In a fast paced corporate world it is important that a manager or executive is organised. An organised executive is far more effective than one who is disorganised. When you organise your business life you become more efficient with your job and you acquire the positive reputation of a person who is proactive and gets things done.

An important business management skill is effective decision making. This is the ability to make quality decisions and make them fast. In order to make decisions requires the analysis of information. This information needs to be sourced, analysed before a well thought out decision can be made. Therefore, it is important to have systems in place to organise this information efficiently.

Effective managers have the ability to store and organise their data and information so that they can access it quickly. They have a process in place that ensures they deal with masses of information coming to them only once. When they receive new information it is dealt with immediately. If the information is relevant and useful it is filed and recorded appropriately.

When it comes to filing information effective managers structure their filing system by grouping and storing information in relevant categories and sub categories. The filing system should have a logical hierarchy that makes sense as this will increase efficiency. Effective managers take their time in organising their filing system as they understand it is time well invested. A well structured filing system saves valuable time.

When organising your files use color to separate different types of information. Make sure that each file is labelled clearly and correctly to make them easily recognisable. When using file folders such as hanging files in your desk use labels to identify the relevant contents contained within the file. Order the file labels alphabetically and place them so that you can see the labels clearly when you open the filing drawer. It is important that you review your filing system on a regular basis to ensure your make it up to date and relevant. Avoid the build up of paper by removing those documents that no longer serve a purpose.

Stakeholders in business management are those people who make a difference in your position. They can be your employees with specific skill sets who need to be placed in certain positions. The ability to place employees in the right positions will help project productivity. Stakeholders are also those people who have a stake in what you do at work. These might be your managers or other departmental personnel you work with. They can also include big clients. Knowing who the important stakeholders are in terms of your position at work can help you enhance your career by developing good working relationships with them.

Stakeholders have expectations of you as a manager. You need to know what the expectations are of you from all of the stakeholders in your position. If you don’t know what is expected of you, you won’t know if you are making everyone happy. Employees expect you to teach them when they don’t understand, work with them, motivate them, create a good working environment, and celebrate when success occurs. Management expects much more. Learn everything expected from your stakeholders so there are no surprises. This way you can make everyone happy and be successful in your position.

Business management also requires you to know how stakeholders are measuring your success as a manager. You might know what the expectations of the stakeholders are, but you might not know how you are being measured. Completion of a project might not be good enough. Your business management skills might be measured from a teamwork perspective. If you have assigned tasks to your employees and everyone is working individually, then you have completely failed their expectations even though the project was completed. As a manager, you are required to know how you are being measured so you can meet the goals properly. It is difficult to be successful if you don’t know how you are being measured by every stakeholder.

Business management requires you to know everything about the stakeholders of your position. The stakeholders in your position can make or break you. If you don’t know who they are then you will not be successful as a manager in business management.

Despite the vast improvements in information technology, computers (on which modern IT is based) cannot as yet take over business management. However, business information systems have transformed the effectiveness, power and efficiency of management.

In an earlier article on business management software, we looked at surface aspects of how modern management information systems help businesses. We saw how computers speeded up and improved the quality of operations. We also mentioned the existence of broad categories of business software – office suites, functional software such as accounting and inventory, and industry software such as retail management software. In this article, we seek to look more analytically at the role of information management systems.

Decision Support, Problem Analysis and Overall Control

Business managers often need to make decisions that can affect the business’ fortunes one way or other. For example, a company with sales outlets or distributors spread over a wide geographic area might want to optimize the logistical operations of delivering merchandise to the outlets. The best solution might be affected by numerous factors such as demand patterns, availability of merchandise, distances involved and the option of using external carriers (who can find two way loads and might prove a lesser cost option over long distances) instead of own vehicles.

While it might be possible to use complex mathematical formulas by hand to compute the best solution, computers transform the whole process into a routine task of feeding certain information as input and obtaining suggestions for best solutions as output. The task can typically be done in a few minutes (instead of hours or even days) and it becomes possible to examine several alternatives before deciding upon one that seems most realistic.

Identifying problems and analyzing the factors that cause them also has been transformed by modern computer information systems. In a typical MIS environment, standard reports are generated in a routine manner comparing actual performance against original estimates. The software that generates the report can be instructed to highlight exceptions, i.e. significant variations between original estimates and actual performance. Managers will thus become aware of problem areas in the daily course of their work simply by looking at the reports they receive, without having to do detailed data collection and computations themselves.

Identifying the factors responsible for the problem can also be routinized to some extent by using such tools as variance analysis. Variance analysis is an element of standard costing system that splits deviations from estimates (or standards) into causative factors such as increase in price of materials used, excessive usage of materials, unexpected machine downtimes, etc. With such a detailed report, managers can delve deeper into the problem factor, such as why there was excessive usage of materials.

Control is also exercised through variance analysis. Budgets are prepared for all business operations by concerned managers working in a coordinated fashion. For example, estimated sales volumes will determine the levels of production; production levels will determine raw material purchases; and so on. With good information system management, it then becomes possible to generate timely reports comparing actual sales, production, raw material deliveries, etc against estimated levels.

The reports will help managers to keep a watch on things and take corrective action quickly. For example, the production manager will become aware of falling sales (or rising sales) of particular products and can prepare to make adjustments in production schedules, and purchasing and inventory managers will become quickly aware of any mounting inventories of unused materials. MIS thus enhances the quality of communication all around and can significantly improve the effectiveness of operations control.

Effective MIS Involves Humans and Computers Working together

The major aspect to note is that MIS provides only the information; it is the responsibility of concerned managers to act on the information. It is the synergy between efficient, accurate and speedy equipment and humans with commonsense, intelligence and judgment that really gives power to MIS.