Management information systems: overview and applications

Management Information Systems

The place to start in defining a more effective internal communication system is in the processes, procedures and workflows employees use to complete their jobs. Studying the processes first, their potential areas of improvement, and then overlaying technologies is the best possible approach to enabling greater levels of communication. The tools that will be used for this purpose are value stream mapping (Chen, Li, Shady, 1069), business process management and re-engineering techniques (Ramirez, Melville, Lawler, 417), and finally the applying of collaboration-based technologies to enable greater information and knowledge sharing (Toms, 394).

Workflow Analysis

Taking each of the dominant workflows that the company relies on for its daily functioning and then defining the value each step delivers in the overall functioning of the company is a critical first step to seeing where communication is and is not happening. Value stream mapping is a technique for accomplishing this level of analysis in an organization, and can provide useful insights into how to improve communication and collaboration (Chen, Li, Shady, 1069). Value stream mapping also moves beyond the barriers of functional departments of a company and concentrates more on the strategies that are being accomplished, and how process workflows can be made more effective in goal attainment. The value stream mapping approaches and strategies that are included in this area of study can also define how to make interactions with suppliers, customers and service organizations more effective as well (Chen, Li, Shady, 1069). This approach can provide a strategic overview of how best to manage change in an organization as well, as value stream mapping will quickly show where communication is breaking down and where it is particularly strong. This is an invaluable tool for analyzing how to improve the internal communication systems, processes and procedures as a result.

A second series of tools are business process management (BPM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) based, and provides the next step in streamlining the internal communication system of a company. BPR techniques can take a more strategic overview of where internal communication systems are strong and weak, and through the use of the data from value stream mapping, also define strategies for enabling greater performance as well (Ramirez, Melville, Lawler, 417). BPR-based techniques are highly effective for completely redefining the structure of an organization to make communication more focused on strategy and less on functional dividing lines.

Conclusion