Mis 18MB9013 PDF
Mis 18MB9013 PDF
Mis 18MB9013 PDF
Subject with Code : Management Information System (18MB712) Course & Branch: MBA
Year & Sem: I-MBA & II-Sem Regulation: R18
UNIT-I
Introduction to MIS
UNIT-II
Structure of MIS
1. What is called structure of MIS? Discuss?
2. What are the Basic structural concepts?
3. Write down the differences between public and private information system?
4. What is MIS Office automation?
5. Describe the functionality of Decision Support System?
6. How Knowledge Work Systems works?
7. Artificial Intelligence menace what? Explain with definition?
8. A. What is Formal information? Example?
B. What is Informal information? Example
9. What is called Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS)?
UNIT-V
Enterprise Resource Planning
1. Explain CRM system?
2. Differentiate between EPR and Conventional package?
3. What are the objectives of ERP?
4. What is ERP? Explain?
5. What is the relation between MIS & Enterprise Resource Planning?
6. What is need of maintenance in MIS?
Management Information System Page 2
QUESTION BANK 2019
This might sound hard to believe, but a bit more than a decade ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Apple Computer Inc., now back from near oblivion, is blazing a trail through the digital world with innovation
and creativity that has been missing from the company for the past 20 years. The unique feature of Apple‘s
competitive advantages is that they come from customers and users, not Apple employees. That‘s right; the
company welcomes products created by consumers to sell to consumers, a trend new to business.
With millions of iPods in the hands of consumers, many people are finding ways to capitalize on the product.
John Lin created a prototype of a remote control for the iPod and took his prototype to Macworld, where he
found success. A few months later, Lin‘s company had Apple‘s blessing and a commitment for shelf space in its
retail stores. ―This is how Apple supports the iPod economy,‖ Lin said. In the iPod-dominated market, hundreds
of companies have been inspired to develop more than 500 accessories—everything from rechargers for the car
to $1,500 Fendi bags.
Eric Tong, vice president at Belkin, a cable and peripheral manufacturer, believes that 75 percent of all iPod
owners purchase at least one accessory—selling over 30 million accessories to date. With most of the products
priced between $10 and $200, that puts the iPod economy well over $300 million and perhaps as high as $6
billion. Popular iPod accessories include:
Apple—socks set in six colors: green, purple, blue, orange, pink, and gray ($29).
Looking at someone using an iPhone is an interesting experience because there is a good chance they are not
making a phone call. They could be doing a number of things from playing a game to trading stocks, watching a
TV show, or even conducting business with a mobile version of salesforce.com ‘s customer-management
software. In a brilliant strategic move, Apple let outsiders offer software for the iPhone and in less than six
months, more than 10,000 applications had been created. In fact, more than 15,000 applications are available at
its app store section of iTunes, and they have been downloaded a total of 500 million times. Now, many of the
iPhone apps are available for the iPad. The iPhone and iPad app store market is getting so huge relative to other
smartphone markets that some developers argue there is little point adapting applications for Google‘s Android
or any other iPhone competitor. According to Jeff Holden, CEO of Pelago Inc., when he created his social
networking company he fully intended to follow the conventional wisdom for how to build a sizable, fast-
growing software company: Get your programs on as many platforms and devices as possible. But when he
crunched the numbers he came to an interesting business conclusion: The 13 million iPhone owners had already
downloaded more applications than the 1.1 billion other cell phone owners! To entrepreneurs, developing a
program for the iPhone automatically provides a significantly larger market—almost 94 times larger than its
competitors. ―Why would I ever build for anything but the iPhone?‖ Holden asked
Questions:
1) Why are data, information, business intelligence, and knowledge important to Apple? Give an example of
each type in relation to the iPad.
2) Explain how Apple achieved business success through the use of information, information technology, and
people.
3) Evaluate how Apple can gain business intelligence through the implementation of a customer relationship
management system.
With the advent of science and technology, technological innovations have become a pre-requisite to achieve
operational and strategic excellence. Organizations by using state-of-the-art systems, are striving for their best to
achieve sustainable and long-term competitive advantage. It has become sine qua non to use modern tools for
the effective achievement of goals and objectives. Its importance can also be observed from the increased
spending on Research & Development in order to pace up with the todays dynamic business environment. Wal-
Mart, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is the world's largest retailer that employs about 2.1 million associates
worldwide, in more than 8,400 stores, including 8, discount stores, 3,100 combination discount and grocery
stores.
