Yönetim bilgi sistemlerinin bir yönetim aracı olarak incelenmesi ve holdingler açısından önemi

Abstract

ÖZET Bu çalışmanın amacı bir yönetim aracı olarak yönetim bilgi sistemlerini incelemek ve ilerleyen teknolojiye paralel olarak gelişmiş ülkelerde önemi hızla artan bu sistemlerin Türkiye'de uygulanıp uygulanmadığını gözlemlemektir. Araştırma ve geliştirme faaliyetlerinin bir sonucu olan teknolojik gelişmeler ile ekonomik, sosyal ve politik açıdan hızla değişen çevre şartları organizasyonlarda pek çok probleme sebep olmaktadır. Günümüz koşullarında bu problemlere artık geleneksel ve sezgisel yöntemlerle yaklaşmak pek mantıklı görülemez. Bu sebeple tüm örgütlerde faaliyetlerin devamı için modern yönetim tekniklerine başvurmak kaçınılmaz olmaktadır. Modern yönetim teorisi, organizasyonların çevre ile sürekli etkileşim halinde olan açık sistemler olarak düşünülmesi gerektiğini vurgulamaktadır. Açık bir sistem olarak organizasyonların başarısı ise bilgi akışının düzenlenmesi ile yakından ilgili olacaktır. Modern yönetim anlayışı, organiazsyonun içinde bulunan tüm kademeleri arasında sağlıklı bir bilgi akış tekniğinin bilim sel olarak yerleştirilmesi anlamına gelen ve yöneticilerin iste nen zamanda ve doğru karar almalarını destekleyen bir `Yönetim Bilgi Sistemi`nin gerekliliğini vurgulamaktadır. YBS'ler genellikle üç soruna çözüm bulmak amacıyla kullanıl maktadırlar : 1. Bilgi akışlarındaki karmaşıklıkları ve bunun sebep olduğu haberleşme problemlerini çözmek, 2- Aynı bilgiyi içeren raporların hazırlanması, aynı veri dosyalarının oluşturulması ve değişik yerlerde saklanmasının sebep olacağı tekrarlardan kaçınmak, 3- Zaman gecikmelerine engel olmak. 14 holdingin yöneticileriyle yapılan görüşmeler, YBS'lerin ülkemizde tam olarak uygulanmadığını; ancak özellikle son bir kaç yıldır, Avrupa Topluluğu faaliyetlerinin artması ve yoğun enflasyonun finans olayını öne çıkarması nedenleri ile holdinglerimiz de yeterli olmasa da bu konuda bazı çalışmaların yapılmakta olduğunu ortaya çıkarmıştır. Ülkemizde, YBS'ler konusundaki bilinçlenme, genellikle dünya piyasasında söz sahibi olabilmek ve rekabet açısından avantaj ele geçirebilmek amaçlarıyla, uluslararası bir ortamda, dışa açık olarak faaliyet gösteren firmalarda oluşmaktadır. Hızla ilerleyen teknoloji ve artan rekabet koşulları bütün organizasyonları YBS'leri kullanmaya zorlamaktadır. Günümüzün dinamik koşullarına ayak uydurabilmek için YBS'ler artık birer lüks olarak görülmeyip, dinamik yaşamın getirdiği bir zorunluluk olarak kullanılmalıdırlar. - viii -

SUMMARY THE EXAMINATION OF THE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS AS A TOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND THE IMPORTANCE FOR HOLDINGS The purpose of this study is to examine management informati on systems (MIS) and to investigate how these systems are designed and implemented in holding companies in Turkey. Nowadays, technological progress which is the consequence of the research and development activities and dynamic environment cause a lot of problems in all corporations. It is not reasonable to approach these problems by traditional and perceptional methods. In other words, corporations should be managed with an effective manner in order to survive in today's dynamic conditions. It is necessary to use a management information system to support the process of decision making from the first level where the routine works are done to the top level where strategic deci sions are made. There are several reasons why a company should design and implement an MIS. Some of these ^reasons are as follows : - Business has become more complex and larger - Competition has become mare effective - Management decisions must be made more quickly. Because of these reasons, the importanfeceof management infor mation systems, causing the decision process to be effective, are increasing very rapidly in the World. There are some other reasons of increasing importance of MIS. One of them is that the informa tion system of an organization is the critical part of its control system. The other reason is increasing role of the computer systems in management. What is a management information system? There is no agree ment on the definition of MIS. But in this study, generally, the definition done by W.J. Kennevan has been used. This definition is as follow : A management information system is an- organized method of providing past, present and projection information relating to internal operations and external intelligence. It supports the planning, control and operational functions of an organization by furnsihing information in the proper time frame to assist the decision-making process. - ix -As it is understood, the purpose of the MIS is to provide rele vant, timely, accurate information to the decision maker so that the optimum decision may be done. Of course, all organizations have some kind of aninformation system in order to survive, but in order tobeviable information system, all the measurable data must be organized in a manner where it can readily be recorded, stared, processed, retrieved, and communicated as required by a variety of users. The management information system make it possible for the diverse goals of the different functions