Management information systems (MIS) is a changing and challenging field. Modern businesses can’t survive for long without using some sort of MIS to manage massive amounts of data, and there are plenty of opportunities to study or work in the discipline. In this article, we’ll cover what is happening with MIS in both business and academia. You’ll learn about what constitutes an MIS, their origin and evolution, their capabilities, and also gain insights from experts in the field.
In business, management information systems (or information management systems) are tools used to support processes, operations, intelligence, and IT. MIS tools move data and manage information. They are the core of the information management discipline and are often considered the first systems of the information age.
MIS produce data-driven reports that help businesses make the right decisions at the right time. While MIS overlaps with other business disciplines, there are some differences:
Maeve Cummings, Co-author of Management Information Systems for the Information Age and Professor of Accounting & Computer Information Systems at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, explains how MIS functions in academia. “[Management information systems is] the study of computers and computing in a business environment. Computer science focuses on the machine while information systems, or management information systems, focuses on how IT can support the strategy and operation of organizations,” she explains.
The concept includes what computers can do in this field, how people process information, and how best to make it accessible and up-to-date. Cummings adds, “The ‘right information in the right place at the right time’ is what we are striving for. This discipline is much more eclectic than straight computer science.”
Besides computer science, there are fields of study that overlap with MIS, both at the theoretical and practical levels:
The technology and tools used in MIS have evolved over time. Kenneth and Aldrich Estel, who are widely cited on the topic, have identified six eras in the field.
After an era ends, the previous era’s hardware are still in use. In fact, mainframes (albeit much faster, cheaper, and easier to access than their predecessors) are still used today.
From Ledgers to Flash Memory
In the days where businesses recorded all transactions in a bound ledger, tallying and tracking what was going on took a lot of time and work. In the late 1800s, process automation began to appear in the the form of punch cards. Associated machines tabulated the punch card data and printed results, which made it easier to capture transactions. The company that came to eventually be known as IBM was founded in the early 1900s and became the leader in business machines and punch cards. These cards evolved from a solution to automate pattern creation in weaving machines. The company adapted the idea to store and input data for applications from as simple as time for payroll to very complicated uses like recording census data. When general-purpose computers became available after WWII (originally developed for codebreaking, calculating shell trajectories, and other war-related needs), the punch card became an input method as well as a way to store outputs (though it required readers to decode and print the data so people could read it).
Later, magnetic media (such as tapes and floppy disks) took over the storage of input and output, and computers could read and write directly to their own memory. This eliminated the need for the specialized machines. Next, optical media (like CDs and DVDs) that could store much more data on a single disc came along. Today, we are transitioning to flash memory (which also goes by solid state, as in a solid state drive or SSD). Flash memory has a higher capacity, is less volatile, and you can reuse it thousands of times with little degradation in quality.
Each of these periods has brought an increase in storage capacity at a lower cost. In tandem with the constant increase in computing power, more and more powerful software, almost-ubiquitous connectivity via wifi and mobile devices, and ever-expanding networking that evolved into the internet, work that previously took many hours - like tabulating a company's shipping costs over a year or population increases in a state over a century - now takes little time or human effort.
On the software side, the functions that paper ledgers performed moved to spreadsheet programs (the term spreadsheet came from the large sheets of paper spread out on tables). Microsoft Excel is the best-known example, but it wasn’t the first to become popular. VisiCalc, which was created for the Apple II in the late 1970s by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, was the first to gain popularity. There were spreadsheet programs available for mainframes and minicomputers before VisiCalc, but they didn’t offer the ability to see results in real time.
Spreadsheets became more powerful in the 70s and 80s. When connected with databases, they gave users the ability to easily and quickly access and manipulate data. As users’ needs and desires changed, specialized programs were developed for different user groups, allowing innovative ways to use data.
Information technology and MIS used to be synonymous. Task automation (such as report creation) led to an expansion of the work that fell under MIS. Simultaneously, the definition of IT expanded even more, and it now encompases areas beyond MIS, such as cyber security and network administration.
