39 MIS and Services Management

Dr. Puja Waalia Mann

 

1.0 Introduction

 

Imagine a situation, about two decades ago, in a Bank, where you go to collect some information about few account transactions of money deposited few years ago or the interest earned on the savings over the last two years. You can see the bank officials sifting through big voluminous books of records, checking your bank account from a manual index, trying to figure out which register, out of so many huge registers spread across their counter, contains your account details. With so many account holders in the queue, the pressure mounts on the bank clerk who might also be tiered of such manual searches for one account holder details lasting not less than five to fifteen minutes each. Once the Bank official is able to look for the required information the same is manually entered into a pass book. This situation may sound alien to the new generation today but was the way work was done in most of the service sectors a few years ago in the absence of a computerized data storage and retrieval facility. The way of working was revolutionized with the introduction of Local area network servers and the Internet .

 

1.1 Learning objectives

 

In this module, you will learn:

 

a)      Meaning of Management Information system

b)      Difference between importance of MIS in Services and Manufacturing

c)      Role of MIS in Services management

d)     Application of MIS in Service sector

e)      Impact of MIS in Service organization

 

Key words: MIS, Information processing, Service decision making

 

1.2 Management Information System- meaning

 

Management information system (MIS) focus on the organisation’s information needs by collecting the required data, grouping and classifying it and making it available to the required departments or individuals in the support format in a timely manner. This facilitates analysis of various strategic and routine business problems and also designs and supports computer softwares and applications to solve these organizational problems and issues. A swift and accurate system of Information is desired in manufacturing and services organizations alike. Information related to various HR decisions like payroll details, due increments, accounting, inventory check and control etc are some of the decisions to be taken in manufacturing and service sector alike and hence the MIS plays an important role in both the fields. However, in the absence of a physical good to offer to the consumer, the service manager has to understand the unfulfilled needs and desires of a consumer which can be judiciously satisfied with the service purchase. In such a situation, a well informed service manager can train his team and aim to delight the consumer in his service offering.

 

Let us discuss the example of an Insurance agent approaching a prospective consumer for the purchase of a medical insurance. Here a well informed official, having the details of the consumers income, family size, family Life cycle, taxation details, purchase of any other insurance policy and the Brand purchased from and the purpose of buying a policy may facilitate him in making a good offer to the consumer. Such a study of the consumer requirements, expectations, attitudes and perceptions can be made easy with the MIS supplying the desired information on the characteristics of the target consumers or the past consumers. The service industries ensure that their front end facilities are good enough to sustain a consumer for further service consumption. This is possible through an amicable employee-consumer interaction, which is clearly based on , apart from good training in handling a consumer, to the knowledge about the target consumers characteristics affecting a service purchase. This information need is facilitated by an effective MIS. Further, changes in service sector happen much quicker if compared to the manufacturing sector. Hence, availability of the accurate and timely information plays a very significant role in facilitating strategic decision making which is feasible with the help of MIS.

 

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

 

1.      What is the meaning of MIS?

2.      Can MIS be of any use in the marketing of intangible Services?

3.      “MIS facilitates decision making.” Do you agree? How?

 

1.3 Role of MIS

 

The role that MIS plays in any service organization is like that of heart in human body; with blood being compared to information in an organization. The way the heart receives the blood, purifies it and sends it to the various organs of the body; MIS is the centralized system of an organization, which receives information, organizes it and pass it on to any organizational department that needs it. Just like the flow of blood may increase when needed, the flow of information may also increase when required by the various constituents of the oganisation. MIS fulfills the information needs of the top managers and the other managers for a holistic view of certain parameters like overall sales, growth, profits etc. at the organizational level; of the various departments like finance, production, marketing etc and that of individuals like Organisation’s Charted Accountant, Lawyer, Entrepreneur etc.

 

Let us look at the various important roles played by MIS in a service organization

 

a) Satisfies diverse information needs– There could be various groups or individuals in an organization seeking some information for the purpose of facilitating a decision, which can be had from the MIS in the required format. For example, a Marketing Manager of a Tourism firm needs to train his new marketing representatives on the way of approaching and closing a deal with the target customers, he needs to have the data of the characteristics of the past consumers.

 

b) Facilitates the Objective Setting by the Top management– The top management deliberates and plans the targets to be achieved during long and short term for various products it deals in by various geographical marketing constituents. Such Goal setting and strategic planning is conveniently done with the help of the Product or Brand wise and Sales team wise, sales and expenditure data of the past performance available with the top level officials, which is made available by the MIS.

 

c) Supports the development of Business plans– The middle level managers are entrusted with the task of developing various functional level plans to achieve the objectives set by the top level management by taking decisions about constitution of various teams, identification of sales personnel’s training needs, shuffling of territories and revision in salary structures of the marketing teams. Such plans are made in the light of information on the past performance of the employees, which is classified and available in the required format by the MIS.

