carrier while MAN uses only a local carrier. Hardware and
protocols are the same for both. There is a lot of confusion between LAN
technology and WAN technology. The answer lies in how data is switched. It
is the LAN/WAN integration that makes the network functional. After all,
people and machines not only need to be accessible locally, but from
different sites as well. A network is formed and completed using the
following basic components: 1]Hardware 2]Applications (useful software)
Each of these is comprised of several layers. The concept of layers is an
important one in networking as well as computer designs. Each layer
provides protection to the layer above from the layer below so that one
layer can change without affecting the upper layers too much. In some
cases, the protection provided is so good that an application may never
become aware that it is functioning on a different hardware. The OSI
reference model defines seven layers. The role of computer networks in
development has many facets. Computers along with the necessary
networking infrastructure required have to be connected with either a LAN
or a WAN or the Internet or all, depending on their needs. Computers
play a great role in e-governance, telemedicine, e-education, e-business, etc.
A computer with Internet (internetworking) has become a potent tool for
education, productivity and enlightenment. The Internet can improve life at
a relatively low cost. The Government of India set up ERNET in 1986 to
provide TCP/IP connections to education and research communities in India.
ERNET established the first TCP/IP computer network in India and it offers
services like e-mail, surfing Internet, FTP, Telnet, and database access,
gopher, Archie, WAIS and WWW. Subsequently, the Government of India
liberalized the policies relating to the Internet. The liberalized policies
initiated by it encouraged many private players like DISHNET, Mantra online,
JAIN TV, etc., and other government organizations like NIC, VSNL and MTNL
to enter in this field and make the Internet available to the common people.
The major network infrastructure available in the country has two types of
WAN which are as follows: a]Terrestrial WAN b]VSAT WAN
The different options available to the major network infrastructure with
terrestrial WAN and VSAT WAN to set up Intranet, education portal, e-
commerce, etc., are as follows: 1]Leased line 2]Dialup connection
3]VSAT 4]RADIO LINK // The role of Internet can be seen in the area of
education, economic productivity, healthcare, democracy and human rights
and quality of life, etc. There are several more areas where the Internet can
make contributions. In the area of education, the Internet can contribute by
way of shared databases, organization of conferences, circulation of papers
and discussion, collaborative research and writing undertaken, web-based
registration, online digital library privileges, other online learning facilities
like virtual classrooms and information regarding courses and so forth.
Economic productivity may be enhanced as the Internet that runs over
telephone infrastructure at a relatively marginal cost, provides more
economic advantage. The Internet enables global communication with
suppliers and customers, etc. This can open global markets to the
developing countries. In this manner, the Internet has facilitated the
opening of e-commerce. The Internet is being effectively utilized in the
health sector. The rapid growth of the Internet and its related areas like
switched leased lines, terrestrial and satellite packet radio and video
conferencing, etc., has lead to the development of telemedicine. The
Internet is expected to encourage democracy by providing those suffering
dictatorship with external information and new ideas. This exposure to
information allows people to share ideas and coordinate political activity
within their countries. The internet may force transparency in the
administration and therefore, may be considered as a catalyst to encourage
human rights in a wider sense. The environment is under a lot of presure
everywhere. We have pollution and there are limited resources for energy.
The Internet may enable us to substitute communication for transportation
and therefore, will reduce pollution and save energy and time in the larger
interest of mankind.
Q] INTERNET:- The Internet is a ‘network of networks’ that links computer
systems around the world. It allows communication across networks, i.e.,
communication can take place between one network and another. This
allows people to have access to information anytime and from anywhere. It
virtually makes accessible a sea of information and a nearly worldwide
audience at the click of a button. It was the Sputnik’s launch and the
subsequent cold war, space race and the development of ARPANET
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in 1950 that led to the
establishment of the Internet. However, it actually gained momentum in
the 1980s when ARPANET was used by the National Science Foundation to
connect the five supercomputers at its regional centres. Thus, emerged a
high-speed Internet service that enabled access to many universities,
networks, bulletin board systems, commercial online services and
institutions. The decade closed with the coming into being of the World
Wide Web (WWW), which proclaimed the emergence of an independent
platform of communication that was further augmented by a relatively
easy-to-use and pleasant graphical interface.
