A management information system (MIS) is a computerized database of financial information organized and programmed in such a way that it produces regular reports on operations for every level of management in a company (Ledbetter.J, Inc 2019). The main purpose of the Management Information System is to give managers feedback about their own performance, top management can monitor the company as a whole.
Information displayed by the MIS typically shows “actual” data over against “planned” results and results from a year before, thus it measures progress against goals. The MIS receives data from company units and functions. Some of the data are collected automatically from computer-linked check-out counters and others are keyed in at periodic intervals. Routine reports are pre-programmed and run at intervals or on demand while others are obtained using built-in query languages, display functions built into the system are used by managers to check on status at desk-side computers connected to the MIS by networks.
Many sophisticated systems also monitor and display the performance of the company’s stock. This implies that Management Information System is a computer-based coherent arrangement of information aiding the management function. sA management information system is made up of five major components namely people, business processes, data, hardware, and software. All of these components must work together to achieve business objectives.People, these are the users who use the information system to record the day to day business transactions.
The users are usually qualified professionals such as accountants, human resource managers, among others. The ICT department usually has the support staff whose work is to ensure that the system is running properly.Business Procedures, these are agreed upon best practices that guide the users and all other components on how to work efficiently. Business procedures are developed by the people for instance users, consultants among others.Data, this is recorded day to day business transactions that is later transformed or processed into meaningful information. For a bank, data is collected from activities such as deposits, withdrawals.
A system is considered to have failed when it does not meet its requirements or when the level of discontentment with a system increases to the level that there is no enough provision to sustain it. Information system project failure may be as a result of its inability to meet users’ requirements and/or overruns pertaining to budget or completion time (Yeo, K. T. 2002). The following are the reason that may lead to Management Information Systems.Unclear defined goals, lack of clearly defined project goals and objectives which is key to the success of any Information System project development. There is also need to state clearly the information need of an organization and also the adoption process before attempting to introduce an information system (Lucas in Davies G. B. et al 1992).
Improper reporting structure, since the development of large Information System projects is the work of a team drawn from diverse groups of people with responsibilities to ensure the project’s success which includes Information System staff, end users and senior management, there is need for the establishment of clear lines of communication and well defined lines of authority and responsibility among team members. Communication in project teams is essential to sort out dispute concerning requirements of design decisions among project members (Curtis et al 1988).Incompetent organisation leadership: Poor management of the organisation and lack of good leadership responsible for coordination and control, measurement of progress and making of vital decisions in the organisation may also result to failure of Management Information System in an organisation.Poor technology base or infrastructure, lack of adequate technological base needed for successful implementation of the kind of systems development being considered. According to Land in G. B. Davis et al, the distance between the existing system and the replacement system is essential for the success of an information system.
Lack of technical competence, the technological know-how of information systems staff is very vital to the success of Information System projects as lack of familiarity with an information technology new to the Information System staff is contributory to IS project failure. If a user is improperly trained then the likelihood of them making major errors is increased due to their lack of knowledge of the system. Failures by reason of lack of training should not be regarded as an error due to the individual operator as is likely with a poorly designed user interface, but as a mistake by the management.Faulty hardware faulty hardware can bring about serious system failure. This factor is then again an essential one that should be given due consideration together with the more common software errors.
Faulty hardware should be taken into thought when designing the systems in order to try and reduce the impact of the failure. Hardware failure is not as likely to occur as software faults but can be as damaging.In conclusion, the goal of this was to identify the major causes of Management Information Systems failures in an organisation. Towards this goal different articles and journals were examine. The project team composition, management support, internal readiness of the employees, existence of technological infrastructure able to support and sustain the system to be implemented, well defined goals which is in line with the organization’s goal, adequately tested system, clear and well defined reporting structure and good leadership are all vital ingredients to ensure the successful implementation as well as utilization of a deployed information system.
It is to be noted that even though a system technically faultless, underutilization as a result of lack of full acceptance or understanding of how to adopt the information system for day to day operation amounts to failure of the information system. For this reason, the management must enlighten the users of the deployed information system on the need for the change as well as attached benefits.
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