UNITY UNIVERSITY

MARKETING MANAGEMENT
DEPARTMENT

MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM

ASSIGNMENT

GROUP MEMBERS ID
1. Henok Agerneh UU74664R
2. Henock Mulugeta UU74669R
3. Abenezer Tadesse UU74689R
4. Kalkidan Yakem UU74719R
5. Abyssinia Solomon UU74499R

Submitted To: Mr Desalegn

Submission Date: March 2021
INTRODUCTION
An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process,
store, and distribute information. In a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by
four components: task, people, structure (or roles), and technology. Information systems can be defined
as an integration of components for collection, storage and processing of data of which the data is used
to provide information, contribute to knowledge as well as digital products, it is composed of people
and computers that processes or interprets information.The term is also sometimes used to simply refer
to a computer system with software installed.

The six components that must come together in order to produce an information system are:

1. Hardware: The term hardware refers to machinery and equipment. In a modern information
system, this category includes the computer itself and all of its support equipment. The support
equipment includes input and output devices, storage devices and communications devices. In
pre-computer information systems, the hardware might include ledger books and ink.

2. Software: The term software refers to computer programs and the manuals (if any) that support
them. Computer programs are machine-readable instructions that direct the circuitry within the
hardware parts of the system to function in ways that produce useful information from data.
Programs are generally stored on some input/output medium, often a disk or tape. The
"software" for pre-computer information systems included how the hardware was prepared for
use (e.g., column headings in the ledger book) and instructions for using them (the guidebook
for a card catalog).

3. Data: Data are facts that are used by systems to produce useful information. In modern
information systems, data are generally stored in machine-readable form on disk or tape until
the computer needs them. In pre-computer information systems, the data are generally stored
in human-readable form.

4. Procedures: Procedures are the policies that govern the operation of an information system.
"Procedures are to people what software is to hardware" is a common analogy that is used to
illustrate the role of procedures in a system.

5. People: Every system needs people if it is to be useful. Often the most overlooked element of
the system is the people, probably the component that most influence the success or failure of
information systems. This includes "not only the users, but those who operate and service the
computers, those who maintain the data, and those who support the network of
computers."[25]

6. Feedback: it is another component of the IS, that defines that an IS may be provided with
feedback (Although this component isn't necessary to function).
Why are there different classifications of IS?
In the early days of computing, each time an information system was needed it was 'tailor made' - built
as a one-off solution for a particular problem. However, it soon became apparent that many of the
problems information systems set out to solve shared certain characteristics. Consequently, people
attempted to try to build a single system that would solve a whole range of similar problems. However,
they soon realized that in order to do this, it was first necessary to be able to define how and where the
information system would be used and why it was needed. It was then that the search for a way to
classify information systems accurately began.

How many different classification of IS are there?

different kinds of systems found in organizations exist to deal with the particular problems and tasks
that are found in organizations. Consequently, most attempts to classify Information systems into
different types rely on the way in which task and responsibilities are divided within an organization. As
most organizations are hierarchical, the way in which the different classes of information systems are
categorized tends to follow the hierarchy. This is often described as "the pyramid model" because the
way in which the systems are arranged mirrors the nature of the tasks found at various different levels
in the organization.
APPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEM

1. DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that supports business or organizational
decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an
organization (usually mid and higher management) and help people make decisions about problems that
may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance—i.e. unstructured and semi-structured
decision problems. Decision support systems can be either fully computerized or human-powered, or a
combination of both.

APPLICATION IN REAL WORLD

DSS is extensively used in business and management. Executive dashboard and other business
performance software allow faster decision making, identification of negative trends, and better
allocation of business resources. Due to DSS all the information from any organization is represented in
the form of charts, graphs i.e. in a summarized way, which helps the management to take strategic
decision.

For example, one of the DSS applications is, A bank loan officer verifying the credit of a loan applicant or
an engineering firm that has bids on several projects and wants to know if they can be competitive with
their costs. Other is risk assessment to interpret monitoring data from large engineering structures such
as dams, towers, cathedrals, or masonry buildings. For instance, Mistral is an expert system to monitor
dam safety, developed in the 1990s. It gets data from an automatic monitoring system and performs a
diagnosis of the state of the dam.

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

ADVANTAGE

7. Time savings: Increased employee productivity and more timely information for decision
making.

8. Enhance effectiveness: Improved decision making effectiveness and better decisions.

9. Competitive advantage. Organizations are most likely to gain this advantage from novel, high
risk, enterprise-wide, inward facing decision support systems.

DISADVANTAGE

10. Information Overload: A computerized decision making system may sometimes result in
information overload. It leaves a user in a dilemma what to consider and what not to consider.

11. Too much Dependence on DSS: Some decision makers develop a tendency to depend too much
on computerized decision making.
TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM
Transaction processing is information processing in computer science that is divided into individual,
indivisible operations called transactions. Each transaction must succeed or fail as a complete unit; it can
never be only partially complete. Transaction processing links multiple individual operations in a single,
indivisible transaction, and ensures that either all operations in a transaction are completed without
error, or none of them are. If some of the operations are completed but errors occur when the others
are attempted, the transaction-processing system "rolls back" all of the operations of the transaction
(including the successful ones), thereby erasing all traces of the transaction and restoring the system to
the consistent, known state that it was in before processing of the transaction began. If all operations of
a transaction are completed successfully, the transaction is committed by the system, and all changes to
the database are made permanent; the transaction cannot be rolled back once this is done

APPLICATION IN REAL WORLD

For example, when you purchase a book from an online bookstore, you exchange money (in the form of
credit) for a book. If your credit is good, a series of related operations ensures that you get the book and
the bookstore gets your money. However, if a single operation in the series fails during the exchange,
the entire exchange fails. You do not get the book and the bookstore does not get your money. The
technology responsible for making the exchange balanced and predictable is called transaction
processing. Transactions ensure that data-oriented resources are not permanently updated unless all
operations within the transactional unit complete successfully. By combining a set of related operations
into a unit that either completely succeeds or completely fails, one can simplify error recovery and make
one's application more reliable.

