Office Information System - Essay Example

 Management information system is inevitable for any organisation not only for its survival but also for its prosperity. Knowledge about information system is expected of the employees of an organisation as it is very much essential to restructure the outdated conventional work pattern thus enabling the organization to reach the far and wide locations across the globe, innovate new products, provide best in class services to the clients, and many more (Laudon & Laudon, 2006). Management information system constitutes the decision support system, executive information system, marketing information system, resource planning system and office information system. Management information system is indispensable for an effective management of an organization as it enhances the mode of communication among the workers, distributes work materials throughout the organization, maintains the aggregated information for process and future reference, improves the cost effectiveness by replacing the time consuming manual activities, and others. Altogether management information system provides the right direction for an organisation to achieve its strategic goals (Laudon & Laudon, 2006). Office is the most imperative part of a business organisation as it deals with fundamental operations of the business like preparing documents, maintaining the accounts and payroll details, performing complex computations, responding to service request, dealing with complaints, verification of details, planning and scheduling various business activities and many more (Laudon & Laudon, 2006). Thus office maintains the entire state of business. For a successful business organization, an enhanced office environment facilitated with excellent communication functionalities among its employees is very important which is in turn capable of improving their productivity. Here is where office information system renders a major helping hand. Office information system includes a wide variety of computer hardware and soft ware architectures forming a network to accomplish the routine tasks and goals of a business organisation (Pujari, n.d). It facilitates in generating all types of documents with the help of text processors, stores those documents and retrieves them whenever needed with the help of electronic document management systems, disseminates messages and intimations to the employees with the help of electronic message communication systems and schedules timely interaction between the various hierarchical levels of the business organization with the help of web based real time teleconferencing and video conferencing systems (Pujari, n.d). Office information system has several advantages. The most important advantage is time savings (Power, 2006). The conventional manual methods for creating, maintaining, and retrieval of documents consumes a lot of time. Whereas office information system uses software and hardware along with human resources which enables speedy collection, processing, storage, retrieval and communication of information among the work force of a business organisation (Henderson, n. d.). Also records maintained in computerised form (database) can greatly reduce the storage space required. Office information system makes use of variety of software and network tools by which it provides tremendous communication conveniences thereby facilitating employees to work in collaboration thus optimizing the yield of the business organisation. Office information system minimises the workload thereby reducing the need for excess labours thus keeping in control the cost requirement (Power, 2006). Computerised processing is likely to be error free thus more reliable and accurate. Office information system also promotes the learning process among the employees making them familiar with new technologies and improves their factual understanding (Power, 2006). On the whole, computerised business management with the help of office information system results in much more efficient organisational control and coordination (Power, 2006). As any other technology, office information system also has its own disadvantages. Office information system that demands a wide range of hardware, software and network equipments may be quite expensive (Locsin, n. d.). Training the work force to cope up with new technologies can be really challenging. Employees who are less skilled would take a lot of time to adopt themselves to the computerised work environment (Locsin, n. d.). Office information system can also create problems of overdependence. At times of system failure or power interruption employees may struggle to manage the situation. Continuing the work manually would not be possible at those times (Locsin, n. d.). Maintaining documents electronically without manual backup can be very disastrous at circumstances of system corruption or data loss. It may even lead to severe financial crisis to the organisation. Also there are possibilities of malicious intrusion and data breach incidences to occur in a network based information system which may lead to economical and reputational disaster to a business organisation. The drawbacks of the office information system can be successfully surmounted or at least managed to certain extent by improving and enhancing the layout of the system. The regular office computers and network infrastructure is prone to hacking so, authentication procedures have to be strengthened. Usually access to office computers and web servers are allowed to users on providing the appropriate user id and password. In order to improve the security features biometric identities like thumb impressions, face recognition systems, pupil readings may be incorporated in the log in procedure so that office computers and web servers can be protected from unauthorised users. Additional security features can be integrated into the electronic communication systems. Instead of directly sending any documents via mail and messages, additional cryptographic technologies can be incorporated which may provide unique encryption and decryption keys to modulate and demodulate the documents which are to be disseminated. This may protect the confidential documents from being exposed to intruders. To avoid human errors while entering and updating information in the database, data which is to be entered in the database can be first scanned and digitized. Then software can be used to enter the digital data into the database server. This method can ensure accuracy and reliability. System crashes can be managed by maintaining exclusive back up servers which may be highly protected and controlled by strict administrative regulations. Maintaining redundant information can greatly help during times of system corruption and data loses thus providing unremitting service. Additional backup power supplies providing uninterrupted power to carry on the office activities can be included in the basic hardware requirements of an office information system to manage cases of power failure. These additional hardware and software features which can be included in the basic layout of the office information system in order to enhance it may appear to be expensive. But taking into account the payback offered by these additional features, we can certainly conclude that more than the expenditure, there are several indisputable rewards that are likely essential for a successful business organisation. References Henderson, T. (n. d). Office automation. Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Mor-Off/Office- Automation.html Laudon, K. & Laudon, J. (2006). Management information systems: managing the digital firm. Prentice Hall. Locsin, A. (n. d). Advantages & disadvantages of office automation. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-amp-disadvantages-office- automation-41058.html Power, D. (2006). What are the advantages and disadvantages of computerized decision support? Retrieved from http://dssresources.com/newsletters/175.php Pujari, S. (n. d). “Importance of office automation system for business enterprises. Retrieved from http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/information-technology/importance-of-office- automation-system-for-business-enterprises/10427/ Read More