Management Information Systems (MIS)

Tips and question suggestions

Further specific criteria and question suggestions for the evaluation of MIS software

• Before making a software decision, conduct a thorough market research of potentially suitable solutions. Our tip: Use our free research service without any obligation. Large parts of the tender are taken over, potential solutions are presented in a structured way and the communication with the providers is documented!
• Check whether any type of data material can be processed, such as structured database data, unstructured texts, multidimensional data, multimedia material or data in audio and video form. This avoids information gaps and improves the quality of decisions.
• Also ask whether multi-standard capability has been implemented or at least whether standards and regulations that are relevant to your company can be implemented or supported by the respective software. This could be standards such as PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), ISO 9001, ISO 20000, etc.
• Find out whether the valuation methods comply with current corporate tax reform conditions and regulations. This will enable you to obtain more up-to-date and reliable company valuations.
• Ask whether at the decision support level with the help of data mining and OLAP the data can be analyzed and evaluated.
• Find out which conditions or data pools must be available for the respective MIS or are useful. The term data warehouse is often used. It is important to know how the respective data warehouse must be structured for use, i.e. as the basis for the respective MIS. A data warehouse is an integrated, structured and historical collection of all the data available in a company or company division. Internal and external data flows into this data pool and is consolidated, condensed and analyzed.
• Also ask whether evaluations are possible for e.g. bank meetings, shareholder meetings, general meetings, planning and budgeting for e.g. products, product ranges, customers and suppliers.
• In order to be able to create forecasts, a management information system should also contain data that is obtained through statistical procedures or determined through estimates and opinions (possibly through assumptions) (this is known as planning data). Ask for an explanation of all the options that support the consolidation and provision of different statistical data and evaluations.
• Make sure that the MIS is divided into a database system, a method database system and a model database system to ensure that the data is up-to-date, secure and consistent, that the methods are flexible and that the models are realistic. These sub-areas of the MIS should not be isolated from each other, but should be interconnected.