SECTION ONE

`Defining of Principle: Management Information System (MIS)

In their early years of existence, company computer systems were utilised for the reasonable
business of calculating the payroll and monitoring the accounts payable and receivable. As
programs were created that offered market leaders with data regarding sales, stocks and options,
and other information that could aid in handling the company, the term "MIS" surfaced to pertain
to these kinds of companies (Cleland, 2006). At the moment, MIS is implemented widely in a
variety of subjects and will involve: decision support systems, labor force control programs, task
management and database safe-keeping programs.

The establishment and maintenance of it tools helps leaders and the employees in undertaking
any activities linked to the evaluation of data. MIS and business systems are specifically helpful
in the gathering of business information and the era of records to be used as tools for making
choices.

How Does It Work?

MIS receives data from the company. The data collected can be automated, linked with
computers, or manually coded in the system. Then, reports are programmed using built-in query
languages to display functions on the computer system. The status of different products and
financial reports of the company is displayed together with its performance to evaluate and
assess the current situation and develop solutions to improve weak points. The following
diagram shows the structure chart of the company. A management information system (MIS)
concerns a subcategory of the full total inner control buttons of a business encompassing the
application of individuals, information, systems, and functions by accountants to resolve
business issues like putting a value on a product, service or a business plan. Management
information systems will vary from ordinary information systems in that they are utilized to
review other information systems found in functional jobs in the company. Academically, MIS is
generally utilized to pertain to the cluster of information management processes connected to the
automation or assistance of specific decision making (Clarke, 2007).
Ark Versus BMW

Ark is the biggest car manufacturer in Europe, North America, Asia, and Middle East with
thousands of people employed in 150 plants across the world. The company is now confronted
with many challenges including incompatibility of the system across the regions, hurdles in
timely access to data, errors in management reports, no cost savings and manual input of data.
There is surging concern for data security and ethical considerations. Therefore, by incorporating
new system and technologies, Ark can obtain significant cost savings and integrate its various
components. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, abbreviated as BMW, is a German multinational
manufacturer of luxury vehicles and motorcycles. The company uses mySAP Automotive
combined with SAP Business Collection programs in various operations to develop products in
the automotive industry. It helps in the company's challenges in the industry and provides
techniques and solutions for the employees and the business itself. The SAP has combined
engineering design, planning, processing, purchasing, sales, and service, creating competent
employees, stable financial performance, effective operations, product and service dominance,
and excellent client value, which works hand-in-hand to improve the company. Therefore, Ark
can learn from BMW to overcome challenges in MIS.
Basic Units of Ark

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-0-387-34879-7_37.pdf

1. Operations

Modeling the various automobiles and their creation process is done through one system to save
all information. With this, the data collected by Ark from the system will not be repeated, and it
will be much easier to locate files. The procedures of Ark have been impacted by tremendous
developments in technology. Because of this, manufacturing businesses within the business have
significantly increased. (Fujimoto, 2001). Excellent coordination with suppliers offers great
opportunities for better product development with suppliers via the web.

Productivity and efficiency in the operations within Ark is completed through the Model-mix
structuring and the excellent planning aspects of this MIS. Model-mix structuring allows Toyota
to enhance the operational strategies that are essential for the organization (Ineak, 2009). The
wonderful planning options allow effective control of assembly and elements of make-to-order
offers.

Ark offers detailed information and specific shipment schedules to its suppliers. The significant
suppliers obtain the information through electronic digital data interchange. Other providers get
on the Ark online site, where in fact the company details the procedures to supply the posts on its
delivery activities (Hino, 2005). By going to the web site of Ark, suppliers can monitor this
information instantly, including release schedules, receipts, and other important information.
When they deliver car parts, the suppliers send Ark shipment details to provide them with the
latest information in this subject. Car parts going inside the Ark safe-keeping facilities are then
obtained and provided quickly to the line.

Customer wants for various Ark automobiles warranted a solution that would properly improve
and help organize creation. These MIS help the business to reduce order-to delivery period,
boosts its supply string activities with regard to demand examination and tracking of deliveries,
and enhances inventory activities around its institutions" allowing Ark to significantly reduce
time and energy to customer for its excellent vehicles.

2. Accounting

The mySAP provides an improved accounting system for BMW. It has records of all the
transactions within the company for an easy audit system. Ark can use accounting system like
BMW to improve overall operations.