Wal-Mart is serving its customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 8,613 retail
units under 55 different banners in 15 countries. Wal-Mart has ranked first among retailers in Fortune
Magazine's 2010 Most Admired Companies survey with fiscal year 2010 sales of $405 billion. Sam Walton's
belief was to build an empire by providing value to its customers and empowering employees, also known as
associates. The way the Wal-Mart operates is so fascinating and impressive that Jack Welch, CEO of General
Electric once said: "Many of our management teams spent time there observing the speed, the bias for action, the
utter customer fixation that drives Wal-Mart." The use of high-tech Information technology has always been an
essential ingredient for WalMart's growth. Since its inception, it has used the IT systems well enough for the
Inventory, administrative, customers and suppliers management.
Wal-Mart's investment in technology started with the computerized accounting systems and since then the
continuous adoption of latest technologies has made Wal-Mart a market leader in the whole retail industry. Wal-
Mart developed a well-equipped computerized Point of Sale (POS) system capable of identifying each unit sold,
creation of accurate sales receipt and storing all the information itemby-item for sales analysis and inventory
reordering purposes. It helped company to avoid overstocking of merchandize through effective information
usage and also assisted them in investing in only those merchandize that were profitable. It has also helped them
figure out best selling products and prospective products that customers want. Analysts say that it is Wal-Mart's
Management Information System Page 4
QUESTION BANK 2019
Point of Sale system that has helped them achieve the world's largest market share and revenues in retail
industry. Wal-Mart, in 2004, was the first in retail industry to adopt electronic radio frequency identification
(RFID) tags for inventory distribution management. RFID technology, which is still being used, helps them keep
track of inventory movement across its supply chain. Wal-Mart was trailing KMart in 1980's but with the
adoption of latest technologies, it has now become the trend setter in retail industry all over the world. Wal-Mart
is currently working on a project to make best out of wireless technology. In near future, they have plans to
develop a remote system that would allow customers to just walk into their store and use their own devices
(Phones or PDA's) to get whatever they want. i.e. they might go online to their website, while at the store, and
find things for themselves or just compare the products' prices etc.
Customer service, best shopping environment and experience, one-stop shopping, best value products, customer
convenience of online shopping, good customer relations are the blessings that Wal-Mart provides using cutting-
edge technology. Latest wireless system at their stores, online web-retailing, vast width and hierarchy of product
items, and stores at multiple remote sites are the benefits customers of Wal-Mart cherish. Wal-Mart is
considered to be a trend setter in retail industry and it's all due to its inclination towards achieving impossible
through modern technology. For example, Wal-Mart once tried to develop three experimental stores in
McKinney, Aurora and Las Vegas that were equipped with latest technologies or concepts like wind turbines,
photovoltaic solar panels, bio-fuel-capable boilers and water-cooled refrigerators. Irrespective of the criticism it
had on environmental issues, Wal-Mart's initiative was considered to be a positive step towards change and
innovation and it provided them with an opportunity to become the biggest seller of organic milk and the biggest
buyer of organic cotton in the world, as well as reducing packaging and energy costs. It has been quoted in
2006's annual report of Wal-Mart that in order to compete against upscale and appealing store, such as 'Target',
they have launched a new Supercenter concept in Plano, Texas. The new store had wood floors, wider aisles, a
sushi bar, a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi Internet access, and more expensive beers, wines and other electronics
goods.
By using advance forecasting techniques and integrating different technologies, Wal-Mart is planning to deploy
simulation software that would help them simulate business events that are yet to happen.
Wal-Mart has got a strategic plan of introducing a concept of self-service. Self-service technology,
aimed at eliminating paper and paper forms, will be provided to their associates, prospective
associates, customers and members. It was said by Kevin Turner, CEO of Wal-Mart's subsidiary
corporation, in his interview with 'CIO' personnel that "having an associate portal and devices on
our sales floors will let customers and members get product information, and let us do computerassisted selling".
Wal-Mart has been outstanding in its investments in Information technology from all prospects.
