7. A small company selling carpets

This company has only 12 staff including the managing director. They cannot afford a dedicated MIS expert or the complex systems of a large organisation. And yet they need to be aware of how competitive they are and what opportunities there may be.

In this case, one person is given the task of putting together an MIS system to help them make decisions.

These are the things she decides to put together as an MIS

  • She starts up a spreadsheet that tracks their sales over time
  • She collates the prices of their local competition in a database
  • She purchases some relevant ready-made reports from a market research company to spot industry trends.
  • She logs into the public local planning authority database to keep an eye on new house builds being approved. (houses need carpets)
  • She uses the land registry database to see which houses have been sold recently in the area. (new buyers like to improve their new house)
  • She makes a questionnaire for each customer to fill in that captures what they think of their service and their products. The results are kept in a database

You can see that this does not need anything more complicated than a standard office suite and she is also taking advantage of government public databases to help gather data. These become part of her MIS.

This shows that a very useful MIS can be put together for a minimal budget - you just need a clever person to run it.

Here is list of information that the MIS provides and the decisions they need to make

Use of an MIS
MIS information provided Decision to be made
The spreadsheet is used to show that sales are very seasonal with the peak being five times higher than the lowest sales month. Do we need to take on temporary staff to fit carpets in peak times. Can they be trained in time.
The market research report is showing that laminate flooring sales is soaring. Do we need to expand our services to include fitting laminate flooring.
The local planning authority database is showing that a new estate has been approved out of town. Can we contact the developer to put a carpet deal together.
The land registry shows that 3 houses have been sold in the local area recently. Should we send a flyer to those households. Can we put together a hard-to-resist offer.
The competition is running a special offer on their carpets. Can we make a counter-offer to offset it. What can we afford to do.
The customer feedback database is showing that customer satisfaction is dropping. What do we need to do to improve matters.

 

challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: examples of an MIS management information system