3. Finance

The system supplies financial data to predict future financial needs through trends from past and
present financial reports. In 2003, Toyota started to use SAP software system which is a business
management software that offers an affordable way to manage entire business as an integrated
whole, from accounting and financials, purchasing, inventory, sales, and customer relationships,
to operations, project management, and human resources. https://www.nbs-us.com/sap-business-
one. It provides financial information to the fund department of the company and its concerned
personnel. The people of the finance department of Ark would analyze past and current financial
statistics, anticipate future financial outputs, and investigations and handle the utilization of
capital as time passes by making use of the information produced by SAP (SAP, 2005).

The SAP provides options that enable sales and costing of vehicles through configuration and
monitoring of available parts. Vehicle customization and pricing via the web can enhance car
sales of Ark by offering clients with the decision of planning their vehicles. Once the vehicle was
created, the SAP will determine the price of the vehicles predicated on the design. Vehicle search
enables Ark to find vehicles that treat the precise designs, completing faster delivery to
customers.

4. Marketing.

SAP has information on other competing companies. It can help Ark in product development and
dissemination, pricing options, advertising, and sales prediction. The SAP helps the marketing
businesses of the organization in regards to product development, costing activities, marketing,
and sales forecasts. Exactly like other important company procedures, Toyota depends on
external sources of data. These sources entail the view or feedback of customers. (SAP, 2007)

5. People Resource.

Ark can use SAP to build a healthy company relationship between employees and company
leaders. Human resources can connect the whole company through the SAP.
SECTION TWO

Different Types of Data in MIS are as following:

1. Operational data

Operational data is a form of strategic data that captures information on the internal
functions and processes of a business.

2. Tactical data

Tactical information is concerned with the information needed for exercising control over
business resources, like budgeting, quality control, service level, inventory level, productivity
level etc.

3. Strategic data

Strategic data involves information surrounding the industry in which the business operates
and is called industrial data.

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q=operational+tactical+and+strategic+data+definition+and+differences&rlz=1C1UEAD_enP
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MAJOR TYPES OF SYSTEMS IN ARK:

Because there are different interests, specialties, and levels in Ark, there are different kinds of
systems. No single system can provide all the information an Ark needs. Figure below illustrates
one way to depict the kinds of systems found in an organization. In the illustration, Ark is
divided into strategic, management, and operational levels and then is further divided into
functional areas, such as sales and marketing, manufacturing and production, finance and
accounting, and human resources. Systems are built to serve these different organizational
interests (Anthony, 1965).

FIGURE Types of information systems: Organizations can be divided into strategic,

management, and operational levels and into four major functional areas: sales and marketing,
manufacturing and production, finance and accounting, and human resources. Information
systems serve each of these levels and functions.

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Different Kinds of Systems

Three main categories of information systems serve different organizational levels in Ark. These
are: operational-level systems, management-level systems, and strategic-level systems.

Operational-level systems

Operational level systems support operational managers by keeping track of the elementary
activities and transactions of the organization, such as sales, receipts, cash deposits, payroll,
credit decisions, and the flow of materials in a factory. The principal purpose of systems at this
level is to answer routine questions and to track the flow of transactions through the
organization. How many parts are in inventory? What happened to someone’s payment? To
answer these kinds of questions, information generally must be easily available, current, and
accurate.

Management-level systems

Management level systems serve the monitoring, controlling, decision-making, and

administrative activities of middle managers. The principal question addressed by such systems
is this: Are things working well? Management-level systems typically provide periodic reports
rather than instant information on operations.

Some management-level systems support nonroutine decision making in Ark. They tend to focus
on less-structured decisions for which information requirements are not always clear. These
systems often answer “what-if” questions: What would be the impact on production schedules if
we were to double sales in the month of December? What would happen to our return on
investment if a factory schedule were delayed for six months? Answers to these questions
frequently require new data from outside the organization, as well as data from inside that cannot
be easily drawn from existing operational-level systems.
Strategic-level systems

Strategic level systems help senior management tackle and address strategic issues and long-term
trends, both in the firm and in the external environment. Their principal concern is matching
changes in the external environment with existing organizational capability. What will
employment levels be in five years? What are the long-term industry cost trends, and where does
our firm fit in? What products should we be making in five years?

