Study On The Planning For The Development Of Management Information Systems In The River Nile State (RNS)-Sudan

Information is a necessary resource, produced by information systems and is a potential key to the management and decision-making in any organization. Information is of value to decision makers if it is accurate, timely, complete and relevant.The establishment and development of MIS has become an inevitable process to any nation to flourish and prosper via provision of necessary information to help and guide the policy and strategies of decision makers to accomplish the recent tasks and plan for the future. For the River Nile State (RNS) to adopt and develop an MIS concerted effort among the both private and public sector is required. MIS development and implementation in the River Nile State will improve the RNS citizens’life via making the daily process easy and fast.Unfortunately, nowadays the daily works at RNS handled manually, while most of the world if not all whether are developed neither developing countries has applying and used the computers and ICT technologies to handle the daily tasks.This study was attempts to configure a plan for the development of the MIS in the River Nile State. The study in the first chapter identified the eras of the MIS evolution which contains the data processing, management information, and strategic information systems. The data processing era was focused on improving the efficiency through automation of basic information processes with not too much control over planning or resources. The MIS era was focused on the enhancement of managerial effectiveness via satisfying widespread information requirements. The Strategic Information Systems era focused on improving organizational competitiveness advantages by affecting the overall organizational strategies. Therefore, this chapter also illustrated the management levels and information required in each level and how MIS provided distributed information through which the institution’s (organization’s) activities are monitored. Moreover, this chapter described the role of ICT in the context of MIS and how ICT revolution changed the ways to gather and disseminate information, whether in the public or private sector every where. Finally, this chapter pointed out the significance of the study, the methodology applied to achieve the study, and the study’s questions and objectives.In the second chapter, the study reviewed the previous literature regarding information system and information system elements, Moreover, the study described the system development life cycle and it is steps. This chapter also discussed and identified the distinction between data and information. Furthermore, in this chapter the study outlined the characteristics of good information to which encompasses relevance, timeliness, accuracy, cost-effectiveness, reliability, usability, exhaustiveness, and aggregation level. Also, the study identified the types of information systems which mainly consist of OIS, TPS, MIS, DSS, ES and Integrated Information Systems. After that, the study in this chapter concentrated on MIS concepts, MIS characteristics, MIS functions and MIS components in details. Finally, this chapter discussed and identified the concepts of the DSS, and then concentrated on the decision types and the decision making phases.In the third chapter, the study focused on the existence, importance, impact, and the role of MIS in the River Nile State. A questionnaire was conducted in some RNS ministries and administrations to identify the presence and the uses MIS in the RNS daily offices works. In this chapter the study revealed that there are no adequate existence and uses of MIS in the RNS apart from some national institutions such as Sudan ministry of Interior, National Electricity Corporation, and Electronic Bank Systems. The study also showed that MIS is of the most importance to RNS to enable the RNS institutions to provide more efficient and effective services to the citizens via linking all institutions and administrations with information network. This can result in citizens and residents accomplishing their tasks in several departments in one place. Therefore, many services can be handled online and even twenty four hours a day. In this chapter the questionnaire result also showed that the establishment and the adoption of MIS will lead to improve and promote the RNS institutions performance. This chapter also discussed the role of MIS in the RNS institutions, it was gleaned that MIS implementation would lead to:-Provide information and feedback to prepare necessary reports to improve the work efficiency. Provide necessary information regarding Human Resource Development (HRD) to establish and organize training program for workers to improve the employees’ performances.Provide necessary information to the RNS administrations concerning employees’ recruitment in accordance with required jobs and facilitates the job seekers with the available jobs.-MIS implementation will leads to an increase in transparency and decrease in the favoritism in the appointment process.Finally, this chapter identified the obstacles facing the development of MIS in the RNS. According to the audience answers these obstacles were arranged in descending order. In addition, this chapter illustrated and identified the weaknesses in Sudan in general and RNS in particular which impeded the implementation and adoption of MIS, these include cultural, political and technological challenges and barriers.The fourth chapter focused on the MIS plan development in the RNS. In this chapter the study pointed out that the RNS government should be aware of the point where it stands in the e-services process in order to set goals and steps to reach its final aim throughout an efficient use of available resources. The chapter also identified MIS development plan objectives. Moreover, this chapter discussed MIS planning process and its sequential and interactive steps. Furthermore, it demonstrated the risks affecting MIS plan development, also this chapter pointed out the constraints hindering the MIS development plan. These constrains consist of Cultural and communications barriers technological problems, and lack of management support. In addition, this chapter outlined the MIS infrastructure plan, thus, the infrastructures requirements for developing and adopting MIS are composed of five major components which include:computer hardware, computer software, data management technology, networking and telecommunications technology and peoples. These components must be coordinated and integrated each other to build a mature MIS. This chapter furthermore, described and showed the MIS HR development plan process, and then how organization can get skilled IT personnel whether through training, hiring or retaining the skilled IT peoples. Also, the MIS human resource elements were discussed and demonstrated. Finally, in this chapter the study outlined points to notice for the plan of MIS development in the RNS, these points consist of:Provide MIS training to all of the state employees and top officers, link all the RNS localities, district offices via information networks, Provide technical and managerial assistant in any problem arise in the concern department, computerize all the departments and institutions records and familiarize all the employees with the new technology to improve the overall performance of the employees. Also, the study clarified the process of MIS implementation and the sequential steps necessary for MIS implementation.The last chapter of the study was concluded and recommended that proper orientation should be given to MIS development in the state. Also, training programs should be organized to ensure proper and adequate employment of MIS in generating and disseminating information. Furthermore, the state government should set up unified information technology policy to enable all the state institutions to obtain information required with in specific standards and criteria.