The Development of Management Information Systems :: Business Management Studies

The Development of Management Information Systems The role of business information systems has changed and expanded over the last four decades. In the incipient decade (1950s and '60s), â€Å"electronic data processing systems† could be afforded by only the largest organizations. They were used to record and store bookkeeping data such as journal entries, specialized journals, and ledger accounts. This was strictly an operations support role. By the 1960s â€Å"management information systems† were used to generate a limited range of predefined reports, including income statements (they were called P & L’s back then), balance sheets and sales reports. They were trying to perform a decision making support role, but they were not up to the task. By the 1970s â€Å"decision support systems† were introduced. They were interactive in the sense that they allowed the user to choose between numerous options and configurations. Not only was the user allowed customizing outputs, they also could configure the programs to their specific needs. There was a cost though. As part of your mainframe leasing agreement, you typically had to pay to have an IBM system developer permanently on site. The main development in the 1980s was the introduction of decentralized computing. Instead of having one large mainframe computer for the entire enterprise, numerous PC’s were spread around the organization. This meant that instead of submitting a job to the computer department for batch processing and waiting for the experts to perform the procedure, each user had their own computer that they could customize for their own purposes. Many poor souls fought with the vagaries of DOS protocols, BIOS functions, and DOS batch programming. As people became comfortable with their new skills, they discovered all the things their system was capable of. Computers, instead of creating a paperless society, as was expected, produced mountains of paper, most of it valueless. Mounds of reports were generated just because it was possible to do so. This information overload was mitigated somewhat in the 1980s with the introduction of â€Å"executive information systems†. They streamlined the process, giving the executive exactly what they wanted, and only what they wanted. The 1980s also saw the first commercial application of artificial intelligence techniques in the form of â€Å"expert systems†. These programs could give advice within a very limited subject area. The promise of decision making support, first attempted in management information systems back in the 1960s, had step-by-step, come to