Management In Theory And Practice – MIS, Knowledge Management, And Porter’s Five Forces Analysis

Overview of MIS and KMS

Discuss About The Management In Theory And Practice Knowledge.

Management Information Systems or MIS is considered as a specific type of software and hardware. These are utilized for the successful collection, processing, storing and finally disseminating any specific information. This particular type of information system helps in supporting the managerial role to leverage the information technology.  This helps in increasing the profits or values of the business (Laudon and Laudon 2016). Management information system is used for the proper decision making, analysis, control as well as visualization. It can also be referred to as the subset of the information systems that it comprises of containing various other subsets. Maximum benefit could be obtained by the organization from this particular information system. The business processes, personnel and equipments are well managed with the help of the management information system.

Knowledge Management System is the information system that helps to manage the knowledge or information of any specific organization. Knowledge Management is a distinct procedure to create, share, manage and use the information and knowledge of the company. Knowledge Management solely refers to the multidisciplinary approach that helps in achieving various organizational goals by using the knowledge and information to the fullest (Dalkir 2013). The Knowledge Management Process majorly focuses on specific objectives of the organization; like the competitive advantages, improvised performance, integration, innovation and sharing of lessons learnt. KMS thus can be defined as a system for using and applying the principles of knowledge management in an organizational structure. The data driven objectives for the productivity of the business are the most significant amongst them. The competitive model of the business owes to this particular system.

1. i) Interplay between Knowledge and Information: Information in MIS can be easily recognized, distributed and organized; however, knowledge could not be managed as it depends on the person involved in this scenario (Bajdor and Grabara 2014). The Knowledge Management System is strictly restricted to the creation of correct conditions of people who are learning and applying the knowledge for the proper benefit of the company. This personal knowledge application is translated into the information used.
2. ii) Different Approaches and Scopes: The scope and approach of the management information system is unidirectional as the employees follow the instruction of their seniors or bosses. However, the case is different in Knowledge Management System (Laudon and Laudon 2016). In KMS, the organization is completely dependent on the knowledge of the employees. If the employees are not found to be knowledgeable, the organization would become a major failure. This system is bidirectional.

Organizational Learning: The Knowledge Management System is different from the field of organizational learning as it is a type of self-acquired knowledge. It does not depend on the organization. However, management information system means the managing of information system in an organization and it completely depends on organizational learning.

1. iv) Broader Concepts: Management Information System is not a broad concept (Dalkir 2013). However, Knowledge Management System comprises of several broad concepts. Therefore, these concepts are recurrent. The major concepts of the Knowledge Management System are time, social space, types, embodiments, context, knowledge culture and many more. The broader perspectives of the Knowledge Management System are completely related or linked to the corporate business strategies of the organization.
2. v) Protection of Intellectual Capital: The strategies for protecting the valuable intellectual capital are completely different for management information system and Knowledge Management System. In MIS, the organizations mainly focus on the firewalls, access levels and several security features. These are extremely important for the information system as it helps to protect them properly and systematically (Bajdor and Grabara 2014). Without these security measures, it is very difficult to maintain all these information systems as they are responsible for storing confidential information. This is different in the Knowledge Management System, since in KMS, the knowledge does not have physical evidence other than its evidence in the mental cavity of the individuals and it is impossible to secure them with any security measures. The knowledge only reduces if a particular individual leaves the organization on a sudden note.

These two systems, i.e. Management Information System and Knowledge Management System are utilized by various organizations because organizations gain benefits from them. The descriptions of these systems with respect to the two popular organizations are given below:

1. i) Management Information System: Pizza Hut is one of the leading organizations that deliver pizza to its customers. They have solely implemented the information technology of Management Information System within their organization to run the organization successfully. The organization gains a huge benefit with the help of these systems. The benefits are as follows:
2. a) Increment in Productivity: MIS has helped the organization in increasing the productivity of the business by reducing the consumption of time and extra costs with the processing of information (Dalkir 2013). They have implemented the CIS or Customer Integrated System for processing transactions. Moreover, Online Transaction Processing or OLTP is also implemented with this information system.
3. b) Easy Decision Making: The entire process of decision-making in Pizza Hut has become extremely easy with the Management Information S It provides relevant information for any specific situation and hence, the effective decision could be taken in favour of the benefit of the organization.
4. c) Improving Communication: MIS is responsible for improving the communication in Pizza Hut. Ever since the team work has been developed and customer relationship management has been
5. d) Facilitates Organizational Transformation: Pizza Hut is one of the leading organizations in pizza delivery and this competitiveness is maintained with the management information system.
6. ii) Knowledge Management System: World Bank has undertaken the system of KMS for their business and has received various benefits from it (Laudon and Laudon 2016). These are as follows:
7. a) Lower Rates of Interest: The loans provided to the customers are of lower interest rates and thus becoming popular for the customers.
8. b) IT Transformation: The bank has turned all of its business processes to information technology and this has become possible with the implementation of
9. c) Improved Business Operations: The business process of World Bank has been improved owing to this implementation by Pizza Hut.

