Abstract
Information systems are an important part of any business organization. They are responsible for the passage of information within the business. In some cases, information systems are directly linked to marketing. In this case, the information on the sales available and the cost of the product are issued to the customers through the systems. The systems could be manual systems, where pamphlets are printed and distributed to customers, or electronic systems, where the company uses websites or technology oriented ways to market the products. On the other hand, information systems are important in keeping the company’s records. In most cases, the records are usually financial ones. The information systems manage the records of expenditures and incomes in a business. A business bases its existence on making of profits to ensure continuity of the entrepreneurship. To maintain the records and, therefore, calculate the profits, there always have to be an elaborate system that ensures that records are available and easily accessible and interpretable.
Achievement of the objective of the correct maintenance of data in the information systems depends on the application in use. In the case of a company that wishes to maintain its data by use of Microsoft office, Microsoft access would be a better option. Many companies go for the use of Microsoft excel for the management of their information. Conversion of excel spreadsheets to database worksheets makes it easier for the company to manage each and every aspect of the business’s expenditure and incomes. There are many organs that constitute a business. The employees, products, production process, the production plants and the sales outlets. All these can be put into one database from which aspects of each organ can be traced and evaluated. Using the databases from Microsoft access, the information systems manager can be able to derive information on a particular sales outlet and evaluate its performance without necessarily having to enter the sales information about the outlet again. Access is, therefore, useful in extraction and analysis of individual performance of napkin and paper plates outlets and, therefore, view which outlets are more useful than others and which ones are in need of improvements.
Microsoft access is more useful in comparison to an excel managed information system. One of the benefits of use of Microsoft access system is that the data in the databases can be easily converted into spreadsheets and the needed computations done. As so, there is much time saved in the process of evaluation of the business performance. In the case that the company wants to establish on which months and which outlets made the largest amount of sales, there would be no need of re-entering the information on sales by the outlets again. All that would be required would be to import relevant data into an excel worksheet from an access database and manipulate it in a way as to provide the needed information. This way, the analyst, will have achieved the goal in a short time.
In a nutshell, better information systems aid in saving time in the management of the business. A Microsoft access based system is clearly a system that achieves this goal. However, it would be in the best interest of the company if it gets tailored software that would help in ease management of information, especially, by the sales department. The fact that it would be tailored would make it easy to use and more efficient in information management.