Important Features:- Some of the facilities that are available on the Internet
are as follows: 1]World Wide Web: The Internet application that is currently
drawing maximum attention is the World Wide Web. It has dramatically
influenced the online world and continues to grow in popularity.
2]Direct Communication: Through e-mail (electronic mail), messages can be
sent to or received from any part of the world within a few minutes.
3]Round-the-Clock Availability: Information on the Internet is available to
users 24 hours a day. 4]Central Repository of Data: The Internet is like a
huge central warehouse of data that people from all over the world can
access. 5]Search Engines: These are like directories which help get any kind
of information from the world over within a few seconds.
6]Advertisement: A company can advertise its products/services through
the Internet. 7]E-Commerce: The Internet is increasingly being used for
conducting monetary transactions. Through the Internet, you can shop and
pay through your credit card or ask your bank to transfer your money to a
different account, without even leaving your desk.
8]Distance Learning: Several online distance learning courses are now being
offered by Indian and foreign universities on the Internet.
9]BBS and New Services: The Internet is perhaps the cheapest medium for
online help. BBS services are available on the Internet through which you
can ask questions and get immediate troubleshooting assistance.
10]Wide Area Networks: Using the Internet, organizations can collect and
compile information from offices spread over large geographical areas.
11]Shareware Software: The Internet is also a great medium for
downloading free software. You can get a truckload of free games, utilities
and trial versions of software through the Internet.
Key Concept:- The Internet has made things simpler. It can serve the
following purposes: 1]Direct Communication: You can send messages to
family and friends, business associates and acquaintances using the
electronic mail facility. Using electronic mail, you can send and receive
messages within a few seconds anywhere in the world. Using the Internet
Relay Chat (IRC), you can communicate online with people over the Internet.
You can log into a chat room and converse with others by typing messages
that are instantly delivered. With the improvement of network technologies
and increase in broadband, not only can you use text messages but also
graphics, audio and video for communication with other people.
2]Online Shopping: Logically, the Internet has removed all barriers of
distance and nationality. You can shop for products and services across the
world by logging on to a Web portal. You can also pay your bills online using
credit and debit cards. You can also transfer money between different
accounts with the click of a mouse. 3]Distance Education: The Internet
provides a perfect medium for knowledge sharing and information
dissemination. Courses are available on the Internet. You can register and
pay online, and complete a course on different interest areas. You can also
pursue specialized higher studies now in the comfort of your own office or
home. 4]Knowledge Base: The Internet provides a rich information base
that people from across the globe can access. In fact, it is one of the richest
information bases that can be accessed at the click of a mouse. Using search
engines, you can search for detailed information on any topic of your
interest. 5]Banking: Banks are using information technology to provide
online banking facilities to their customers. Using the Internet, you can now
view your account details, get drafts made, request for chequebooks and
transfer money from one account to another. The use of Automated Teller
Machines or ATMs has shifted the mundane back-office work to the
customer himself. Instead of hiring an army of bank clerks, banks can now
uses ATMs to considerably reduce time and operational costs.
6]Travel: Using the Internet, travel agencies can publish their services on the
Web along with the latest discounts, packages and availability details, so
that customers can compare rates, make online bookings and avail discounts
without having to run around multiple offices
7]Bill Payments: The government sector has also realized the benefits of IT.
Now you can make online payments for public utilities, such as water,
electricity and phones, using credit cards as the payment medium.
Working of the Internet:- You can use following options for connecting to
the Internet. 1]Direct Connection:- Through a direct connection, a machine
is directly connected to the Internet backbone and acts as a gateway.
Though a direct connection provides complete access to all the Internet
services, it is very expensive to implement and maintain. Direct connections
are suitable only for very large organizations or companies.
2]Through Internet Service Provider (ISP):- You can also connect to the
Internet through the gateways provided by ISPs. The range of Internet
services varies depending on the ISPs. Therefore, you should use
the Internet services of the ISP that is best suitable for your requirements.