Telstra Corporation Ltd. is the leading organization of telecommunications in Australia that provides wireless networking services, internet access, mobile and market voices for the services and products. Moreover, the television products and services are also provided by the organization (Telstra.com.au. 2018). The Australian telecommunications were controlled by the PMG or Postmaster General’s Department. This particular company provides IS or information system services to the employees and customers. They can implement the management information system within their business for getting solutions for their business objectives and complexities with the MIS.

MIS and KMS at Telstra Corporation Ltd

1. i) Excellent Customer Experiences: The primary strategy of this organization is the delivery of excellent customer experiences. The best products and services are provided to the customers by Telstra. They make sure that the customers are satisfied with their products (Sharma and Thakur 2015). The network and the communication of this organization are much better than the rest. Thus, the customers are happy with their products and services. They can utilize Management Information System to make their business processes easier. The strategic planning of the organization could be completely based on the MIS and the network can be made digital owing to this.
2. ii) Driving Value and Growth: The second strategy of Telstra is to drive growth and value in the organization. The business is ensured to be extremely effective, sustainable and efficient with the MIS as it helps the company to focus on the customer and growth of the revenue. The superiority of network and excess productivity can be gained with the implementation of Management Information S

iii) Coping up with Advanced Technology: The next important strategy of this popular organization is the coping up of the organization with new and advanced technology (Sharma and Thakur 2015). Since, Telstra was started in the year of 1901, the technologies have become extremely old and thus there should be a constant evolution in the technology. Telstra checks for new and advanced technology regularly and makes sure that it is upgraded in accordance to the new technology. This helps the organization in maintaining their goals and objectives. MIS would be the best solution in this particular scenario. MIS is responsible for storing, retrieving, collecting and managing any information. Therefore, it is the subset of information technology and thus provides all its benefits.

1. iv) Building Growth within Businesses: Another strategy of the organization is the building growth within the business close to the core. The international enterprise business is the major part of this (Sharma and Thakur 2015). Moreover, the international infrastructure and the service providing businesses are included in this strategy. Management information can be an important solution to this strategy as it helps to maintain the international infrastructure properly and subsequently.

1. a) Panviva: This is the most important and significant application of Telstra. It helps the organizations in solving their highly complicated access to information problems by simply delivering the information that a user requires. This particular application gives the companies a specific cloud-based platform, guiding the staffs. This is done by all the business procedures and any front office function (Telstra.com.au. 2018). It eventually empowers the companies in providing better experiences for the staffs and customers and finally driving efficiencies and capitalizing on success. Management Information System is a solution for maintaining this application as it helps in integrating the systems and data interpretation. Moreover, MIS also provides security measurements to the business.
2. b) Zimperium: The second important application and functionality of Telstra is Zimperium. It provides real-time security for the mobile devices in any organization. The businesses try out the security solutions of Zimperium within their mobile devices. This solution serves both Android and iOS devices. The cyber threats to the confidential data are somehow reduced with this type of security solution and hence, it is extremely popular for the customers. Since, MIS provides security to the devices; it would be helpful for Telstra.
3. c) TeleSign: The third significant application of Telstra is TeleSign. It is a type of mobile identity solution (Sharma and Thakur 2015). It is extremely easy to deploy and integrate within the existing applications as well as workflows; combating the frauds. MIS helps in maintaining the authenticity and integrity of business information and thus is useful for Telstra.

Porter’s five forces is a particular framework or tool that helps in the analysis of the competitors for any specific business. This typical framework is responsible for drawing the five forces determining the intensity of competition as well as attractiveness in the market. These help any business to increase the overall productivity and profitability (E. Dobbs 2014). The available profits of all organizations are solely driven to the normal level of profit. The alteration in the five forces needs the business unit to reassess the market segment. The total attractiveness of the industry never implies that all organizations return the profitability.

