Introduction to the organization
For any institution to work properly, it needs an information system set up. This is so because the company has to coordinate all the activities at a central point or on a distributed system that can be audited. Management information systems (MIS) are methods of using technology to help organizations manage people and make decisions efficiently.
Management information systems are used by managers to assemble and evaluate information about various aspects of the business such as employees, sales, accounts, production or other pertinent factors.
Every company needs to enumerate its employees. In this regard, it prompts it have a management information system in place. Previously, these companies used to have things like ledger books and books for logging into work. These traditional methods were so much flawed such that, it was difficult to recognize duplicates in the records. Sometimes the company would pay what is commonly known as ‘ghost workers’.
Ghost workers are nonexistent workers in the employees’ payroll but they do not exist physically. This means that the company remits wages or salaries to people who do not actually work in these institutions. The situation was very pathetic because a blacklisting mechanism was difficult to implement.
Another area where there was massive error was in the books of accounts. In most cases, large companies had problems of balancing books of accounts because the work was too much and it was done manually. Sometimes, there was demand for work to be shared among a group of accountants who may not accept responsibility of a mistake for example, in the balance sheet.
With the invention of personal computers and other information technology tools, the companies had to develop a proper information technology system that would handle the work of the organization and reduce the errors that were experienced previously. This paper takes a sample institution and tries to explore the management information system used in the company.
Background
The Microsoft Corporation is a giant Software company that has major market share in the software industry especially in Operating systems and Office applications. The lines below explain the inception Microsoft Corporation in a nutshell. Thirty four years ago, a nineteen year old kid and his twenty-two year old business partner sold their first program to a little computer company in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The program was called BASIC, and it was the start of this company, Microsoft (“The History…”2012). The company and its Chief Executive officer saw a bright future in the software industry.
The management concentrated in the improvement of their products. With that in mind, they also thought of the idea of stealing knowledge and ideas. They raised the issue of piracy and patented the name Microsoft in order to safeguard identity.
Information technology policy, innovative use, IT as an enabler
Having laid down the necessary ground for the growth of the company, Bill gates and his friend hired the first fulltime employee and concentrated on software development. Programming is the study of using defined sets of instructions known as programming software to create other software. Examples of programming languages used by Microsoft are COBOL, FORTRAN and Visual C++.
The business of Microsoft became stronger as they ventured into the operating system software. In fact, “1981 means an entrance into the Operating Systems Business” (Sullivan 77). Microsoft developed its operating system which it called the Microsoft Windows OS.
This is a graphical user interface based operating system designed to enable computer users to use computers with ease. It also concentrated in the gaming and animation activities by collaborating with companies like Dream Works and Apple computers.
Information systems Architecture
Microsoft is also popular in the offices because of three main things. These tools are the Microsoft Windows server, the cloud system and the office automation applications. The office automation packages include Excel, Word, Publisher, PowerPoint and others. Indeed, it is a giant organization because it sells its products to the whole world. It markets its products and services to more than seven billion inhabitants of the world.
Microsoft’s new ventures are the development of smart phones and operating systems of the smart phones. With this in mind, it is clear that Microsoft had to work on a robust management system that enables proper operation of the organization including hiring of staff.
It is clear that Microsoft was started by Bill Gates and his friend as the sole proprietors of the company. They hired casual employees and in 1978, they hired the first fulltime employee to the company. At this point in time, the company did not have departments. As the company grew bigger, there was need to separate the functions to each department.
For example, there was need to hire more talented employees to handle the enormous activities of the company thus, the need for the human resource department. There was a widened area of its market hence, the sales and marketing department was created. The fact that the company had to tussle with people who pirated its product, it led to the inception of the legal wing of Microsoft.
Obviously, all the departments had to report to the company owners who comprise of the top management and the board of directors. The company deals with Information and Technology Tools which in itself had to be used to make its operations automated, validated and licensed to reduce duplication of sold copies.