within the company. Without an MIS, the coordination of activities and goals of the marketing, manufacturing, finance, and manpower functions is almost impossible to achieve. But, with an MIS, the coordinationbecomes possible because of elimination of the departmental walls found in the traditional organization. This study consists of seven chapters. After the introduction chapter, in the second chapter, the general meaning of the concept of management information system was explained. Also the purpose of this chapter is to introduce the concept of management informa tions. In the second chapter, after the definition and purposes of the management information systems, the evaluation of the MIS concept was investigated. As a result of the researchs done about this subject, it is clear that the concept of MIS has begun to be used in the second part of the 1960s. But in the first years, MIS was used only to report the consequence of the events. After the finance function began to have a crucial role in companies, the importance of MIS has increased rapidly. But the designing and implementing of MIS has been very easy by the way of using computers. In the last section of the second chapter, some organizational problems was explained. According to Stoner (1982), people in the organizations can show a negative reaction to MIS because of five reasons : - Abolishing the existing boundaries of departments in organization - Abolishing the informal system - Some personnel characteristics - Organizational climate - How the changes will be implemented ?. - x -Since the use of an MIS is, generally, based on the thoughts and attitudes about the system, the managers must pay attention to the problems created by a new MIS. Otherwise, the system cannot be successful. As it is understood from the name of the system, MIS consists of three concepts : Management, Information and System. Because of this, in the third section the `system` concept was explained. There are two special features of the system. One of them is that the system consists of parts working together and effecting each other to achieve the certain purposes and goals of the organization. The other characteristics is that systems related to organizations are under the control of the people. As a result of these characteristics, the concept of the total system is mentioned. The total system concept aiding the manage ment to make the role of the planning and control more effectively includes information flows in an organization. The total system consists of data bank containing the data concerning different users, hadware containing all materials used to process the data, software containing computer programs, and manpower causing the system to work how it is wanted. According to modern system idea, all organizations roust be thought as a total system, so that all parts of the organization effecting each other can work well-adjusted toward the same purposes and goals. * In today's dynamic environment, the organizations may survive` only with adopting themselves to the changing environment and with reducing the uncertain conditions. This can only be achieved with `information`. Because of this reason, the information concept and importance of it for organizations were explained in the fourth chapter. First of all, the terms `data` and `information were investi gated. These terms are aften used interchangeable, leading to confusion and misunderstanding concerning these^ important terms. In fact they refer to two distinct concepts. Data are the raw material inputs that enter into the produc tion process, although information is the result of modeling, formatting, organizing, or converting in a way that increases the level of knowledge for its recipients. That is, the purpose of information is to increase the knowledge level of its recipient. All units of organizations require the information to achieve their activities. So, the information is an element of production as well as being an important resource. Another important point is that management does not requires all kinds of information, it requires relevant information valuable for decision-making. - xi -According to some people, the worth of the information depends on several factors. These are the quantity of information, the quality of information, the timeliness, the relevance of information. The factoring of systems into subsystems is an important step in simplifying the design of systems. So, in the fourth chapter, several subsystems important for organizations were explained. The use of subsystems are critical to organizations in order to reduce complexities of coordination and communication problems. Subsystems can be described in terms of organizational functions such as production, marketing, financial and manpower. Marketing information system should include sales froecasting, pricing, promotion and advertising, marketing control, and distribution channel subsystems... The manufacturing information systems. should consist of the following subsystems : long-term capacitiy planning, quality planning and control, inventory planning and control, and production planning and control... The financial information system is usually the most completely computerized