In our first assignment in Management Information System (MIS) we were asked to choose a local organization or company to study on their best practice in Information System and Information technology practices.

In choosing an organization or company you should consider many things. On our meeting in Management Information System (MIS) we already taught by our facilitator what Information System. Information system is refers to us the combination of software, hardware and peopleware. This term has marked in our mind. So in choosing and organization we should consider that these three terms has in their company. There are lots of companies here in Davao but the local organization/company I choose and together with their best practices in Information Technology/Information System is EMCOR Davao.

What is EMCOR?

EMCOR stand for (Engineering Machinery Corporation) and was started 48 years ago in Davao City as Engineering and Machinery Corp., a franchise dealer of International Harvester, by pioneering entrepreneur Jesus V. del Rosario, who set up Kawasaki Motors (Phils.) Corp., K-Servico Trade, Inc., International Writing Systems Phils. Corp., International Elevator and Equipment, Inc., JVR Foundation and local units of Panasonic Group of Companies.

This company is a 100% Filipino-owned retail business corporation specializing in appliances, furniture, IT products, motorcycles, and money transfer through its network of specialty chain stores in the Visayas, Mindanao, and Palawan areas. With the launching of our online store, EMCOR will now be making its presence known in the online industry and promote its company’s goals and vision to the global community.It was listed by Business World as No. 208 among the country's top 1,000 corporations in 2005 with gross revenues of over P4.4 billion. It registered a 26.4 percent increase in revenues over the previous year, raising its ranking of No. 235 in 2004. Emcor employs more than 2,000 people.

The EMCOR carry a wide array of product lines like Panasonic, JVC, Philips, Sony, Sharp, Samsung, Electrolux, La Germania, Whirlpool, FS Furniture, Sanyo, Canon, Brother, Epson, Toshiba, Acer, Kawasaki, Honda, Suzuki and many others. We have also partnered with Western Union for our money transfer services. The core of our existence is our ability to provide high quality service to our customers by providing the right products at the right time, in the right place and at the right price. They also believe that as responsible members of our society, they should pursue our profit objectives in the spirit of service to the community. They believe in reconciling the profit motive of our Company with service to the nation. Thus, emcor strive to maintain a balance between the interests of our customers, employees, shareholders and the government by supporting national and local agenda for economic development, social reform, educational/scientific research, healthcare and environmental sanitation and preservation. To date, the JVR Foundation has given more than PhP200 Million in philanthropic work. http://emcor.com.ph/about.php

According to Antonio M. Ajero in here column in SunStar entitled Emcor provides PCs to MindanaoMINDANAO'S biggest retail company of appliances, electronic products and motorcycles is focusing its efforts in providing homes with personal computers through a sales and services program called Advance Technology System (ATS). homes.

Severo dela Cruz, Emcor president, said ATS is the company's contribution to the national effort to make Filipinos, especially the young, computer literate in order for the country "not only to survive but also excel in the world's increasingly competitive technology-driven economy." http://www.sunstar.com.ph/

Best Practice in Information System

The term Information System (IS) from the word itself it is refers to a system of people, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization or company, and it includes the company's manual and automated processes. There company used a or computer-based information system which means that the transaction and data records of the company is stored in a specific application software in a computer system and being used when automates some of the information-processing activities of the company .

Information System helps a lot in EMCOR because in terms of data records like the customer file they can easily access the background of that consumer if he/she is a good payer or not. It also helps their database to be properly organized and managed.

Best Practice in Information Technology

When we talk about Information Technology it deals with the use of computers and telecommunications to retrieve and store and transmit information. At the start of any businesses and other organizations, internal reporting was made manually and only periodically, as a by-product of the accounting system and with some additional statistics, and gave limited and delayed information on management performance.


Long time ago, business computers were used for the practical business of computing the payroll and keeping track of accounts payable and accounts receivable. As years goes by applications were developed that provided managers with information about sales, inventories, and other data that would help in managing the enterprise, the term "MIS" arose to describe these kinds of applications. Company uses these as decision support systems, resource and people management applications, project management and database retrieval application. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information database. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems.This true for EMCOR because it helps their company to grow not only their sales but also their branches. It also helps their company in terms of general ledger to financial report because it is well structured and properly documented. Now, EMCOR is the MINDANAO'S biggest retail company of appliances, electronic products and motorcycles.

