The rise of the Management Information Systems (MIS) department in corporations has not been a smooth one. In many cases, the department grew without a coordinated plan to integrate its functions into the overall organization, and many "old-fashioned" managers were put off by having to rely on an entirely separate department for information they felt could be generated faster, more accurately and by their own people. This is the situation that this department now faces. Because one employee in this department has considerable computer experience, the manager relied on him to produce reports within the department that eliminated the need to depend or rely on corporate information. The result is that the reports differ in content (sometimes significantly) from the corporate reports, and there is a duplication of computer resource in the parallel databases and reports that are produced.
At first glance, the reports produced within the department appear to be more accurate than the reports produced by the corporate mainframe, but this may be misleading. While the departmental reports use the same data that the mainframe reporting system uses, obviously, that data is being manipulated in different ways. While it is possible that the departmental reports are, in fact, more accurate, it is also possible (and even likely) that the corporate reports adhere to a company-wide standard with regard to assumptions, time periods involved and units with which the departmental computer expert is unfamiliar. In this way, the department that relies on these reports as the basis for future decision making may be using information that is inconsistent with the rest of the company, and which may bring the entire company's planning process into question.
Having individual departments prepare their own reports also raises the question of maintaining corporate-wide standards. While this department is able to generate its own reports, it cannot do...