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A Data Base for Your Company?
Scott, George M.
19/1  (Fall 1976): 68-78

In recent years a long procession of new management information systems (MIS) concepts and techniques has been paraded before managers. More recent and still current is the notion of MIS, a less ambitious relative of the total systems concept. MIS perhaps does not capture the imagination to the extent that total systems did, but it is proving to be an achievable goal with a worthwhile payoff for many companies. MIS is not all or nothing; it is a matter of degree. But technology in computer information systems races ahead, and an innovation called "data base" is being trumpeted in the literature and in corporate circles even before most companies have fully digested the idea of MIS. In literal fact, a database is the data on which a company bases its activities and decisions. As such, every company has one. But the current meaning attributed to the phrase database far transcends this literal interpretation. While databases are not a panacea for any corporate malaise, they do represent a significant technological advance, their implementation is feasible now, and they can provide great benefits for many companies.

 

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