Information systems also serve the major business functions, such as sales and marketing,
manufacturing and production, finance and accounting, and human resources. A typical
organization has operational-, management-, and strategic-level systems for each functional area.
For example, the sales function generally has a sales system on the operational level to record
daily sales figures and to process orders. A management-level system tracks monthly sales
figures by sales territory and reports on territories where sales exceed or fall below anticipated
levels. A system to forecast sales trends over a five-year period serves the strategic level. We
first describe the specific categories of systems serving each organizational level and their value
to the organization.

How organizations use these systems for each major business function:

Operational management level

The operational level is concerned with performing day to day business transactions of the
organization.Users at this level use make structured decisions. This means that they have defined
rules that guides them while making decisions.

Tactical Management Level

This organization level is dominated by middle-level managers, heads of departments,

supervisors, etc. The users at this level usually oversee the activities of the users at the
operational management level in Ark.

Tactical users make semi-structured decisions. The decisions are partly based on set guidelines
and judgmental calls. As an example, a tactical manager can check the credit limit and payments
history of a customer and decide to make an exception to raise the credit limit for a particular
customer. The decision is partly structured in the sense that the tactical manager has to use
existing information to identify a payments history that benefits the organization and an allowed
increase percentage.

Strategic Management Level

This is the most senior level in an organization. The users at this level make unstructured
decisions. Senior level managers are concerned with the long-term planning of the organization.
They use information from tactical managers and external data to guide them when making
unstructured decisions

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SECTION 3
1. Operational database and CRM technologies and products

Techopedia explains Operational Database (ODB) as a database that stores data inside of
an enterprise. They can contain things like payroll records, customer information and
employee data. They are critical to data warehousing and business analytics operations.
The key characteristic of operational databases is their orientation toward real-time
operations, compared with conventional databases that rely on batch processing. With
operational databases, records can be added, removed, and modified in real time. CRM is a
technology that helps manage the entire customer information and interactions in order to
build and maintain superior customer relationships.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing a company’s

relationships and interactions with all of its customers and potential customers. The goal is
simple: Improve business relationships. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to
customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability. A CRM solution helps a business to
focus on their relationships with individual people — including customers, service users,
colleagues, or suppliers — throughout the lifecycle with them, including finding new customers,
winning their business, and providing support and additional services throughout the
relationship.

https://www2.deloitte.com/mt/en/pages/technology/articles/mt-salesforce-crm-101.html

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the process of managing interactions between

customers, partners, clients, consumers, or prospects, while CRM software is the application tool
used to manage these interactions. https://centricconsulting.com/blog/understanding-crm-
technology/
Benefits of operational database and CRM technologies and products:

Operational database and CRM technologies and products are helpful in managing the contacts
and customer information in an effective manner delivering superior customer service that results
in better customer experience and increased retention rate. With automation, Ark can increase
the efficiency of workflow and save time, thereby realizing a hike in productivity. Ark can put
data in a centralized platform and thus makes it easy for the teams to access it for managing and
retrieving the information. These analytics and reporting capabilities in CRM helps Ark to gather
actionable insights in order to make sound decisions and Ark can analyze the metrics in the
system which helps you to have a clear picture on your performance. It provides prompt sales
forecasting and Ark can check the progress, adjust the goals, track the quotas and measure the
sales performance, improve its efficiency, save time and increase productivity with the help of
CRM.
Real world application

Microsoft Dynamic 365 is a highly collaborative cloud-based CRM software that can help sales
team be more efficient in an increasingly complex environment. With Microsoft Dynamics 365,
you will be able to analyze your company’s performance to develop an effective marketing
strategy and create a personalized customer-business relationship.

https://www.appvizer.com/magazine/customer/client-relationship-mgt/customer-relationship-
management-examples

2. Data warehousing, data mining and data analytics (‘big data’) options :
Big Data analytics is a process used to extract meaningful insights, such as hidden patterns,
unknown correlations, market trends, and customer preferences. Big Data analytics provides
various advantages—it can be used for better decision making, preventing fraudulent activities,
among other things. https://www.simplilearn.com/what-is-big-data-analytics-article

Big Data basically refers to the data which is in large volume and has complex data sets. This
large amount of data can be structured, semi-structured, or non-structured and cannot be
processed by traditional data processing software and databases. Various operations like
analysis, manipulation, changes, etc are performed on data and then it is used by companies for
intelligent decision making. Big data is a very powerful asset in today’s world. Big data can
also be used to tackle business problems by providing intelligent decision making.

