The effect of management information system on the efficiency on the service delivery

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The history of information management can be traced back to the industrial exhibition of Paris in 1801. There, Joseph Marie Charles Jacquard introduced the world to punch cards.

These cards which were similar to the computer punch cards used through much of the 20^th century.

When computers began to emerge in the 1940s and 1950s, punch card were still a big part of information system.

They continued to play a role until the 1970s when they were replaced by magnetic storage media like; Taps and Disc.

These storage devices greatly increased the seed of processing data, MIS began to develop for accounting. Calculating data and compiling it into reports could now be done in a fraction of the time it would have taken before.

from the 1970s to the 1990s as computers became smaller, faster and more affordable, MIS developed beyond accounting to other business areas, like inventory, sales, marketing, manufacturing process and engineering most of these systems ran independently of each other, each using different software and different computers for a large company to get a complete picture for its progress, report from different department will be reentered into another system, often in the man frame computer.

Small business simply did not have the resources to complete such an endeavor and would have to compile different reports manual, often on paper.

During the first years of computerized MIS (nid 1960-1970s), information system were centralized and concerned solely with governance and the need of management.

Most information systems and their reports were under the control of account departments. Technology included third generation main frame computers like IBM 360. Languages included Assembler, COBO and Data base.

Ethernet networks were developed during this time. While MIS was still mainly concerned with the needs of management from mid 1970- mid 1980s, more department were beginning to benefit from the technology.

In many companies, steering committee and user LED initiative determined the shape and scope of additional information system.

Technology included first personal computers (PLs), mini computers and Mid Range computers. During mid 1980s – late 1990s, centralized information system began to spread out and information became decentralized. Each department and its own computer system.

Management information was often referred to a ‘’herding cats’’. It was during this area that a new position emerged in main companies to oversee the acquisition and management of multiple information system like, the chief information Officer or CIA.

Technology during this area included internetworking and the beginning of internet. During current era (late 1990s, till date) information system are still tightly tight to governance and management;however the systems are widely distributed within the reach of nearly every employee who needs it across multiple platforms.

Many information systems are integrated between different companies, so that a client business can readily access supplier information and their customers, in-turn, can access that information technology now includes social media and search engines through a variety of platforms including laptops, tablets and smart phones.

The increase in internet band width over recent years has led to substantial reliance of cloud competing.

As a result some maintain that this marks a new area in workers ascendancy and that we are now in a fifth area of MIS.

Today, practically any employee is now in a position to make informed decisions with tools at readily available over multiple platforms.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s in Africa, development focused ICT Research predominantly concentrated on bridging the digital divide through overcoming connectivity and access barriers for more and more of Africa’s population by providing connection to the rest of the world to ultimately overcome the so-called “last mile” challenge.

As the penetration of ICTs increased across the African continent in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the focus started to shift to the uptake and impact of these ICT to transform African Societies and Economies. Since enhancing information flows alone is not sufficient to grasp development opportunities.

In many countries in Africa, advances in ICT and telecommunication have facilitated people’s day to day activities. Millions of poor Africans now have access to internet services, driving the continent to become updated when it comes to ICT.

The integration of ICT in the daily life activities of people in developing countries has inevitably brought them to integrate the “digital economy”.

Therefore, the introduction of ICT in Africa in the late 2000 and early 2010 facilitated information processing and storage in many organisations and institutions through the use of the new computerized information system technology.

Unlike in the Sub-Saharan African Countries where development rate is very slow compared to other African countries, ICT has been introduced but innovations on ICT is very slow and discouraging. It is difficult to penetrate regions in Sub-Saharan Africa where merely 29% of roads are paved.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest of the poorest regions in the world and have lowest access to information and communication resources. With respect to telephone lines for example, there are only 14 and 19 telephones per 1000 inhabitants respectively in the two regions compared with 69 in low middle-income countries.

However, since the mid-1990s, countries that have adopted deregulation and privatization policies have experiences rapid growth in the expansion of communication network. Access to advanced ICTs (internet, fax and computers) is very low except among firms in the services and export sectors.

And even among firms that own a computer, usage levels are low. There are a number of reasons for this. First, with respect to the internet, the available content is often not relevant to the information needs of local firms.

