Master of Computer Application (MCA) Semester 4 MC0076 Management Information Systems 4 Credits

Q.1 a. Write a note on information management model. Ans: Information management model is an organized portfolio of formal systems for obtaining, processing, and delivering information in support of the business operations and management of an organization. The functions of information systems have increased many folds since the first computer was introduced into a business organization in 1954. Of course, we must not forget the weighty ledgers, sedulously kept by the bookkeepers of yore, pigeons carrying news of battles won and heralding profitable speculation opportunities for the recipient, and the clay tablets on which the Babylonians kept records as long ago as 3500 B.C. There were information facilities before computers. Manual calculation and non-electronic communications have not dis appeared, but could they support the complex business of todays organizations. Todays organizations have been profoundly affected by both the technology push created by continual innovation in information technology, and the demand-pull, or the needs in the marketplace, arising from the growing complexity of social organizations and from the recognition of the power of information systems to solve complex problems. These two forces have led to the evolution of the MIS concept itself and have changed the nature of information systems. In turn, MIS transform organizations, the nature of work, and the products offered in the marketplace. b. What do you understand by management? Ans: Management is the process of providing an organizational environment in which individuals work and employ available resources to attain aims that contribute to the overall goals of the organization. There are several fruitful ways to understand management. The classical way is to consider them managerial functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. Decision-making, monitoring, and coordination are information-intensive aspects of these managerial functions. Another way to look at management is to consider the roles managers play in their work-entrepreneur and resource allocator are two examples of

these roles. Detailed analyses have also been made of how managers actually spend their time; various interpersonal tasks have been found to make far greater demands on managers time than pure decision-making. However, the quality of management cannot be evaluated by measuring time allocations alone. Moreover, the information that a manager brings to bear in a meeting is often a determinant of its success. An MIS, obviously, is designed to support managers in as many of their functions as possible, although to different degrees. It is clear, for example, that the leadership function receives scant support from MIS, but the planning function should be extensively supported. Q.2 Take an organization of your knowledge and determine the information needed by individual jobholders. Ans: The information needed by individual jobholders Task-Related Needs: Consider Ramesh, who is an Area Sales Manager of Airtel, uses information to perform a variety of tasks associated with his job. To identify potential customers he uses leads provided by his sales manager, data published in trade journals and newspapers about the sales volume and number of employees in specific companies, and stories he hears from contacts with prospective customers and from salespeople in other fields. To build a rapport with various distributors, acquires information about their birthdays, the names of their family members, their favorite restaurants, and the types of entertainment they prefer. He also must know a great deal about his companys and his competitors products. Time Management Needs: During a normal workday Ramesh constantly makes decisions about the best way to handle his clients, for example, whether to spend his time trying to close a new deal with a likely prospect or trying to appease an unhappy distributor. He uses the information about sales history and customers businesses to help make these decisions. Ramesh also requires geographical information to be most productive; because the area covered by him is a large territory, Ramesh is most productive when he minimizes his travel time.

Performance-Related Needs: Not only do employees at all levels require information about the tasks they perform, they also can provide information to management about ways to improve task performance. Ramesh, for example, in his supervisory role, might track the time his sales staff spends on various tasks so that he can propose way of reordering those tasks or reallocating staff effort to increase efficiency. He might also determine that salespeople need new or better information about products to perform their jobs more effectively. Computer technology can also meet the needs associated with ensuring quality in the work place. Individuals involved in quality efforts require ongoing and updated information about customer needs and product defects. Career-Related Needs: Many individuals view their jobs in the context of a career. Personal information needs include lists of personal skills, job opportunities inside and outside the organization, and specifications for transfers or advancements. Employees might also maintain logs of their own performance during a week, month, or year to incorporate into discussions about their personal training needs and career development. The member of the regional sales office might maintain such records to help with their personal planning and advancement. Q.3 what are the features contributing to success and failures of MIS models? Ans: Features contributing to success of MIS models: If MIS is to be success, then it should have all the features listed below: 1) MIS is integrated into the management function. It sets clear objectives to ensure that MIS focuses on the major issues of the business. Also adequate development resources are provided and human & organizational barriers to progress are removed. 2) An appropriate information processing technology required to meet the data processing and analysis needs of the users of MIS is selected. 3) MIS is oriented, defined and designed in terms of the user's requirements and its operational viability is ensured.

4) MIS is kept under continuous surveillance, sot that its open system is modified according to the changing information needs. 5) MIS focuses on results and goals, and highlights the factors and reasons for non achievements. 6) MIS is not allowed to end up into and information generation mill avoiding the noise in the information and the communication system. 7) MIS recognizes that a manager is a human being and therefore, the systems must consider all the human behavioral aspects in the process of management. 8) MIS is easy to operate and therefore, the design of MIS has such good features which make up a user friendly design. 9) MIS recognizes that the information needs become obsolete and new needs emerge. The MIS design, therefore, has a potential capability to quickly meet newer and newer needs of information. 10) MIS concentrates on developing the information support to manage critical success factors. It concentrates on the mission critical applications serving the needs of the top management. Features contributing to failures of MIS model: The common factors which are responsible for this are as follows: 1) MIS is conceived as a data processing and not as an information system. 2) MIS does not provide that information which in needed by managers but it tends to provide the information generally the function calls for. MIS then becomes an impersonal function. 3) Understanding the complexity in the business systems and not recognizing it in the MIS design leads to problems in the successful implementation.

