P5

Transforming Data into Information:

Collecting data is the start of this process and this is usually carried out by employees in the marketing department. This is then stored, in normally more than one place, geographically and on the same system. After the data is safe and stored it's ready to be processed and retrieved ready to present to managers. This presentation is normally done is a boardroom with various managers to asses performance, a hard copy of the information will be given out to aid participation.

Information Systems used in Business:

Human Resources:

Human Resources or HR are heavily reliant on information systems as they are responsible for the records of every single employee in a business, big or small. As well as keeping data on all the employees safe, some HR departments are responsible for keeping the business staffed at all times, this means keeping an eye out for busy periods and making sure the level of employees is sufficient.  The HR department are also responsible for making sure there are no skill gaps and need to make sure all staff are up to date with training, in reference to refresher courses after being employed. Some businesses don't use employees effectively and have a high labour turnover, which it is HR's job to keep account of.

Financial Systems:

The finance department plays a key role in collecting and processing data as it will hold all of the numbers for sales which they will then turn into presentable information. The systems play a key role in allowing employees to keep tabs on income and turnover, which is essential for large multinationals as the head office is usually not in the same building as the finance department, so will need to be able to see the numbers from elsewhere, via an internet connection. Managers will need to compare costs to sales to have an idea of the businesses cost effectiveness which means the finance department must keep income and expenditure records, and compare these to budgets set earlier in the year. Business also employ the finance department to keep tabs on investment decisions, which can be monitored on an information system.

Management Information Systems:

Management Information Systems or MIS allow managers to make decisions based on answers of queries as the responses will be answered already. An example of this would be when a group of managers are all working together on the same project but on different aspects, when one manager wants to know information on another aspect of this, they can simply enter the query into the system and the pre loaded information entered by the other manager/employee will already to there. The system holds the complex data entered by the original employee, and processes it into easy to read information for the viewer, as they may not understand the data.  This subsequently aids communication and makes sure that managers aren't wasting their time by asking/answering the same question over and over. If a large multinational wants to know in which country it has most market share, it could simply enter the query into the MIS and will get a result in seconds, they can then compare performance to last year to see who has grown the most in a year. A benefit of an MIS system is that some senior management can be un familiar with technology in the vastly changing business world, which means that they will require an easy method to get information, and there's nothing easier than typing a question into a system. An obvious floor to these systems is you only receive information that others have put in, this information can be incorrect if entered incorrectly or employees might not have entered the information. The solution to this would be to train employees to use this regularly, failing this employees can ask others for information if it's not on the system.