Therefore, EMCOR’s best practice in Information Technology and Information System has contributed a lot in their company. It makes their works fast, more accurate, cost and offsite.

Managerial Roles According to MITZBERG

Management expert Professor Henry Mintzberg has argued that a manager’s work can be boiled down to ten common roles. According to Mintzberg, these roles, or expectations for a manager’s behavior, fall into three categories: informational (managing by information), interpersonal (managing through people), and decisional (managing through action).
Mintzberg recognizes that managers have formal authority over the unit they manage and as a result of this formal authority and status managerial activities can be seen a set of ten roles.

This Category is Informational. By virtue of interpersonal contacts, both with subordinates and with a network of contacts, the manager emerges as the nerve center of the organizational unit. The manager may not now everything but typically knows more than subordinates do. Processing information is a key part of the manager's job. As monitor, the manager is perpetually scanning the environment for information, interrogating liaison contacts and subordinates, and receiving unsolicited information, much of it as a result of the network of personal contacts. As a disseminator, the manager passes some privileged information directly to subordinates, who would otherwise have no access to it. As spokesperson, the manager sends some information to people outside the unit.

1. Monitor. Seeks and receives wide variety of special information (much of it current) to develop thorough understanding of organization and environment; emerges as nerve centre of internal and external information of the organization. Handling all mail and contacts categorized as concerned primarily with receiving information (e.g., periodical news, observational tours). It is recognized in the work of Sayıes, Neustad, Wrapp, and especially Aguilar.

2. Disseminator. Transmits information received outsiders or from other subordinates to members of the organization; some information factual, some involving interpretation and integration of diverse value positions of organizational influencers. It is forwarding mail into organization for informational purposes, verbal contacts involving information flow to subordinates. Also, it is unrecognized (except for Papandreou discussion of "peak co-coordinator" who integrates influencer preference).

3. Spokesman. Transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans, policies, actions, results, etc; serves as expert on organization’s industry. In the board meeting; he is handling mail and contacts involving transmission of information to outsiders. It is generally acknowledged as managerial role.

This Category is Interpersonal. As figurehead, every manager must perform some ceremonial duties. As leader, managers are responsible for the work of the people of their unit. As liaison, the manager makes contacts outside the vertical chain of command.

4. Figurehead. Symbolic head; obliged to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature. Ceremony, status requests, solicitations. Sometimes recognized, but usually only at highest organizational levels

5. Leader. He is responsibilities for motivation and activation of subordinates; for staffing, training. Virtually all managerial activities are responsible by the leader involving subordinates. Most widely it is recognized of all managerial roles.

6. Liaison. Maintains self-developed network of outside contacts and informers who provide favors and information. It is the acknowledgment of mail; external board work; other activities involving outsiders. Largely it is ignored, except for particular empirical studies (Sayles on lower- and middle-level managers, Neustadt on U.S. Presidents, Whyte and Homans on informal leaders.

This category is Decisional. Information is not an end in itself; it is the basic input to decision making. The manager plays the major role in a unit's decision-making system. As its formal authority, only the manager can commit the unit to important new courses of action; and as its nerve center, only the manager has full and current information to make the set of decisions that determines the unit's strategy. As entrepreneur, the manager seeks to improve the unit, to adapt it to changing conditions in the environment. As disturbances handler, the manager responds to pressures from situations. As resource allocater, the manager is responsible for deciding who will get what. As negotiator, the manager commits organizational resources in real time.

7. Entrepreneur. Searches organization and its environment for opportunities and initiates "improvement projects" to bring about change; supervises design of certain projects as well. It is the strategy and review sessions involving initiation or design of improvement projects. Implicitly acknowledged, but usually not analyzed except for economist (who were concerned largely with the establishment of new organizations) and Sayıes, who probes into this role.

8. Disturbance Handler. It is responsible for corrective action when organization faces important, unexpected disturbances. Also, it is strategy and review sessions involving disturbances and cities. Discussed in abstract way by many writers (e.g., management by exception) but analyzed carefully only Sayles.

