The concept of the ‘Culture’
One’s own culture is generally formed depending upon the leadership and the various managerial values that are being practiced in an organization. The culture involves the stabilized set of the values at any time that can be tried by the people to adhere to generally because such values are generally appreciated by the management of the organization. Presence of the discipline is very much critical and also very beneficial as with the help of the discipline, the various uniform values can be established.

By organizing, a suitable work environment can be produced that plays a great role in carrying out the various types of the activities in a very efficient way. With the help of the culture, the work of the management is eased and also has a very positive effect on the work ethos of an organization. Now before going any further, it becomes very essential to understand the meaning of the ‘Work Ethos’.

The work ethos refers to the environment that is present around the work. The effect on the working interest of the persons involved can be produced with the help of the working environment. With the help of work ethos, one can define what is considered to be a good work.

Reasons accounting for the Degeneration of the organizations
1. Lack of the leadership.
2. Lack of the delegation of the power.
3. Lack of the growth of the business.
4. Requirement of the re organization.
5. Lack of the conflict resolution.

Methods to increase the efficiency of an organization
1. Creating a very good structure.
2. Putting life into the structure.
3. Presence of a very good leadership.
4. Use of very good and efficient and also result oriented systems and the procedures.
5. Creating balance in the structure.

Tools used by the Organizations
1. Organization Chart –
a. Shows the authority positions of each and every person in the organization.
b. Can be used to depict the numerical strength, the position and the authority links of the staff.
c. Provides a great amount of the clarity in tackling the organizational problem.

2. Organization Manual –
a. Includes the introduction of the business of the organization, includes the history, the objectives, the policies, the rules, the regulations and the information on the persons who are working along with the organization chart in a written form.
b. Helps in easing the communication and the implementation of the organization’s work.
c. Brings great amount of the transparency into the working of an organization.
d. The unity in the organization can also be increased to some extent with the help of the knowledge that is provided by the manual to the employees.

3. Description of the position –
a. The structure of the organization becomes very much clear in the nature.
b. The various features of the position like the designations, the various tasks and the responsibilities can be efficiently understood.
4. Organization Performance Audit –
a. Involves periodical organizational audit by an outside party.
b. As a result of these audits, people start thinking of the organization, in which they are serving.

Introduction
In the manufacturing sector, physical goods are to be manufactured for the customer, but this is not the case in the service sector. Unlike the manufacturing sector, the service sector does not involve any manufacturing of the physical goods for the customer. So now it can be said that the Management Information Systems that are generally used in the manufacturing and the selling organization cannot be used in the service sector.

Payroll, accounting, inventory etc form a very important part of the data processing applications and are used in the service sector only sometimes but an important point to be kept in mind here is that these applications are not that much critical for the service sector. The main mission in this service sector is to provide service to the customer that ultimately satisfies him but this is not the case in the manufacturing sector as here this concept varies from industry to industry and from organization to organization.

The service industry consists of some of the major applications which need to be controlled in a very good way for getting the best stuff out of them.

By these applications, the service organization becomes efficient in the nature and then is able to provide with the best type of the services to the customer. In the today’s world, there occurs a tremendous competition between the companies in order to achieve the maximum profit and this competition also exists a lot in the marketing world, one company directly or indirectly always tries to show the other company inferior to it. So in this competitive scenario, one of the major needs of the industry is to get a service distinction, in order to create a position and a particular identity and growth to remain ahead of the various other industries.

In the service sector, the identification of the segment to be served can be obtained by the sensitive market and also with the help of the consumer research. The service demands are very dynamic in the nature and as a result of all this, for the upgradation of the service facilities, it is very much necessary to conduct a research on the requirements, expectations and the perceptions.

Tom Peters in “The Service Edge” states five principles of a distinct service –
1. Listen, understand and respond to the customers.
2. Define a superior service and establish a service strategy.
3. Set the standards and measure the performance.
4. Select, then train and then empower the employees to work for the customers.
5. Recognize and also reward the accomplishments.

The service industries these days involve the front end facilities, which help in serving the customers in order to clear the immediate needs and to make him comfortable for the other service demands.
All the human interactions are mainly based on the knowledge, so all the systems making the human interaction effective are the mission critical applications and here the main responsibility of the service sector is to provide these to offer the most satisfying service. Changes in the service organizations tend to occur more quickly than the manufacturing sector and also the returns in the service industry are very immediate if compared to the manufacturing sector. At this point, it actually becomes a necessity to understand the meaning of the creation of an outstanding service. This creation of the distinctive service is actually a willful conscious and deliberate management endeavor etc. The management of the service business calls for these willful conscious and deliberate act to create a distinctive service and hence to remain in the business. In order to manage a service effectively, it is a necessity to have in depth understanding about the distinctive characters between the product and the service, the customer expectation and the perception.