4) Adequate attention is not given to the quality control aspects of the inputs, the process and the outputs leading to insufficient checks and controls in MIS. 5) MIS is developed without streamlining the transaction processing systems in the organizations. 6) Lack of training and appreciation that the users of the information and the generators of the data are different, and they have to play an important role in the MIS. 7) MIS does not meet certain critical and key factors of its users, such as a response to the query on the database, an inability to get the processing done in a particular manner, lack of user friendly system and the dependence on the system personnel. 8) A belief that the computerized MIS can solve all the management problems of planning and control of the business. 9) Lack of administrative discipline in following the standardized systems and procedures, wrong coding and deviating from the system specifications result in incomplete and incorrect information. 10) MIS does not give perfect information to all users in the organization. Any attempt toward such a goal will be unsuccessful because every user has a human ingenuity, bias and certain assumptions not known to the designer. MIS cannot make up these by providing perfect information.

Q.4 Explain the relationship between artificial intelligence and neural networks with help of a scenario. Ans: Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field of science and technology based on disciplines such as computer science, biology, psychology, linguistics, mathematics and engineering. The goal of AI is to develop computers that can simulate the ability to think, see, hear, walk, talk and feel. In other

words, simulation of computer functions normally associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning and problem solving. AI can be grouped under three major areas: cognitive science, robotics and natural interfaces. Cognitive science focuses on researching on how the human brain works and how humans think and learn. Applications in the cognitive science area of AI include the development of expert systems and other knowledge based systems that add a knowledge base and some reasoning capability to information systems. Also included are adaptive learning systems that can modify their behavior based on information they acquire as they operate. Chess playing systems are some examples of such systems. Fussy logic systems can process data that are incomplete or ambiguous. Thus, they can solve semi structured problems with incomplete knowledge by developing approximate inferences and answers, as humans do. Neural network software can learn by processing sample problems and their solutions. As neural nets start to recognize patterns, they can begin to program themselves to solve such problems on their own. Neural networks are computing systems modeled after the human brains mesh like network of interconnected processing elements, called neurons. The human brain is estimated to have over 100 billion neuron brain cells. The neural networks are lot simpler in architecture. Like the brain, the interconnected processors in a neural network operate in parallel and interact dynamically with each other. This enables the network to operate and learn from the data it processes, similar to the human brain. That is, it learns to recognize patterns and relationships in the data. The more data examples it receives as input, the better it can learn to duplicate the results of the examples it processes. Thus, the neural networks will change the strengths of the interconnections between the processing elements in response to changing patterns in the data it receives and results that occur.

For example, neural network can be trained to learn which credit characteristics result in good or bad loans. The neural network would continue to be trained until it demonstrated a high degree of accuracy in correctly duplicating the results of recent cases. At that point it would be trained enough to begin making credit evaluations of its own. Genetic algorithm software uses Darwinian (survival of the fittest), randomizing and other mathematics functions to simulate evolutionary processes that can generate increasingly better solutions to problems. Robotics: Ai, engineering and physiology are the basic disciplines of robotics. This technology produces robot machines with computer intelligence and computer controlled humanlike physical capabilities. This area thus includes applications designed to give robots the power of sight, or visual perception Touch or tactile capabilities Dexterity or skill in handling and manipulation Loco motion, or the physical ability to move over any terrain And navigation or the intelligence to properly find ones way to a destination. Natural interfaces the development of natural interfaces is essential to the natural use of computers by humans. Development of natural languages and speech recognition are major thrusts in this area of AI. Being able to talk to computers and robots in conversational human languages and have them understand us as easily as we understand each other is a goal of AI research. This involves Artificial intelligence, Cognitive Science Applications, Robotics Applications, Natural Interface Applications, research and development in linguistics, psychology, computer science and other disciplines. Other natural interface research applications include the development of multisensory devices that use a variety of body movements to operate computers .This is related to the emerging application area of virtual reality. Virtual reality involves using multisensory human computer interfaces that enable human users to experience computer simulated objects, spaces activities and worlds as if they actually exist.

Q.5 What do you understand by Multinational corporation, Global corporation, International corporation, Transnational corporation.