IT systems at Wal-Mart allow them to reduce transactional as well as operational costs at their
distribution centers and it has also helped them to support Wal-Mart's long-term strategy of owning
the distribution centers and maintaining long-term relationships with their suppliers. Also,
improvement in productivity due to IT systems is dramatic at Wal-Mart. It has helped them offer
products at such a nominal cost that a small town merchant is unable to provide and this is
remarkable achievement of Wal-Mart. It has become a sustainable competitive advantage for them
over their competitors and a reason of their growth and profitability. We are aware of a fact that
every benefit is accompanied with some problem but Wal-Mart has successfully defied its
weaknesses and have used its strength well to take advantage from the prospective opportunities
and avoiding possible threats
Questions:
1) How IT and IS may be used to help the company operate and achieve its objective
2) Discuss the challenges faced by the CIO - which are the most important and why?
3) What role does information technology play in the business? How is it helping Walmart refine its
business strategies?
4) Summarize the main purposes of information systems in organizations
Case Study: 3
A new on-line teller system design for a medium size bank was approved by the president, signaling
the beginning of implementation. The project leader devised a master plan to specify who is to perform
each task and in what order. New deposit slips and withdrawers were ordered and delivered three
weeks before implementation. In the interim, copies of the user manual were prepared for the lobby
and drive-in-tellers. Soon after the terminals were installed, the tellers begin to learn how to enter
various transactions. After training sessions were over, they had a chance to ask questions and enquire
about the new system. Once completed, the telephone company and the computer service
representative hooked up the terminal on-line with the master system.
The following Monday (a week before actual conversion), the analyst asked the head teller whether
the tellers would come in on Saturday to catch up on their work and run test data to reinforce recent
training. The head teller agreed to overtime, but on Saturday, only 12 of 17 tellers showed up. During
that time, the entire system was checked out and functioned as expected.
The bank opened the following Monday, the online system operated normally. Customers were
greeted at the door by the president. Coffee and cake were served in the lobby. At the end of the day,
the analyst sent a report to the board directors informing them that the system was now in operation
and all user requirements had been met.
Three weeks later the analyst was called to the board meeting. The chairman criticized the analyst for
exceeding the budgeted amount approved by the board. Furthermore the authorization the analyst gave
the terminal vendor to bring in two CRT screens to expedite information retrieval exceeded his
authority to implement the system. The bank‘s auditor also estimated that it would take 3.8 years rather
than the initial estimate of 2.1 years to break even on the total cost of the installation. Not knowing
what to say, the analyst left the board room with a feeling of total failure.
(a) What are the major problems in the case? Who is to blame? Why?
(b) Was the board chairman justified in his criticism of the analyst? Explain.
Case Summary:
A waiter takes an order at a table, and then enters it online via one of the six terminals located in the
restaurant dining room. The order is routed to a printer in the appropriate preparation area: the cold
item printer if it is a salad, the hot-item printer if it is a hot sandwich or the bar printer if it is a drink. A
customer‘s meal check-listing (bill) the items ordered and the respective prices are automatically
generated. This ordering system eliminates the old three-carbon-copy guest check system as well as
any problems caused by a waiter‘s handwriting. When the kitchen runs out of a food item, the cooks
send out an ‗out of stock‘ message, which will be displayed on the dining room terminals when waiters
try to order that item. This gives the waiters faster feedback, enabling them to give better service to the
customers. Other system features aid management in the planning and control of their restaurant
business. The system provides up-to-the-minute information on the food items ordered and breaks out
percentages showing sales of each item versus total sales. This helps management plan menus
according to customers‘ tastes. The system also compares the weekly sales totals versus food costs,
allowing planning for tighter cost controls. In addition, whenever an order is voided, the reasons for the
void are keyed in. This may help later in management decisions, especially if the voids consistently
related to food or service. Acceptance of the system by the users is exceptionally high since the waiters
and waitresses were involved in the selection and design process. All potential users were asked to give
their impressions and ideas about the various systems available before one was chosen.
Questions:
1. In the light of the system, describe the decisions to be made in the area of strategic planning,
managerial control and operational control? What information would you require to make such
decisions?
2. What would make the system a more complete MIS rather than just doing transaction
processing?
3. Explain the probable effects that making the system more formal would have on the customers
and the management.