9. Resource Allocator. It is responsible for the allocation of organizational resources of all kinds, in effects the making or approval of all significant organizational decisions. Also, it is scheduling; requests for authorization; any activity involving budgeting and the programming of subordinates' work. Little explicit recognition as a role, although implicitly recognized by many who analyze organizational resource-allocation activities.

10. Negotiator. It is responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations. It is negotiation. Largely it is unrecognized (or recognized but daimed to be non managerial work) except for Sayles.

In the real world, these roles overlap and a manager must learn to balance them in order to manage effectively. While a manager’s work can be analyzed by these individual roles, in practice they are intermixed and interdependent. According to Mintzberg: “The manager who only communicates or only conceives never gets anything done, while the manager who only ‘does’ ends up doing it all alone.”

Refererence: http://www.egitimdergisi.hacettepe.edu.tr/199713BERR%C4%B0N%20BURGAZ.pdf


The IS Leadership Roles

Changes in both information technology and competition continue to change the role of the information systems executive. CSC (1996) has suggested six new IS leadership roles which are required to execute IS’s future agenda: chief architect, change leader, product developer, technology provocateur, coach and chief operating strategist. Although these roles were produced by the CSC consultancy firm without any scientific approach, they seem very well tailored for scientific investigation into IS leadership roles.
People who fill these roles do not necessarily head up new departments or processes, but they exert influence and provide leadership across the organizational structure.

This are the following Six IS leadership roles (CSC, 1996)

1. Chief architect. The chief architect designs future possibilities for the business. The primary work of the chief architect is to design and evolve the IT infrastructure so that it will expand the range of future possibilities for the business, not define specific business outcomes. The infrastructure should provide not just today's technical services, such as networking, databases and desktop operating systems, but an increasing range of business-level services, such as workflow, portfolio management, scheduling, and specific business components or objects.

2. Change leader. The change leader orchestrates resources to achieve optimal implementation of the future. The essential role of the change leader is to orchestrate all those resources that will be needed to execute the change program. This includes providing new IT tools, but it also involves putting in the place teams of people who can redesign roles, jobs and workflow, who can change beliefs about the company and the work people do, and who understand human nature and can develop incentive systems to coax people into new and different behaviors.

3. Product developer. The product developer helps define the company’s place in the emerging digital economy. For example, a product developer might recognize the potential for performing key business processes (perhaps order fulfillment, purchasing or delivering customer support) over electronic linkages such as the Internet. The product developer must "sell" the idea to a business partner, and together they can set up and evaluate business experiments, which are initially operated out of IS. Whether the new methods are adopted or not, the company will learn from the experiments and so move closer to commercial success in emerging digital markets.

4. Technology provocateur. The technology provocateur embeds IT into the business strategy. The technology provocateur works with senior business executives to bring IT and realities of the IT marketplace to bear on the formation of strategy for the business. The technology provocateur is a senior business executive who understands both the business and IT at a deep enough level to integrate the two perspectives in discussions about the future course of the business. Technology provocateurs have a wealth of experience in IS disciplines, so they understand at a fundamental level the capabilities of IT and how IT impacts the business.

5. Coach. The coach teaches people to acquire the skillsets they will need for the future. Coaches have to basic responsibilities: teaching people how to learn, so that they can become self-sufficient, and providing team leaders with staff able to do the IT-related work of the business. A mechanism that assists both is the center of excellence - a small group of people with a particular competence or skill, with a coach responsible for their growth and development. Coaches are solid practitioners of the competence that they will be coaching, but need not be the best at it in the company.

6. Chief operating strategist. The chief operating strategist invents the future with senior management. The chief operating strategist is the top IS executive who is focused on the future agenda of the IS organization. The strategist has parallel responsibilities related to helping the business design the future, and then delivering it. The most important, and least understood, parts of the role have to do with the interpretation of new technologies and the IT marketplace, and the bringing of this understanding into the development of the digital business strategy for the organization.

Reference: P Gottschalk - Informing Science, 2000 - Citeseer

Our first day of class in Management Information System (MIS) was very fun and exciting. We start our class last June 23, 2009. I arrived at the class before 1:00pm because our professor in this subject is very strict in time. We know him because he was our Analytic Geometry and Probability and Statistics professor. He came into the class 15 minutes before the time. He always starts his class with a prayer and end with a prayer.