Findings, analysis and discussion
The company is governed by a board of directors ready to work for the company and take it to greater heights. This is illustrated by the statement on their Microsoft’s site stating that anything they undertake to uphold their success and create value for their stakeholders and customers should be guided by long term thoughts.
“Good corporate governance encourages accountability and transparency, and promotes good decision making to support our business over decades” (IBM Agricultural Symposium 8).In the management of the company, the board of directors is the top decision maker.
The board of directors is elected by the shareholders. However, the decisions of the board of directors are independent of the management and are usually made to the best interest of the company.
The founder of the corporation Bill gates had a vision for all offices in the world and used his best skills in the development of software to automate the business and business transactions. Microsoft indeed has embraced technology in its management. From its model, it has been able to develop software to enable management in companies easier.
They use Office 360, Microsoft accounting essentials and project management tools to accomplish major operations in the company. Office 360 enables the interconnection of the corporation’s offices intertwined with the networking tools (both Local area and wide area networks).
The accounting essentials enable the company process its books of accounts and prepare reports for such transactions, while Microsoft project enables the company to make time tables for its software development activities.
By use of system analysis and design tools such as the Gantt and pert charts, Microsoft’s software development activities are accomplished within a specified time. Other technology tools employed by Microsoft are the use of databases, data encryption and decryption tools. These tools enable Microsoft to protect their work by hiding from potential violators of piracy laws.
Due to the use of the technology and Microsoft’s desire to protect its work, it is fair to look at the management system it uses to minimise piracy. One may ask how Microsoft implements this information management system in this department. The process is simple but first things first. Microsoft thought of a situation whereby, it would protect its customers from software counterfeit.
This idea was great however, implementation was a challenge. After great thinking and pondering about the idea, they came up with the genuine advantage system. Microelectronics in Agriculture – Facts and Trends (17) explains that, “Genuine Windows is published by Microsoft, properly licensed, and supported. With genuine Windows, you get access to support, updates, and downloads to help you get the most from your PC”.
They dubbed it genuine advantage because they need the customers to insist on buying genuine software so that they can be able to enjoy value added services from Microsoft such as free antivirus software.
The system is organised in a series of stages that help the customer to get the best out of Microsoft operating system. The first step is to teach the customers the importance of having genuine software from Microsoft Corporation through authorised dealers. Once the customer installs the software, it pops up an initial message asking him/her to validate the windows to ensure that it is genuine through the internet.
The customer then can be able to access the central database of Microsoft’s genuine copies of the software. The customer will decide to register his/her product so that he/she may get the value added services through the genuine advantage from Microsoft. This information management system is a robust system that can be able to handle data throughout the world without being hacked into and consequently inconveniencing the customer.
This enabled Microsoft to reduce counterfeiting and piracy. In a single line, the architecture could be to learn about Microsoft’s genuine software and its advantages, select the software wanted from an authorised dealer, install the software, and make the software genuine online. The advantage centre validates your software and start enjoying genuine software value added services from Microsoft.
The system employed is good; however, it has various shortcomings like not being able to use the software fully if you don’t have internet connection. There is also malicious corruption of data and the way data transmitted through internet browsers is possible to be classified as counterfeit because of the information browser send to the central database that may not march.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the decision system is not well designed because there are communication barriers between the user and the corporation while the advantage of the system gets out of date so easily, reinstallation of software in the same system after crashing may be considered counterfeit, and customers incurring extra costs in internet connection.
To mitigate this, Microsoft should come up with a better information management system that is properly structured to avoid the hitches caused in the genuine advantage system.
Works Cited
IBM Agricultural Symposium. Management Information Systems. Web.
Microelectronics in Agriculture. Facts and Trends Papers from International DLG – Congress for Computer Technology held in Hanover Germany. Web.
Sullivan, Laurie. Heavyweight Retailer Looks Inward to Stay Innovative in Business Technology. Washington, DC: DIANE Publishing, 1998. Print.