Ans: Multinational corporation: A multinational corporation has built or acquired a portfolio of national companies that it operates and manages with sensitivity to its subsidiaries local environments. The subsidiaries operate autonomously, often in different business areas. A company that follows a multinational strategy has little need to share data among its subsidiaries or between the parent and subsidiaries except to consolidate financial positions at year's end. Global Corporation: A global corporation has rationalized its international operations to achieve greater efficiencies through central control. Although its strategy and marketing are based on the concept of a global market, a headquarters organization makes all major decisions. A company pursuing a global strategy needs to transfer the operational and financial data of its foreign subsidiaries to headquarters in real time or on a frequent basis. A high level of information flows from subsidiary to parent, while limited data move from parent to subsidiary. International Corporation: An international corporation exports the expertise and knowledge of the parent company to subsidiaries. Here subsidiaries operate more autonomously than in global corporations. Ideally, information flows from the parent to its subsidiaries. In practice, subsidiaries often rely on the parent to exercise its knowledge for the subsidiaries' benefit rather than simply to export it to the subsidiaries. For example, a subsidiary without a great deal of human resources expertise may "pay" its parent to operate its human resources function. Although the information theoretically should stay within the subsidiary, in this case it may flow back and forth between the parent's location and the subsidiary's location. Transnational Corporation: A transnational corporation incorporates and integrates multinational, global, and international strategies. By linking local operations to one another and to headquarters, a transnational company attempts to retain the flexibility to respond to local needs and opportunities while achieving global integration. Because transnational operate on the premise of teamwork, they demand the ability to share both information and information services. Q.6 Find out a relevant case in which BPR has been adapted and

relate the concepts that you find in this chapter with that case.

Ans: The approach to re-engineering aims at customer focus. It requires one to take a different view of the business-the view based on the process and not on the tasks or functions. It requires organization restructuring and redesigning based on the process, which terminates at the customer door contributing to the value desired by the customer. The definition of re-engineering is loaded with a number of important concepts and its understanding is necessary for successful re-engineering of business. The first and the foremost is fundamental rethinking. The fundamental rethinking calls for questioning everything that is being followed, practiced and found acceptable for centuries. It rejects old legacies and 'proven' practices. For example, one can question the necessity of an invoice for billing and recovery of money. Is there any other way whereby the sales transaction can be registered and money recovered without raising the invoice document? It requires questioning on the basic principles of management and administration which are used for decades. The old principles like when it is a money matter it is for finance and accounts to handle, when it is a matter of quality it is the responsibility of the quality assurance department, etc. are to be rejected. The fundamental rethinking calls for starting all over again rejecting the past. It requires a vision, an innovation and an imagination. Radical redesign is the second important concept used in the definition of re-engineering. For initiating business re-engineering, one is required to make some very basic and fund a- mental changes in one's conventional thinking. The business is reengineered through process reengineering and the business has a number of processes which together produce the business results. You concentrate on the 'process' and not on the task when it comes to re-engineering. The business process is defined as 'a set of activities performed across the organization creating an output of value to the customer'. Every process has a customer who may be internal or external to the organization. The scope of the process runs across the departments and functions and ends up in substantial value addition which can be measured against the value expectation of a customer. For example, the order processing scope in the traditional sense is within the marketing department. But when it comes to re-engineering, the scope expands to manufacturing, storing, delivering and recovering the money. Likewise, the scope of the bill payment is not limited to the accounts and finance departments but it covers ordering the vendors, receipt and acceptance or goods and paying the bill amount. In a classical organizational set-up, the different processes are handled in parts within the four walls of the department and the functions are limited to the responsibility assigned to them. When the bill payment process is to be re-

engineered, it will be re-engineered right from the purchase ordering to cheque payment to the vendor. The reason for covering the purchase ordering as a part of the bill payment process, is that the purchase order information decides the number of aspects of bill payment. The basic element of the processes is motivation to perform certain activities. In the process execution, the data is gathered, processed and stored. The data is used in the process to generate the information which would be checked, validated and used for decision making. The decision is then communicated. The process is executed through the basic steps such as receiving the input, measuring the input, analyzing the document, performing, processing, recording, accessing data, producing the results and communicating them. Basic elements of business process are: Motivation to perform Data gathering, processing and storing Information processing Checking, validating and control Decision making Communication All these relate to human initiative. A business process in any area of the business organisation performs through basic steps, such as, receive input, measure, analyze, document, perform, process, record / store, access, produce and communicate. These steps are performed a number of times across the execution process. When the process is performed, it consumes resources and time. The reengineering approach attempts to eliminate or shorten the steps so that resource consumption is reduced and time of process execution is shortened. It eliminates redundancy by eliminating the steps, which do not contribute, to the value customer is looking for. A business process defined for re-engineering has a clear cut 'start and end', resulting into a business result. In organization, there are long processes and short processes. There are critical processes and not so critical processes. The critical business processes are those, which contribute to the value significantly. While the non-critical processes do not contribute much to the value, the customer is looking for. For example, the process of receiving a visitor in the organization could be considered as noncritical. But the process of new product development from the concept to the prototype is critical as it is expected to contribute high value to the customer. If the external customer focus is taken as a criterion for process

selection, then all the processes which generate and add value to the customer are called the value stream processes. The value stream processes are critical and become the immediate candidates for reengineering. The other processes in the organization contribute to the overheads of performing the business function. For example, the processes involving attendance, leave, payment of wages, security, travelling and accounting are not value stream processes as the resources employed in them do not create a value or improve a value to the customer. Such as processes are a second priority as far as re-engineering is concerned. Every process is made of a series of activities. In each activity some 'work' is done which produces some result for processing into the next activity. If the work done under any activity is analyzed, it will be seen that the people are moving papers and products to achieve some result. In the process they collect the information for decision making and then carry out a physical activity of pushing the product or the output using the paper for record, document and communication.