Second off- the-shelf software is not well suited to the requirements of small enterprises and institutions. Finally, institutions and firms lack staffs capable of maintaining hardware.

In less developed countries such as Cameroon, ICT is not an end in itself, for but a powerful tool to help increase productivity, competitiveness, stimulate growth, create employment opportunities and as such improve the wellbeing of Cameroonians.

Cameroon intends to use ICTs to build a people-centre inclusive and development-oriented information society where its citizens can create access, utilize and share information and knowledge in a bid to achieve sustainable social and economic growth.

Consequently, the president of the republic H.E.Paul Biya, strongly emphasized on November 30^th 2002, that the effective emergence of an information system updated society in Cameroon would help “strengthen unity between our people and combat inequalities by granting information and knowledge to most Cameroonians…” and thus “make the country better placed to enter the third millennium”.

He has repeated invited Cameroonians of all works of life to adopt the use of ICT in their daily activities in an effort to combat ignorance, poverty and exclusion from the information society. It is this light that he set the information society.

It is in this light that he set the tone in his November 3, 2004 speech, when he stated inter alia, “our country need generalized internet access” thus several national initiatives aimed at stimulating the use of ICT, as a development tool to alleviate many challenges issues. This include:

Formulation of a sector strategy in the field of telecommunication and ICT by the ministry of Post and Telecommunications.

• The implementation of an ICT development program by the ministry of Aigher Education.
• The introduction of ICT in the management of state personnel by the ministry of the Public service and Administrative reform.
• The computerization of both national identity cards and electoral process.

These strategies take into account the government’s desire to make the ICT sector a major player in promoting active and responsible citizenship. This objective is a prerequisite for the implementation of a vast ICT   sector development program.

Services represents substantial part of business output and investments. In providing these services, management information system (MIS) is employed to facilitate the services, which represents a substantial portion of corporate spending.

The objective of such investment is to create business value. But in order for any investment to have a positive impact on business values additional revenues need to be created or overall costs reduces.

Thus when evaluating investment in services that have potential contributions to the improvement of business performance, the interactions of cost among the various business process and activities need to be considered (R02tockT and Weistroffer, 2008)

Investment in information technology can have dramatic effects on both the internal and external operations of a business organization as well as academic institutions.

Internally improved IT systems can enhance and strengthen organizational infrastructure and by increasing employees’ efficiency service coordination, information sharing between departments, financial record keeping and tracking of an organizations production and impact. Externally, information technology solution can fundamentally transform business organization service delivery (Allison, 2010).

• Problem Statement

An effective management information system programmed in institutions well eventually ease work and service delivering. Information system has to do with the critical functioning of institutions. The availability of computers sets with a good mastery on how to process data, hard ware and software programming, are all necessary and essential tools to make the service delivery efficient.

The problem we have in many institutions now is the lack of an effective MIS thus rendering service delivery inefficient.

This is all as a result of the lack of a full computer set, that is, the lack of sufficient printers, many institutions are still very attached to the old way of keeping information, that is, keeping information in files rather than making effective use of their computers in order to process data in the computers system, making information easy to manage, safe to store, quick to use and easily accessible.

It is very important to consider these problem because as earlier mentioned information system has to do with the critical functioning of institutions and if not taken into consideration, institutions will experience slow improvements in the way it’s managed and how it renders its services.

Files might get easily lost, difficult to find information hard to access and sometimes information get hard to be processed therefore affecting the students, rendering management difficult at the various management levels in the institution which are all issues no institution would like to face.

Institution might experience loss of students because of the poor services it delivers to them as a result of these problems. An increase in growth of institutions leads to a lot of information to be handled and stored.

Solutions proposed to avoid institutions from facing set back on their service delivery due to poor MIS standards are; institutions should buy more computer with complete sets so as to ease the use of information systems. Detach themselves from still storing information like in the olden days that is keep information in files and storing them in closed cupboard.

Updating software of the computers and employing qualified staff members on how to use that updated software. Many of the most common MIS issues can be traced back to lack of a solid strategy. Information systems leaders are well aware of the many tools available to gather data on their network. But putting that information to use is often a challenge.

At one time, technology departments served as a separate operation, providing tech support and keeping an organizations server equipment running.

Today, MIS leadership often sits alongside other business leaders, working together to ensure that the technology being used supports the overall mission of the company moving forward.