Management information system is a broad term that incorporates many specialized systems. The major types of systems include the following:
At their core, management information systems exist to store data and create reports that business pros can use to analyze and make decisions. There are three basic kinds of reports:
Using an MIS system can improve the performance of a company in many ways. R. Kelly Rainer, Jr., George Phillips Privett Professor at Auburn University and Co-author of Management Information Systems, Moving Business Forward, says, “Any organization that does not use MIS simply will not exist for long. This statement would not have been true a couple of decades ago, but computer-based information systems are now essential to the survival of any organization.”
Beyond the need to stay competitive, there are some key advantages of effective use of management information systems:
As healthcare companies continue to evolve with the changing technology landscape, and more information, like treatment data, patient information, and operations processes are stored within these systems, healthcare organizations face a need to gain visibility into this critical information anytime, anywhere.
MIS in healthcare enables data and information management related to clinical trials, financial and legal information, pharmaceutical details, physician credentials, and more, to be handled within one comprehensive system. However, because much of this information is confidential and must abide by HIPAA regulatory requirements, these organizations must also be confident that their MIS is safeguarded.
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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) projection for employment in computer and information occupations are projected to grow by 22 percent from 2010 to 2020, adding about 758,000 new jobs.
There’s a common misconception that MIS is just coding. Though that task is a part of it, there are many skills and attributes required for MIS-related careers, including the following:
There are many employment paths for someone who wants to pursue a career in MIS. These are some MIS-related job titles/fields:
While every modern business needs MIS, some industries devote more of their resources to the practice than others do; these include health care, financial services, and telecommunications. Therefore, job seekers might find more opportunity in those verticals.
If someone wants to pursue a degree in an MIS-related field, Collegefactual.com has compiled a list of the top BA programs in the U.S., based on related overall education quality, degrees offered, earnings potential, and other factors:
Management information systems, like any discipline that involves computers and software, is constantly changing. Some recent developments in the field include the following:
In the future, many of the same forces that will change the larger world will affect MIS, but some will have a greater impact than others. MIS experts weigh-in on the topic and what we can expect going forward:
Maeve Cummings believes:
One big area of development in information technology is artificial intelligence (AI), which goes far beyond robots that control production (for example, in the automobile industry). Machines are becoming smarter in that they can learn how to solve problems. One such system is a neural network, which is used to alert you that your credit card may have been used unlawfully. These neural networks form a pattern of your spending and based on that, they flag purchases that are out of character, which is when you're notified or your credit card is frozen, depending on the situation. Such developments undoubtedly affect MIS, but they also affect the culture, the law, medicine, military defense, etc.
With so much big data being collected and analyzed nowadays, there will be a great need for legal minds to help sort through the various issues of what should and should not be legal from a privacy point of view. Also, with the budding field of computer-aided mind reading, still very much in its infancy, the issue of what society is allowed to do with that information will be crucial. For example, if you can read a person’s mind to determine whether that person is lying or not, would that be considered evidence or testimony? The law protects people from incriminating themselves (i.e. testimony). However, evidence, such as blood and hair samples may be taken without the consent of the accused. So which is mind-reading? The most interesting part of this business is that it is constantly changing and becoming more powerful. That is also the most alarming part of it.
R. Kelly Rainer Jr shares his thoughts on emerging technologies:
The future of MISs and new technologies will provide new ways to use data to improve business processes, acquire and work with customers, educate employees, and more. If you’re interested in learning more about management information systems, these books can help flush out your understanding of the field and its opportunities.
Management Information Systems for the Information Age by Steven Haag and Maeve Cummings. Learn the basics of the field and study examples of how organizations have implemented the concepts presented.
Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm by Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon. This is geared toward business students and provides insight into how businesses leverage IT systems to meet their corporate objectives.
Management Information Systems, Moving Business Forward by by R. Kelly Rainer, Jr. and Hugh J. Watson. This book ties MIS concepts to practice activities, and the activities give students experience with software used in the business world.
Business Information Management: Improving Performance Using Information Systems by Dave Chaffey and Gareth White. In this book, you’ll learn how to apply problem-solving skills to MIS-related problems while looking at them from the perspective of different roles inside a company.
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