You can connect to your ISP using two methods:
A]Remote Dial-Up Connection:- A dial-up connection enables you to
connect to your ISP using a modem. A modem converts the computer bits or
digital signals to modulated or analogue signals that the phone lines can
transmit and vice versa. Dial-up connections user either SLIP (Serial Line
Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-
Point Protocol) for transferring
information over the Internet. For dial-
up connections, regular telephone lines
are used. Therefore, the quality of the
connection may not always be verygood.
B]Permanent Dedicated Connection:- You can also have a dedicated
Internet connection that typically connects you to ISP through a dedicated
phone line. A dedicated Internet connection is a permanent telephone
connection between two points. Computer networks that are physically
separated are often connected using leased or dedicated lines. These lines
are preferred because they are always open for communication traffic unlike
the regular telephone lines that require a dialling sequence to be activated.
Often, this line is an ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) line that
allows transmission of data, voice, video and graphics at very high speeds.
ISDN applications have revolutionized the way businesses communicate.
ISDN lines support upward scalability, which means that you can
transparently add more lines to get faster speeds, going up to 1.28 Mbps
(Mega bits per second). T1 and T3 are the two other types of commonly
used dedicated line types for The Internet connections. Dedicated lines are
becoming popular because of their faster data transfer rates. Dedicated
lines are cost-effective for businesses that use Internet services extensively.
SECURITY AND CONTROL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEM:- The primary
concern of an information system is the data stored in computer files that
can be easily accessed by a large number of people in the organization and
by groups of people outside the organization. Hence, the information
system should be able to process any transactions involving data and
maintain the data in a secured manner. An organization should use a well-
structured life cycle for maintaining security of the information during the
transmission of information from one place to another place. When large
amount of data is stored in digital form, it becomes vulnerable to many
kinds of threats. As in communication networks, information systems at
different locations are interconnected to each other. So the potential for
unauthorized access, misuse or fraud is high at any access point in the
network.
Why Systems Are Vulnerable:- In the multi-tier client or server-computing
environment, vulnerability exists at each layer in the communication
system. Figure illustrates the multi-tier architecture
which is one of the most common
threats to the information system.
The figure shows that at the client
layer, the users can face some
problems due to various causes
such as unauthorized access and database errors. At the communication
lines, various vulnerabilities such as tapping, sniffing, theft and fraud can
occur due to the data flow over the network. At the server layer, various
vulnerabilities such as hacking and virus attack can occur due to the
interconnection of multiple servers. These servers provide data to the
clients and to each other. At the corporate system layer, various
vulnerabilities such as copying and alteration of data as well as hardware
and software failures can occur due to the connection of database and
server.
Q. Concerns for System Builders and Users:- Every system builder and the
user should be concerned about the destruction of the information systems
on which they work. Following are the three concerns which an organization
needs to keep in mind for information security: 1]Disasters: Disaster
includes natural calamities such as fire, flood and earthquake that can occur
any time. 2]Security: Security includes policies, procedures and technical
measures used to prevent unauthorized access, alteration, theft or physical
damage of information systems. 3]Control: Control consists of all the
methods, policies and organizational procedures that ensure the safety of an
organization. It also ensures the accuracy and reliability of its records and
operations for adhering to management standards. Hence, many companies
create fault-tolerant systems that are used as back-ups to recover any file if
the main system goes out.
Internet Hackers:- Hackers are those who intentionally cause damage to a
computer system. Many companies do not report the attempts of hackers
because they do not want people to realize that their computer systems are
vulnerable. Some hackers use special computer systems that continuously
check for password files which can be copied. The hackers also look for open
ports in a computer so that they can easily break the system security.
Sometimes hackers do not do any damage but they often steal data from
the computer system for their own use. Hackers attack the computer
systems because of some personal or professional reason that encourages
them to destroy the data stored in the computer systems. So, password
theft is the easiest way for hackers to access the data of a computer system.
