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Management by Information Systems

As a business grows, its management style will also evolve. It is management that must keep up with the business and its present demands, in order to keep the business flourishing. Older styles of management hold back a business, making it stale. And more importantly, the first style of management that a company adopts is the foundation not only for future management styles, but for the business growth as well.

This is the reason management by information systems, or MBIS, is a crucial part of any business growth. In this day and age, information is no longer as hard to come by as before. But the drawback is that at present, there is simply too much information available, making its analysis more crucial than ever. Take note however that having too much information is a far better situation than having too little information, especially when analysis makes all the difference.

Management by information systems is a good place to begin managing any business. It lays a solid foundation upon which the growth of an organization is built upon. Any future development—whether it is in business growth or an evolving management style—is aided by management by information systems.

The Definition of Management by Information Systems

The basis of MBIS is information along with the flow of this information inside the company. And as long as it is valid and reliable information, this style of management is an effective tool in the development of the business or organization. It is the information age, after all, an age where the information can be used in accordance to the business or organization's objectives.

The second part of this style of management is to develop and increase the efficiency of the organization. When the right information is made available, the right decisions can be made quickly, and the business can adapt accordingly.

Another aspect of the MBIS is unifying the organization through the information available. Because it is one organization or one unit, any effect a piece of information has on any part of the organization should also affect it as a whole. Hence, one of the objectives of management by information systems is the inter-connectedness of the unit, despite being composed of several departments, several teams, or simply several people.

All in all, the objectives of this management by information systems are:

  • To gather information pertinent to the organization
  • To create an efficient flow of information inside the organization
  • To unify the organization through the information

Creating the Foundation for MBIS

When MBIS lays the foundation for any kind of growth in the business, it is through information, and how the business reacts to the said information. And with an efficient flow of information, this means that the reaction will be just as efficient. And efficiency here is not only for an individual, team, or department, but also for the entire business organization.

The Complexity of Information

What MBIS works on the principle that when a certain set of information occurs at a certain frequency, the reaction will also be normalized along with the frequency. For example, the simple payment of a monthly bill for electricity begins with the information of the bill itself, which should end up with the designated receiver of the bill, along with the required action, which is payment. Since this information occurs regularly in a month's time, so should the action of the receiver be regular as well.

As the set of information becomes more and more complex, it does not follow that the reaction will be as complex. In our example, it is a simple monthly bill. If the conditions change into several monthly bills for several utilities for several branches and not only for electricity, with several due dates and with different arrangements with the utilities, the reaction of the receiver of the information will still be the same. Making the information more complex does not make the corresponding reaction as complex.

Information, Automation and Success Rates

What management by information systems also hopes to accomplish is, to a certain degree, automation of certain tasks. Depending on the regularity of the arrival of a set of information, the task can be inserted in the daily operations of an organization.

Since MBIS aims to simplify even the complex sets of information into simple tasks or series of tasks, the complexity of the reaction is also reduced. And the natural effect of a reduction of the complexity of an action or reaction is always about having a higher success rate. And when success rates are high enough, the business will have increases in efficiency all around, which is the goal of MBIS.

And yet, MBIS goes even further than that. A regularity of reaction and a regularity of success is not enough in MBIS. If it is in any way possible, actually making these sequence of events as automatic as possible is what MBIS strives for—to increase action, reaction and success as much as possible.

  • MBIS as Preparation to Management by Exception

    MBIS tries to create a stable system in any organization, and that is the whole point of implementing it. Simply by making information equate to a certain set of tasks increases the reliability of an organization, under the condition that the right information reaches the right people. However, this is not the end of MBIS in itself.

    MBIS is only a preparation for other styles of management, which is notable management by exception. If you look at MBIS closely enough, you will realize that MBIS is actually management-intensive, and it takes a great effort from management to make any organization MBIS-compliant.

    As soon as the tasks and activities of an organization normalize through MBIS, it is usually the case that management will shift to providing a lesser workload for its managers as a form of reward. From there, they implement management by exception, and through it, managers only act in response to exceptional information and nothing else.