Comparison between the Service and the Product

Following are few examples of application of Management Information Systems (MIS) in the Service Sector

1) Application of MIS in Airlines industry
2) Application of MIS in Hospitals
3) Application of MIS in Banking

Application of MIS in Hospitals

The front end applications –
a. Patient database –
i. Handling the queries on the existing patients and the patients treated and discharged.
ii. Queries can also come from the visitor, a doctor or other employees of the hospital.

b. Medical server database –
i. Name, address, telephones etc. of all medical staff.
ii. Hospitals, work times and the locations on the week days for the contact.
iii. Service centers like the laboratories, the blood banks, the especial clinics etc. in the town for providing the support services.

c. Resource planning and control –
i. An online query facility for answering the number of queries on the availability, scheduling and re – scheduling of the resources and the facilities.
ii. For judging the usage of the facilities and to put them in the proper use.

d. Medical case history database –
i. Knowledge database on the case history for the guidance and the research.
ii. Monitoring the effect of the drugs to judge the efficacy in terms of the patient’s response.
iii. Analyze the health care demand.

The back Office applications
a. Core applications are:-
i. Manpower and personnel planning.
ii. Payroll and employee related applications.
iii. Hospital billing and the recovery.
iv. An inventory control procurement, the planning and the control.
v. The expiry date management.
vi. Resource utilization and the analysis.
vii. Financial accounting.
viii. Capital budgeting and the expense control.
ix. Maintenance of the service facilities.

b. Critical control application –
i. Patients waiting time and the service cycle.
ii. Not using the critical resources.
iii. Stock outs of the critical drugs.
iv. Analysis of the delays in terms of the duration and the causes.
v. New trends in the service demands and the service performance in such cases.

Application of MIS in Banking
A bank acts as a place, where the financial services are offered, which may include provision for the retail banking, investment banking, personnel banking etc.

The factors which the customers consider before choosing a particular bank can be summarized as follows –
a. The ease of doing the business.
b. The quality of the personnel and the service.
c. The range of the financial services.

The following points should necessarily be addressed during the designing of an MIS for a bank –
a. Customer database
The factors which greatly influence the service expectations and the perceptions can be summarized as follows –
i. Customer
ii. Operator
iii. Range of the service which is being or is to be provided
iv. Class of the customers
v. Working hours

b. Service to the account holders
The Management Information Systems must give the following reports to the management:

i. The non moving account.
ii. The account with the balance more than say Rs. 50,000/-
iii. The account going down below the minimum balance.
iv. The routine payments not made.
v. The routine credits not arrived.
vi. The defaults on loan repayment.
vii. The delays on crediting cheques amounts.
viii. A sudden rise and fall in the account movement.

c. Service for business promotions
The Management Information Systems should lay a great stress on the collection of the data from the various sources, in order to analyze and conclude the future business strategy.

With the help of such information, banker is able to move out to talk to the customer and as a result of this; he is also able to get some type of business for the bank.

So it can be said that it is very important to have an in depth knowledge about the trend in the business industry.

Application of MIS in Airlines industry
The airlines move the people and the goods from one location to the other. In most of the cases – safely and also on time. The perceptions about the good service can include schedule, convenience, prices, seat comfort, meal quality, treatment by the crew and the ground staff, the facilities that are available at the airport etc.

The service goals can be –
i. One complaint per 1, 00,000 passengers.

ii. 95 % occupancy to conclude that the schedules are convenient.

iii. Through put time, check in to check out, is less than 10 minutes.

The Management Information Systems concentrate on the following data in order to make the managerial and the operative decisions to achieve the service goals.

a. Passenger information –
i. The type, Class and the purpose of travel.
ii. The socio – economic group.
iii. The duration of the stay at the destination.
iv. The food and the eating habits.
v. The language and the communication needs.
vi. The traffic flow between the towns, cities and the countries.
vii. The emerging/future pattern of travel.

b. Information on the aviation
Here Management Information Systems depends largely on the business and the operations research models and helps in solving the complex problem of the planning and control. The Management Information Systems helps in the perspective planning and the strategy formulations and hence ultimately supports the implementation of the plan framed for offering a distinct service.