 

d) Facilitates routine scheduling and controlling– For a Hotel manager, the availability of a room to be let out on rent at a specified date for certain number of days at a specific rate could easily be checked through MIS. Thus, MIS facilitates the routine scheduling and planning of activities and decision o be taken at the operational level by having the necessary information at the required time.

 

e) Facilitates Query handling– The service personnel may have to answer certain queries of the consumers while dealing with them on topics related to transaction details, documents etc., which can be conveniently handles with eth MIS providing the required and timely information. A bank Account holder may like to know his cash balance or the interest he earned on his savings over a period of last two years. Such an information is possible with the help of MIS.

 

f) Supports decision making process– Management is the process of choosing the best alternative out of many faced. With the help of MIS, the managers may get the required information which facilitates this routine decision making. For instance, there is a dissatisfied consumer who is making a complaint to the Restaurant manager about the services. While the manager would like to sort out the issue as soon as possible, he may be able to go a step further in pleasing the consumer if he is in possession of data related to the consumers frequency of visit and average order amount, which can be quickly had only from an MIS system.

 

 

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

 

4.      What role can MIS play in a service organization?

5.      How can Query handling be facilitated with the help of MIS. Explain with example.

6.      Describe the process of objective setting with the help of MIS.

 

1.4 Application of MIS in Service sector

 

Let us now discuss how can MIS be applied in various service sectors, by discussing the cases of three service sectors:

 

a) Application of MIS in Banking industry-

 

Coming back to the example discussed in the beginning of the module of a Bank, we have learnt that MIS is a computer based system of information which provides accurate information on the click of a mouse. For a Bank official working on MIS such an information need of the consumer could be given within seconds and printed on his pass book legibly for his further reference. Let us now discuss about the role played by MIS in a bank.

 

A bank is a financial institution offering financial services to the consumers with the provision of personal saving accounts, current accounts and investment banking, offering various loans and insurance services and also offering the facility of a locker system for the account holders to deposit their valuables safe. For different sets of consumers, different parameters will be a deciding factor to open an account with a Bank like-

 

Location of the Bank

Ease of doing transactions in the Bank

Financial services available to the account holder

Quality of services offered

Courtesy of the Bank employees

Working hours, to name a few.

 

Out of these deciding factors, many of the services could be designed with the help of information about the target class of account holders like their annual income and savings, the routine payments made, loans taken and default in repayment, if any, and general or medical insurance subscribed. A bank will be able to offer services to the various savings and current account holders by keeping a track of their account movements. Any unexpected amount deposited or withdrawn may come to the notice of the Bank authorities immediately with the help of MIS. Retrieving information about the account on demand of the account holder can be done at the click of the mouse, thereby increasing the speed and efficiency of working. The Bank account movement may also provide valuable information to the bank officials for targeting the consumers for the offer of loans and various insurance schemes. If the Bank’s MIS is efficient to collect and analyse such data of the consumer, the banker can bring business for the bank. For the business consumers operating current accounts, there is a different set of needs. These needs may require a highly efficient MIS as the clearing of cheques or overdrafts may be dependent upon the information retrieved from the MIS. Quality consumer service is possible with the help of MIS. Thus, it can be concluded that an efficient MIS system can actually facilitate the process of developing business strategy for a Bank and also increase the productivity of the Bank officials by providing quick services to the consumers.

 

b) Application of MIS in Airlines industry-

 

Airlines are a means of transport facilitating both domestic and international movement of goods and people. The benefits of adherence to schedules, convenience and time saving are the most expected level of service performance. Ground staff service, Crew service and quality of drinks and meals in flight are the augmented level of Service delivery. For most of the services offered to the traveler right from the decision to buy a ticket and book a seat on a flight till the time the traveler is off the flight, MIS plays a very important role to delight a traveler. From the moment a target consumer looks for the availability of seats on a flight of a given route with the prices, the active search will land him to the travel agent or on the webpage. Both will use the MIS of the airlines to deliver the required information. The second step of booking the seat can also be done online, again, feeding the desired set of variables into the Airlines MIS. The time taken for checking in of the traveler into the Airport and getting the necessary clearances till the time the flight is boarded make use of MIS. The following data may be helpful for the Airlines in providing good service to the traveler: getting the travel details like type of seat, class of seat and the number of people travelling together, the socio-cultural background of the consumer may be helpful for the crew members to offer meals etc.

 

Apart from the apparently visible traveler service the airlines makes use of MIS at each back end operations like the seats booking on various flights to ensure full occupancy, check in time for the travelers and the required information to the concerned ground staff and the crew etc.

