THE ROLE OF A COMPUTERIZED MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM IN MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING
THE ROLE OF A COMPUTERIZED MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM IN MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING
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Date
2000-09
Authors
Zakaria Maimalari, Amina
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Abstract
The role of a computerised Management Information System (MIS) in Management
Decision Making was defined by investigating the functions and services which the MIS
department of Nitel - Kaduna provides for managers of the organisation to enable them
make functional decisions.
The MIS department deals with the Billings aspects of the Accounts department of Nitel
Plc, covering the North-West Zone of the organisation. The zone comprises seven
territories with headquarters in Kaduna, handling over 90,000 subscribers bills and
generating bill-related reports for management use. The department uses a VAX 4000
computer system (DEC-Model), consisting of 64megabyte memory and 7.0 Gigabytes
harddrive with open VMS AxPV6.1 operating system. The computer uses VAX COBOL
and VAX BASIC programming languages to generate fifteen different types of reports.
The reports generated by the MIS department are:
• Summary Reports;
Territory Accounts Status Report, Performance Report.
• Generation of Related Reports;
International Call Report, Dial and Trunk Call Report, Dial Call charge report,
Digital raw meter report.
• Payment related Reports;
Payment report, Business office bill copy report, First time credit report, Credit
balance report, Bank listing report, Payment and Adjustment listing report.
• Customer information related reports;
terminal/final debtors reports, Adhoc reports - could fall under any of the four
categories depending on the contents of the report.
The system operated to generate the reports is a feedback system which uses; pay-inslips,
tapes and meter photographs, update forms and adjustment forms as source
documents for capturing raw data.
Information contained in the reports generated for the Top level managers is
condensed and unstructured, designed for making strategic, decisions. The middle
management use reports containing summarised information obtained from day-today
routine data collection, while information available to lower level managers is
detailed and well structured for making operational decisions.
The reports generated by the MIS department are used by the managers to make
decisions based on a variety of organised voluminous information, suited for peculiar
needs of the users of each report.
The decisions made by managers concern; volume of credit of subscribers, level of
debts of Exchange Area, performance measurement of territories, revenue generation
analysis.
It is necessary for Nitel Plc, Kaduna to use a Wide Area Network (WAN) system in
order for data to be processed uninterrupted on-line" and for information to be made
available to managers on "real-time" for immediate responses by managers to enable
immediate decision making.
Description
A project submitted to the Department of Business Administration, Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of a Masters
Degree in Business Administration (MBA).
September, 2000
Keywords
COMPUTERIZED,, MANAGEMENT,, INFORMATION,, DECISION MAKING.