Definition of management information system

MIS or management information system is a type of system in which managers and top executives manage information and use that information for making decisions in the company.

Components of management information system

Various components of MIS are:-

People

People are the main component of MIS. The people include managers, top executives, and staff of the company. The profit and loss of the company are first gathered through research and that information is then stored in the computer. The executives or CEO of the company then make decisions about the product of the company i.e. which improvements are needed in the product. The executives also decide to hire more staff in the company or to reduce staff in the company.

Hardware

Hardware is the physical machinery i.e. scanners, printers, computer screens, data storage devices etc. The performance of hardware depends upon the software and the capacity of the hardware. If hardware fetches and stores data quickly, the results are printed quickly.

Software

Software is a program that gives instructions to the hardware and it also manages the tasks that are to be performed by the hardware. Some examples of software are MS Office, Adobe software, internet browsers etc.

Data

Data is the raw information that is input into the system and then required information is fetched from the system. For example, data can be the number of cars sold in the year and the information that is fetched from this data is the profit/loss of the car manufacturing company.

Business procedures

Business procedures are the methods used to run the management information system. These are techniques applied to the data and which type of decisions are to be made in the company.

Examples of management information system

Some examples of MIS are:-

• School management system
• Office automation system
• Decision support system