Purpose and Characteristics of MIS

Purpose of MIS
The purpose of an MIS is improved decision-making, by providing up-to-date, accurate data on a variety of organizational assets, including:

• Financials
• Inventory
• Personnel
• Project timelines
• Manufacturing
• Real estate
• Marketing
• Raw materials
• R & D

The MIS collects the data, stores it, and makes it accessible to managers who want to analyze the data by running reports.

Characteristics of MIS
Following are the characteristics of an MIS −

• It should be based on a long-term planning.
• It should provide a holistic view of the dynamics and the structure of the organization.
• It should work as a complete and comprehensive system covering all interconnecting sub-systems within the organization.
• It should be planned in a top-down way, as the decision makers or the management should actively take part and provide clear direction at the development stage of the MIS.
• It should be based on need of strategic, operational and tactical information of managers of an organization.
• It should also take care of exceptional situations by reporting such situations.
• It should be able to make forecasts and estimates, and generate advanced information, thus providing a competitive advantage. Decision makers can take actions on the basis of such predictions.
• It should create linkage between all sub-systems within the organization, so that the decision makers can take the right decision based on an integrated view.
• It should allow easy flow of information through various sub-systems, thus avoiding redundancy and duplicity of data. It should simplify the operations with as much practicability as possible.
• Although the MIS is an integrated, complete system, it should be made in such a flexible way that it could be easily split into smaller sub-systems as and when required.
• A central database is the backbone of a well-built MIS.