Recent Developments in MIS
Recent Developments in MIS
Shilpi Mahajan
MAIMS
ERP integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization,
embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship
management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. Its
purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the
boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders.
ERP systems can run on a variety of hardware and network configurations, typically employing a
database as a repository for information.
An integrated system that operates in real time (or next to real time), without relying on
periodic updates.
A common database, which supports all applications.
A consistent look and feel throughout each module.
Installation of the system without elaborate application/data integration by the
Information Technology (IT) department.
EFM is a system of processes and software that enables organizations to centrally manage
deployment of surveys while dispersing authoring and analysis throughout an organization.
EFM systems typically provide different roles and permission levels for different types of
users, such as novice survey authors, professional survey authors, survey reporters and
translators.
EFM can help an organization establish a dialogue with employees, partners, and customers
regarding key issues and concerns and potentially make customer specific real time
interventions. EFM consists of data collection, analysis and reporting.
Prior to EFM, survey software was typically deployed in departments and lacked user roles,
permissions and workflow. EFM enables deployment across the enterprise, providing decision
makers with important data for increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty and lifetime value. EFM
enables companies to look at customers "holistically" and to better respond to customer needs.
EFM applications support complex survey design, with features such as question and page
rotation, quota management and advanced skip patterns and branching. The software typically
offers advanced reporting with stastical analysis and centralized panel management. EFM
applications are often integrated with external platforms, most typically with CRM systems but
also with HRIS systems and generic web portals.
4. E-procurement
E-procurement is done with a software application that includes features for supplier
management and complex auctions. The new generation of E-Procurement is now on-demand or
a software-as-a-service.
Another definition is provided by the APICS Dictionary when it defines SCM as the "design,
planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of
creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics,
synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally."
Supply chain management is the systematic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions
and the tactics across these business functions within a particular company and across businesses within
the supply chain, for the purposes of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies
and the supply chain as a whole (Mentzer et al., 2001).
6. Data mining
The term is a buzzword, and is frequently misused to mean any form of large scale data or
information processing (collection, extraction, warehousing, analysis and statistics) but also
generalized to any kind of computer system support system including artificial intelligence.
The actual data mining task is the automatic or semi-automatic analysis of large quantities of
data in order to extract previously unknown interesting patterns such as groups of data records
(cluster analysis), unusual records (anomaly detection) and dependencies. For example, the data
mining step might identify multiple groups in the data, which can then be used to obtain more
accurate prediction results by a decision support system. Neither the data collection, data
preparation or result interpretation and reporting are part of the data mining step, but do belong
to the overall data mining process as additional steps.
7. Data Warehousing
In computing, a data warehouse (DW) is a database used for reporting and analysis. The data
stored in the warehouse is uploaded from the operational systems. The data may pass through an
operational data store for additional operations before it is used in the DW for reporting.
A data warehouse maintains its functions in three layers: staging, integration, and access. Staging
is used to store raw data for use by developers. The integration layer is used to integrate data and
to have a level of abstraction from users. The access layer is for getting data out for users.
This definition of the data warehouse focuses on data storage. The main source of the data is
cleaned, transformed, catalogued and made available for use by managers and other business
professionals for data mining, online analytical processing, market research and decision support
(Marakas & O'Brien 2009). However, the means to retrieve and analyze data, to extract,
transform and load data, and to manage the data dictionary are also considered essential
components of a data warehousing system.
8. Electronic Commerce
A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely in electronic form for virtual
items such as access to premium content on a website, but mostly electronic commerce involves
the transportation of physical items in some way.