Hackers generally use written software programmes which can generate
multiple passwords that help retrieve the passwords of users and security
systems. The hacker can use these passwords to break the security system
of an organization. The organization takes utmost care while setting the
passwords. The passwords are set using odd combinations of letters and
numbers that are not associated with the username. The longer the
password, the harder it is to generate a crack for the password. To spread a
virus rapidly through the network, the hackers can copy a file from an
infected source and send it to the organization network. In this way, the
virus spreads from one computer to another.
The end-users should be conscious about virus and hackers while surfing on
the Internet from their Personal Computer (PC). Software manufacturers
suggest the end-users to install antivirus software to protect their computer
against virus attacks. Antivirus software can check the presence of virus in
the computer. It checks every incoming file and alerts you when there is an
infected file in the computer. The antivirus software also allows you to
delete or clean the infected file. This software is updated every 30 to 60
days because new viruses are constantly being written and passed around.
System Quality Problems: Software and Data:- Every computer system uses
different software to organize the data inside the computer. The
performance of the computer also depends on the quality and performance
of the software used to organize the data. The quality of software can also
affect the performance of the information system. An error in software can
create a constant threat to information systems that reduces the quality and
productivity of a system. Following are the major problems with information
systems: a]Bugs in software b]Maintenance issues c]Data quality problems
Bugs in software:- Bugs are the defects in the programme code that are
hidden in a software programme. It is virtually impossible to eliminate all
the bugs from large programmes, but a number of bugs can be reduced
using an efficient testing system. A testing system allows the developers to
reduce the number of bugs in the development phase of the software.
The main source of bugs arises due to the complexity in the decision making
part of the code. It is impossible to identify all the errors within the million
lines of code in a programme. There can be a bug in the software when the
software manufacturer releases it in the market. After identifying a bug, the
software manufacturers also provide free updates and fixes of programme
code on their Websites. It is, therefore, sometimes referred to as a good
practice of not buying the original version of software but waiting until other
users have found a bug in it.
Maintenance issues:- Every system requires maintenance to provide
optimum results. The information system also needs constant attention of
the technical staff of an organization to devote time for maintenance of the
information system. To perform the maintenance, you need to consider the
organizational changes, and for this you need to identify the changes to be
made in the information system that can support the business unit.
Data quality problems:- The primary function of an information system is to
store the data securely and make a smooth flow of the data between the
different departments of an organization. The data should be stored in the
original form to maintain its quality. When the data are transferred through
different mediums, they become vulnerable to changes. The organization
can use different software to check the originality of the data. You can
also use the software to recover the original data if there is some change in
the data. The quality of an information system can be defined by the
security of data present in the information system.
Q] Role of Information System in Decision-making:- Information system
plays its role in all the different stages of the decision-making process. The
stages of the decision-making process are: intelligence, design and choice.
The role of information system in these three stages of the decision-making
process is discussed as follows: 1]Intelligence stage: Information systems
may provide information about internal as well as external environments of
the decision-making process. Internal information is generated from the
functional areas but the external information is collected from various
sources such as newspapers and personal contacts. Availability of a large
amount of information in this stage makes it necessary to scan the data
sources to get the relevant information. As a result, information system is
used to scan the business environment of an organization. In order toget the
required information in the intelligence phase of the decision-making
process, information system must be designed so as to answer pre-specified
and ad hoc queries made by a decision maker.2]Design stage: Information
systems provide support by quantifying and automating a decision-making
process during the design stage while considering structured decisions. At
this stage, various alternatives are developed and evaluated. On the other
hand, for semi-structured and unstructured decisions, the support of
information system provides the following abilities:
o To reach a decision in an interactive process which includes DSS capability
o To make ad hoc queries for information in the organizational databases
o Therefore, information systems should be designed to incorporate various
models of business operations and advanced statistical and optimization
techniques 3]Choice stage: Information systems provide summarized and
organized information to the decision makers at this stage of the decision-
making process. It is the stage in which a course of action is selected and
feedback is collected on the implemented decision. Information system also
provides the feedback support to decision-makers in case they want to
return to the preceding stages of the decision-making process in order to
gather more information. Models such as optimization and suggestion
should be used to select the most appropriate alternative which helps the
decision makers in selecting the best course of action.