Data Warehouse is basically the collection of data from various heterogeneous sources. It is the
main component of the business intelligence system where analysis and management of data
are done which is further used to improve decision making. It involves the process of
extraction, loading, and transformation for providing the data for analysis. Data warehouses are
also used to perform queries on a large amount of data. It uses data from various relational
databases and application log files.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-big-data-and-data-warehouse/

A data warehouse is a central repository of information that can be analyzed to make more
informed decisions. Data flows into a data warehouse from transactional
systems, relational databases, and other sources, typically on a regular cadence. Business
analysts, data engineers, data scientists, and decision makers access the data
through business intelligence (BI) tools, SQL clients, and other analytics applications.

Data and analytics have become indispensable to businesses to stay competitive. Business users
rely on reports, dashboards, and analytics tools to extract insights from their data, monitor
business performance, and support decision making. Data warehouses power these reports,
dashboards, and analytics tools by storing data efficiently to minimize the input and output (I/O)
of data and deliver query results quickly to hundreds and thousands of users concurrently.
https://aws.amazon.com/data-warehouse/#:~:text=A%20data%20warehouse%20is
%20a,typically%20on%20a%20regular%20cadence.

Uses of Data warehousing, data mining and data analytics (‘big data’) options in
business

There are many different ways that data mining, data warehousing and Big Data analytics can be
used in order to improve operations in Ark. These analytics are used to understand customer
behavior in order to optimize the customer experience. Furthermore, it helps Ark in Predicting
future trends in order to make better business decisions. Ark can improve marketing campaigns
by understanding what works and what doesn't and increase operational efficiency by
understanding where bottlenecks are and how to fix them. Detecting fraud and other forms of
misuse would be done sooner.

Real world application

Image (below): AWS offers a variety of products and services at each step of the analytics
process.

https://aws.amazon.com/data-warehouse/#:~:text=A%20data%20warehouse%20is
%20a,typically%20on%20a%20regular%20cadence.
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1. Cloud-based and out-sourced data management platforms & services

Cloud data management is a way to manage data across cloud platforms, either with or instead of
on-premises storage. The cloud is useful as a data storage tier for disaster recovery, backup and
long-term archiving. With cloud data management, resources can be purchased as needed. Data
can also be shared across private and public clouds, as well as in on-premises storage. A cloud-
based data management system takes on the function of a traditional data management system
modified for the needs of the cloud. https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/cloud-
data-management

Data management outsourcing involves engaging a third-party provider to source external staff
members to look after securely storing, organizing and collecting data for your business. These
outsourced employees can be located anywhere in the world. By outsourcing, businesses can
gain access to a larger pool of talented and experienced professionals with the necessary skills to
manage their data securely and effectively. This allows business leaders to have confidence in
the control of their data. Outsourcing data management also means businesses have more time to
focus on data strategy instead of spending time on storing or collecting it, which can be very
time-consuming. https://www.microsourcing.com/build-your-team/industry/data-management/

Benefits of using Cloud-based and out-sourced data management platforms & services
in business:

There are numerous benefits to Cloud-based and out-sourced data management platforms &
services to Ark. Ark never have to worry about running out of storage or engaging in complex
capacity planning tasks.The very nature of the cloud means that data is accessible from
anywhere. Public clouds providers handle all required maintenance, meaning that Ark never
have to worry about replacing failed hard disks, performing hardware refreshes or installing
firmware updates. Businesses and individuals now have worldwide access to data thanks to
advancements in data applications and cloud computing.Data management employees are also
experts in data communications. Not only do businesses have access to the cloud these days,
but by hiring outsourced data management experts, they’ll have direct access to employees
who operate and specialize in cloud data storage and can troubleshoot.

While your outsourced data management team focuses on providing your business with clear,
organized and secure data, your in-house team can then focus on the analytical and strategic
interpretations of the data and nurturing customer relationships.

Real world application

Cloudera offers an enterprise data cloud for any data, from the Edge to AI. One of the most
complete Data Management Platforms of today, Cloudera maintains a high level of scalability,
performance, data integrity and quality. This software includes a variety of cool features
including alert management, cluster managemetn, mointoring and diagnostics, client
configuration management and more. Website: www.cloudera.com