 

c) Application of MIS in Entertainment industry-

 

One of the fast growing sector of entertainment industry is the big screens and movie multiplex. The sector largely depends upon the MIS for the smooth sale of tickets and other consumer services. The scheduling of different movies on different show times on different days are a complex job to be managed in a multiplex having big screens from three to seven in numbers. This scheduling can be done smoothly with the help of MIS. The expected rating of the movies can also facilitate the frequency of the shows to be planned. Further, the sale of tickets to ensure full occupancy being cautious of duplicate selling while selling online as well as from the multiplex counter is also facilitated through an efficient MIS which may display the image of the theatre seating plan and keep on highlighting the various seats being sold. This system may also be used to keep a track of tickets sold with refreshment coupons or without. Thus, the scheduling and sales of tickets for current shows and advance shows of various movies in different screens can be efficiently managed with the help of MIS resulting in good quality service by the multiplex staff to the audience.

 

Apart from the customized application of MIS as discussed in the three examples above, there are some common use of the MIS for various organizations. Some of these are discussed in brief below:

 

i) Attendance, payroll and increment due date of all the employees of the organization

ii) Name, addresses, contact numbers and mail ids of all the employees of an organization.

iii) Duty roaster and the weekly permitted off schedules of the staff

iv) Cash billing details, online billing details

v) Store and inventory management, planning and control

vi)  Services Maintenance facilities

 

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

 

7.  With the help of an example, describe the application of MIS in any industry you have observed. Do you agree that the use of MIS has enhanced the quality of service delivery? How?

 

1.5 Impact of MIS in Service organizations

 

As discussed in the above examples, MIS plays a very important role in the service organisations in the highly competitive world focusing on ensuring high service quality delivery. In this section, we will discuss about the impact that MIS is likely to have on different aspects of a service organization.

 

i) Support to all functional departments– The MIS has a strong impact on the efficient working of all the functional departments of the organization like Purchase, Production, HR, marketing and Finance. The scheduling, observation and controlling of the goals and deadlines set for various activities in different departments can be managed smoothly with the MIS. The functional managers may easily observe any deficiencies or shortfalls in the target accomplishment and take a remedial action in time.

 

ii) Facilitates long term planning– The information retrieved from the MIS on various trends in the past may be a guiding post to the future planning. The plans designed in the past, their accomplishments or deficiencies, the remedial steps taken etc may be a very useful tool for new plans to be designed by providing the necessary learning as well as saves a lot of time for the strategists.

 

iii) Impacts in defining the business– When an organization develops and designs an MIS, it needs to start from the scratch by defining the important attributes, processes, defining the data entry variables, sources of data generation, sources of data entry and sources and limits of data retrieval. This exercise done by the top level management, in itself, brings clarity in chalking out the basic business of an organization and the Key result areas (KRA) for achieving success in its working.

 

iv) Leads to process redesign– The development of MIS may actually result in the clear and accurate mapping of the various processes important in an organization for the purpose of developing the necessary formats and flowcharts for the MIS. This facilitates in the identification of any overlapping or duplication of any activity or a task in an organization. Hence the brief being given for the development of MIS may facilitate in the redesigning of the organizational functional processes.

 

 

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

 

8.       Can an organization be flexible in delivering service? How?

9.       Is it possible for a service organization to redesign its process due to the introduction of MIS? How?

 

1.6 Conclusion

 

A well developed and clearly designed Management Information System could be useful in the attainment of the organizational objectives. With the short term goals and long term objectives being clearly fed into the computerized system for the adherence of the time schedule, it gives focus and unity of direction to the entire organization for the accomplishment of individual goals leading to the attainment of overall organizational goals in a time bound manner. This system facilitates the service sector by providing necessary information on the consumers details and their past service purchase trends facilitating the customization of the service delivery for future reference. Such timely and accurate information comes in handy for a creative service design development, which is flexible to be developed and delivered, unlike a product. The use of various tools in the software facilitates in enhancing the efficiency of the employees resulting in improved consumer services, as we have discussed in the example of a Bank, Airlines and entertainment industry.

 

1.7 Summary

 

Management Information system is a computerized database of various organizational information, generated, both within and outside the organization, for the purpose of taking various decisions, tabulated in user friendly formats and available for retrieval of timely and concise data to the authorized users. Managerial activities mean taking decisions at every step. A creatively and customized designed MIS for the service organization can result in enhanced efficiency of the organisation by making the decision making effective in the presence of required internal and external data affecting that particular decision. The availability of such important and timely information can be very useful for the service managers in taking decisions for delivering high quality services to the consumers resulting in increased sales and increased profits. Since the data feeding , analysis and retrieving is done on the computers, the service employee is saved of the manual record keeping and is benefitted with the retrieval of required information quickly. As high as about sixty-five to seventy percent of the clerical effort in a service organization may go in record writing, processing and retrieving the information manually, which has a direct impact on not only the cost and time in record keeping but also the efficiency with which such entries may be done and maintained.

 

Learn More:

 

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