Q] DFD (DATA FLOW DIAGRAM):- Data Flow Diagram (DFD) is a technique
which is used to specify how the data flows between the functions of the
system. The basic purpose of the diagram is to show how the system is
currently implemented. Larry Constantine first developed DFD as a way of
expressing system requirements in a graphical form. A DFD is the starting
point of the design phase that functionally decomposes the requirement
specifications down to the lowest level of detail.
Elements of DFD:- A data flow diagram illustrates the flow of data through a
system and the work performed by that system. In data flow diagrams, the
symbol set comprises diagram, data flow, entity, data store and process.
An entity is used to define the boundaries of the system. It is an external
component of the system such as a department, a person or a business that
interacts with the existing system. It
also provides data to the system and
receives data from the system. An
entity is represented by a rectangle.
A process is work or action
performed by people, machines, etc.
within the system. It is used to
transform input of a system into an
output. In DFD, process is
represented by bubbles. In DFD, data
store is used to store data and it is
represented by open box. A data flow
is any item that carries data to,
within or from the system. That is, it is used to represent inputs
and outputs of the system. In DFD, flow of data is represented by arrows.
A]Physical DFD:- There are basically two types of DFD, one is called physical
DFD and other is known as logical DFD. A physical DFD is an implementation
dependent view of the current system, showing what functions are
performed. A physical diagram provides details about hardware, software,
files and people involved in the implementation of the system. Physical
characteristics include name of the people, departments, files, hardware,
locations, procedures, forms, documents, etc. Table lists the various data
flow diagram basic symbols. B]Logical DFD:- Logical DFD is an
implementation independent view of a system that focuses only on the flow
of data between different processes or activities. Logical diagrams show how
the business operates, not how the system can be implemented. It explains
the events of the system and the
data required by each event of the
system.Physical DFD differs from
the logical DFD in the following
ways:1]Physical DFD is
implementation dependent
whereas logical DFD is
implementation independent.
2]Physical diagrams in the physical DFDs provide the low level details, such
as hardware and software requirements of a system whereas logical
diagrams in the logical DFDs explain only the events involved in the system
and the data required to implement each event of the system.
Q] Context Diagram:- Context diagram helps in understanding the general
characteristics of the system under study. It contains a single process and
defines the whole system that will be studied. Anything that is not inside the
process of the context diagram will not be part of the system study. The
inputs and outputs specified at this level remain constant for the Other
lower levels. Figure shows Context Level DFD for Customer Order Processing
System.
Rules to Construct a DFD:- Following are the rules that must be followed to
construct the DFD of a particular system: 1]Each process involved in a
system should be named and numbered for easy reference.
2]Name of each process should be symbolic. 3]The direction of flow of
information in a DFD should be from top to bottom and from left to right.
4]When a process is divided into several lower level processes, each low-
level process should be numbered. 5]The names of the data stores, sources
and destination should be in capital letters.
Zero Level DFD:- Zero level DFD provides more detail than the context
diagrams by exploding them. By exploding context diagram processes into
sub processes, the system analyst begins to fill in the details about the flow
of data within the system. Each sub process in the zero level DFD is
numbered with an integer. Generally, this number starts from the upper
left corner and proceeds towards the lower right corner of the zero level
DFD. Figure shows zero level DFD for Customer Order and Credit Verification

System Child Diagram. Each process in zero level DFD may in turn be
exploded to create a more detailed child diagram. The process of zero level
DFD that is exploded is called the ‘parent processes and the resultant
diagram is called the ‘child diagram’. The primary rule while creating child
diagram is that the child diagram cannot receive input or produce output
that are not produced or received by its parent process. That means any
data that are flowing in or out of the parent process should be shown
flowing into or out of the child diagram. The processes in the child diagram
are numbered using the parent process number, a decimal point and a
unique
number
assigned for
each child
process of
the child
diagram.
Figure shows
First Level DFD, Elaborating Customer Order Processing and Shipment
System.