he strategic or top level such as, for example, the marketing director. At the highest level, structured, formal MIS may actually be countered productive, for at these levels informal MIS and external influences become increasingly important. Another factor which affects the tasks a manager has to perform, and hence his information requirements, is the extent of functional authority within the organization. Functional authority is that which do specialist managers and staff throughout the various departments and units of the organisation exercise. Possibly the most common example of this is the Personnel Department which has functional responsibility for many personnel and industrial relation activities throughout the whole organization. Whilst each of the five functional areas, which in total constitute the task of management, need relevant information, three particular areas - planning, decision making and control - make heavy demands on the organization’s MIS and thus are given special attention in this thesis. The Nature of Planning and Decision Making and the Techniques Available Planning and decision-making have rightly been called the primary management tasks and these tasks occur at every level of management although, naturally, the type of planning and decision-making will vary between the levels. Planning is the process of deciding in advance what is to be done and how it is to be done. The planning process results in plans that are pre-determined course of action that reflects organizational objectives and decisions and action implement the plans. Thus, effective planning and decision-making are inextricably linked, for without decisions and actions the planning process is a sterile exercise. In order to provide appropriate information, MIS designers must be aware of the types of decisions made at the various levels of organization. A useful, broad classification is that given by H.A. Simon who classified decisions maki...