because of the long experience financial management. A financial information system may consist of the following subsystems : Investment analysis, budgeting, financial forecasting, capital expenditures... The manpower information system is the least automated, primarily because of the human elements with which the system deals. A manpower information system should consist of a personnel inventory, corporate manpower forecasts, and recruitingrtraining planning and control subsystems. It is very important that the designer of MIS understands or ganization and management theory because the systems being designed affect both the organization and its management. So, in the fifth chapter, management and organization concepts related to MIS were explained. After completing literature survey on MIS a reserach was done in order to realize how this concept is being designed and imple mented in Turkey. The results of this research were presented in the sixth chapter. The purpose of the research was to understand whether MIS has been implemented in a good way as a management tool in Turkey or not, and to find the factors effecting the use of MIS. From this research comprising 14 holding companies, some important results haac-been found. The 'research has showed that MIS has not been comprehended exactly and a regular and reasonable information flow method has not been implemented between different levels of management in Turkey. In fact, it cannot be said that, from the smallest company to the biggest company, modern management methods have been - xii -used succesfully. In only a few holding companies, especially working in an international environment, the MI Systems are being implemented quite succesfully. However, especially in the past few years, some studies to design and implement the MIS have been done in corporations. Reasons of these studies are : - The increasing activities to participate in Common Market - Finance event is becoming more important because of economic conditions in the last years. According to the research, in general, the factors effecting MIS in Turkey can be counted as follows : - The high costs - The attitudes and behaviors of managers - The lack of information of managers about computer and information systems - The lack of specialists (especially system analyst) - The location of department of information system in organi zation structure of holding - Insufficient implementation of data banks. Another important result of the research is that : One third of the managers think that the MIS is nearly equal to the computer system. It can be thought that a lot of managers don't know the importance of the MIS, because the information system is more than a computer system and data processing system. A computer system, alone, is not an information system. It is only a basic tool that increases the effectiveness of the information system design, and provides the means for performing certain activities that would otherwise be impossible. According to the study, especially in recent years, the issue of centralization of information system resources has been increasing because of computer technology. Some reasons of the efforts of centralization can be counted as follows : - The research and development activities can be done more easily in the center of holding company. - To increase standardization - To increase specialization - To give some software support to subdivisions - To provide savings members of organization - xixi -In the last chapter, after stressing the results of the research done by interviewing to the managers of different holding companies, a method was presented in order to design and implement an MIS in organizations. In order to supply a modern management information system, necessary steps can be summarized as follows : 1- The reasons why a new MIS is necessary should be determined. 2. Preliminary studies should be done. A. All members of organization {both managers and workers) should be persuaded that the present system is insuffi cient and a new system is necessary for organization. B. All kinds of information about organization should be determined. C. External environment should be searched carefully and opportunities and needs in environment must be determined. 3. The group members who will design and perform the system should be decided. 4. The studies of planning for the new MIS should be done. 5. Requirements of information of all departments should be determined. * 6. The information standards used in organization should be determined. 7. The subsystems of the total information system should be decided. 8. The methods for collecting information must be determined and flow of information systems should be decided so that the design of the new system is completed. 9. The designed system should be tested before using. 10. All people should be trained about the new system in order to adopt all people to the new system. Finally, it can be said that, in order to design and implement an MIS successfully, both the members of top level and the members of lower level of organization must know how to use the MIS and how to profit it. Any system not confirmed by lower level and not supported by to p level won't successful lyl - xiv -