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

ADVANTAGE

12. Batch or real-time processing available.

13. Reduction in processing time, lead time and order cycle time.

14. Reduction in inventory, personnel and ordering costs.

15. Increase in productivity and customer satisfaction.

DISADVANTAGE

16. Investing in a transaction processing system requires a lot from a firm. It requires technical
people to maintain it 24 hours a day.

17. Transaction processing systems are a combination of software and hardware used to handle
immense quantities of consumer and business data. Because of this, viral security breaches may
occur in this system causing liabilities to firms.
2. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the
coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization.The study of the
management information systems involves people, processes and technology in an organizational
context.In a corporate setting, the ultimate goal of the use of a management information system is to
increase the value and profits of the business, this is done by providing managers with timely and
appropriate information allowing them to make effective decisions within a shorter period of time.

18. All levels of management and executives can print data and graphs showing information or
trends relating to growth, costs, strategic control, efficiency, risk and performance.

19. Provides the information as other IS but with greater attention to detail and more confidential
information, designed to help top-level executives make choices that impact the entire
organization. 

20. Provide data to Marketers about past marketing campaigns so that marketing executives can
determine what works, what does not work and what they need to change in order to achieve
the desired results. 

APPLICATION IN REAL WORLD

Example: A bank manager may get a summary report listing the total amount of deposits and
withdrawals made the previous day. An exception report outlines any deviations from expected output.
Its main purpose is to draw the attention of middle managers to any significant differences between
actual performance and expected performance. For example a sales manager may study an exception
report that lists all sales personnel who sold less then $10000 or more than $ 50000 in the preceding
month to make some sort of informed decision.

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

ADVANTAGE

21. 1. It Facilitates planning: MIS improves the quality of plants by providing relevant information
for sound decision .

22. In Minimizes information overload: MIS change the larger amount of data in to summarize form.

23. Decentralization: Decentralization of authority is possibly when there is a system for monitoring
operations at lower levels.

DISADVANTAGE

24. Highly sensitive requires constant monitoring. 

25. Quality of outputs governed by quality of inputs. 

3. EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM
An Executive information system (EIS), also known as an Executive support system (ESS),[ is a type of
management support system that facilitates and supports senior executive information and decision-
making needs. It provides easy access to internal and external information relevant to organizational
goals. It is commonly considered a specialized form of decision support system (DSS). EIS emphasizes
graphical displays and easy-to-use user interfaces. They offer strong reporting and drill-down
capabilities.

EIS helps executives find data according to user-defined criteria and promote information-based insight
and understanding. Unlike a traditional management information system presentation, EIS can
distinguish between vital and seldom-used data, and track different key critical activities for executives,
both which are helpful in evaluating if the company is meeting its corporate objectives. After realizing its
advantages, people have applied EIS in many areas, especially, in manufacturing, marketing, and finance
areas.

In general, EIS are enterprise-wide DSS that help top-level executives analyze, compare, and highlight
trends in important variables so that they can monitor performance and identify opportunities and
problems.

APPLICATION IN REAL WORLD

Example, a marketing executives' duty is managing available marketing resources to create a more
effective future. For this, they need make judgments about risk and uncertainty of a project and its
impact on the company in short term and long term. To assist marketing executives in making effective
marketing decisions, an EIS can be applied. EIS provides sales forecasting, which can allow the market
executive to compare sales forecast with past sales. The market executive can evaluate pricing as
related to competition along with the relationship of product quality with price charged.

In summary, EIS software package enables marketing executives to manipulate the data by looking for
trends, performing audits of the sales data, and calculating totals, averages, changes, variances, or
ratios.

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

ADVANTAGE

26. Easy for upper-level executives to use, extensive computer experience is not required in
operations.

27. Provides timely delivery of company summary information.

28. Information that is provided is better understood.

DISADVANTAGE
29. System may become slow, large, and hard to manage.

30. Need good internal processes for data management.

4. EXPERT SYSTEM
An expert system is a computer system emulating the decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert
systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning through bodies of knowledge,
represented mainly as if–then rules rather than through conventional procedural code. The first expert
systems were created in the 1970s . Expert systems were among the first truly successful forms of
artificial intelligence (AI) software, an expert system is divided into two subsystems: the inference
engine and the knowledge base. The knowledge base represents facts and rules. The inference engine
applies the rules to the known facts to deduce new facts.

APPLICATION IN REAL WORLD

Examples of expert systems can now be seen in many areas of microbiology, for example, in diagnosing
bacterial infections and interpreting microbiological data. In a laboratory ES have been built, a prototype
expert system to determine the feasibility of a full system which would enable people to assess the
microbiological safety of many food products.

At an intricate level ES can be used in Artificial intelligence: to compute vision, or visual scene
recognition. The task of a vision system is to interpret the picture obtained. These systems are employed
in robots or in satellite systems. And other application can be, Speech Recognition, understanding of
connected speech by an unknown speaker, as opposed to systems that recognize words or short phrases
spoken one at a time or systems are trained by a specific speaker before use.

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

ADVANTAGE

31. Reduces the cost of consulting an expert for solving the problem.

32. It can tackle a very complex problem that is difficult for a human expert to solve.

33. The expert system is available 24/7 and is never on holiday or off sick when needed.

DISADVANTAGE

34. Not able to adapt to altering environments.

35. Difficult to maintain.

36. Require update manually.