The Porter’s Five Forces framework has been applied to the World Bank. The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to all countries in the world for their capital projects. There are two institutions in World Bank, called IDA and IBRD. The Porter’s Five Force analysis in respect to World Bank is as follows:

1. i) Threat of New Entrants: The new entrants in any existing market decrease the profitability of the other pre-existing firms within the industry. The entry of these new firms is extremely difficult since the World Bank is a leading organization (Dälken 2014). This forms a threat for all the new banking sectors as it might take up all the customers of them. The existence of the barriers, government policies, absolute costs, capital requirements, and cost disadvantages are also some of the major and important factors besides the threat of new entrants.
2. ii) Threat of Substitutes: There is always a high risk of the substitutes in any business. If the customers find a substitute product that is more effective for them, they would always choose the better Moreover, they try to utilize a product with similar cost in spite of better advantages (E. Dobbs 2014). In case of the World Bank, if the rates of interest are higher than the substitute banks, there is a high chance that they would lose all their customers and the business would suffer major losses. The potential factors of this threat mainly include the buyer inclination to a substitute, ease of substitution, availability of closer substitutes, amount of substitutes available in any market and many more.

Bargaining Power of Customers: This specific threat refers to the output of markets and the ability of the customers in putting the firm under pressure. This affects the sensitivity of the customers for change in service prices. There are various measures that could be undertaken by the firm for reducing the buyer power. This could be done by implementation of a loyalty program (Dälken 2014). In case of the World Bank, the organization should reduce the buyer power by implementing new loyalty programs. If the buyer’s power is high, the customers have various alternatives and vice versa. The potential factors include buyer switching costs, buyer concentration, bargaining leverage and many more.

1. iv) Bargaining Power of Suppliers: The bargaining power of the suppliers refers to the market of inputs. All the suppliers of the raw materials, labours, services and components are the sources of power since only a few substitutes are present. In case of the World Bank, the organization is the sole provider of loans to the countries for capital projects and hence The World Bank has a monopoly. The major potential factors include presence of substitute inputs, degree of inputs differentiation and many more.
2. v) Industry Rivalry: This threat is the determinant of competitiveness of the business (E. Dobbs 2014). The World Bank should have an understanding of their industry rivals. The potential factors include degree of transparency, powerful competitive strategies and many more.

1. a) Current IS: The current IS could bring benefit to the bank by providing easy communication, globalization, reduction in cultural gaps, easy availability, cost effectiveness and many more.
2. b) Online Collaboration: The customers of the bank who are not present at the location could easily contact and communicate with the bank by online collaboration.
3. c) Web 2.0: Availability is the major advantage of Web 2.0 and acts as an advantage because of a variety of media present due to this technology (Crossler et al. 2013).
4. d) Social Networks: Communication is much easier via social network and the customers of the bank would be receiving all the
5. e) Increased Popularity of Mobile: Higher efficiency and productivity are the major benefits of this technology.

However, there are few security issues in the above technologies that are vulnerable for the bank and its customers. They are as follows:

1. i) Current IS: The hackers could easily hack the system forming a major vulnerability issue.
2. ii) Online Collaboration: Network failure is the major security issue in this technology.

Web 2.0: Fake IDs and spammers are common in Web 2.0. This could make the bank could lose their confidential information (Crossler et al. 2013).

1. iv) Social Networks: The malicious applications and attacks are common in social networks, thus making them difficult to trust.
2. v) Increased Popularity of Mobile: Data leaks are the major problem in this type of technology and therefore, the bank and the customer should be careful enough to fall prey to any kind of data breach.

References

Bajdor, P. and Grabara, I., 2014. The Role of Information System Flows in Fulfilling Customers’ Individual Orders. Journal of Studies in Social Sciences, 7(2).

Crossler, R.E., Johnston, A.C., Lowry, P.B., Hu, Q., Warkentin, M. and Baskerville, R., 2013. Future directions for behavioral information security research. computers & security, 32, pp.90-101.

Dälken, F., 2014. Are porter’s five competitive forces still applicable? a critical examination concerning the relevance for today’s business (Bachelor’s thesis, University of Twente).

Dalkir, K., 2013. Knowledge management in theory and practice. Routledge.

Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter’s five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), pp.32-45.

Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.

Sharma, S. and Thakur, K.S. eds., 2015. Management information system. Horizon Books (A Division of Ignited Minds Edutech P Ltd).

Telstra.com.au. 2018. Telstra – mobile phones, prepaid phones, broadband, internet, home phones, business phones. [online] Available at: https://www.telstra.com.au/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].