He discussed about MIS and how it deals to work. Managing ones system is indeed a hard thing to do. It takes a lot of sweats, efforts, time and controls. This is refers to a planned system of the collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data in the form of information needed to carry out the functions of management. In a way it is a documented report of the activities those were planned and executed. It is also the subset of the overall internal controls of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures by management accountants to solving business problems such as costing a product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management information systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization. ) MIS is the term given to the discipline focused on the integration of computer systems with the aims and objectives on an organization. According to Philip Kotler "A marketing information system consists of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers." The development and management of information technology tools assists executives and the general workforce in performing any tasks related to the processing of information. MIS and business systems are especially useful in the collation of business data and the production of reports to be used as tools for decision making.

The terms MIS and information system are often confused. Information systems include systems that are not intended for decision making. The area of study called MIS is sometimes referred to, in a restrictive sense, as information technology management. That area of study should not be confused with computer science. IT service management is a practitioner-focused discipline. MIS has also some differences with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as ERP incorporates elements that are not necessarily focused on decision support. MIS systems can be used to transform data into information useful for decision making. Computers can provide financial statements and performance reports to assist in the planning, monitoring and implementation of strategy.

As applications were developed that provided managers with information about sales, inventories, and other data that would help in managing the enterprise, the term "MIS" arose to describe these kinds of applications. Today, the term is used broadly in a number of contexts and includes (but is not limited to): decision support systems, resource and people management applications, project management and database retrieval application. The application of Management Information System in the business world is the MIS systems provide a valuable function in that they can collate into coherent reports unmanageable volumes of data that would otherwise be broadly useless to decision makers. By studying these reports decision-makers can identify patterns and trends that would have remained unseen if the raw data were consulted manually. MIS systems can also use these raw data to run simulations – hypothetical scenarios that answer a range of ‘what if’ questions regarding alterations in strategy. For instance, MIS systems can provide predictions about the effect on sales that an alteration in price would have on a product. These Decision Support Systems (DSS) enable more informed decision making within an enterprise than would be possible without MIS systems. Professor Allen S. Lee states that "...research in the information systems field examines more than the technological system, or just the social system, or even the two side by side; in addition, it investigates the phenomena that emerge when the two interact."

To conclude that it should be Management Information System (MIS) we must defined the following terms in the word Management Information System. First is the word management. From the word itself management, it is the act of managing something. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. It is also the system helping managers run company: a system for gathering the financial, production, and other information that managers need to operate a business, especially a system that is computerize. While Management Information System is extremely useful in generating statistical reports and data analysis they can also be of use as a Management by Objectives (MBO) tool. MBO is a management process by which managers and subordinates agree upon a series of objectives for the subordinate to attempt to achieve within a set time frame. Objectives are set using the SMART ratio: that is, objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-Specific. Second is the word Information System. In an equation Information System can be equate into Hardware + Software + Peopleware. The symbol being use in the equation is addition. Since it is addition, it uses a commutative process. Commutative property is not dependent on order or giving the same result irrespective of the order in which two or more terms or quantities are placed. So, in the equation it can be any of the term will go first, if it is Software + Peopleware + Hardware or any of them will go first. In a general sense, the term Information System (IS) refers to a system of people, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization, and it includes the organization's manual and automated processes. In a narrow sense, the term information system (or computer-based information system) refers to the specific application software that is used to store data records in a computer system and automates some of the information-processing activities of the organization. Computer-based information systems are in the field of information technology. The discipline of business process modeling describes the business processes supported by information systems.

Therefore, I conclude that it should be Management Information System (MIS) because MIS refers broadly to a computer-based system that provides managers with the tools for organizing, evaluating and efficiently running their departments. In order to provide past, present and prediction information, an MIS can include software that helps in decision making, data resources such as databases, the hardware resources of a system, decision support systems, people management and project management applications, and any computerized processes that enable the department to run efficiently.

We ended our first day class in MIS with lots of assignment to do but it is the preparation for us to the outside world. God bless us all.

References:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_information_systems
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MIS.html
http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk/glossary/management-information-system.htm


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