Planning Information System

Artur Victoria

Planning is one of the most important executive tools in the administrative process and, as
such, is indispensable when the organization considers in its future development actions
that must be carried out in order to guarantee a competitive insertion in its market of
action.

In the conception that will be presented as a model for planning, the situational diagnosis is
the framework for the transformation of the future of an organization or system with a view
to its strategic alignment.

Information systems, for their part, represent organizations today as the central demand for
the organization, control and management of a large amount of data and roles that will
acquire value for decision-making processes, if organized and made available in a structure
that data collection, data processing, and output information.

To plan information systems is to establish, on solid foundations, the future design of the
information management model that will subsidize the organization in its development.

A strategic activity is a fundamental choice that will relate to mission and organizational
goals.

The propose of planning

Many concepts have been proposed for the planning and in all the preparation of the future
development of the organizations is a central presupposition. For Robbins (2001) planning is
a managerial function that encompasses the definition of corporate goals, the
establishment of a global strategy to achieve these goals, and the development of a
hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities.

Planning has sufficient characteristics to obtain strategic importance for any organizational
enterprise. Among them are:

- To be linked to the future development of organizations, anticipating the events.

- To promote decision-making in an orderly manner.

- To be concerned with changes in the external environment, as well as with the correct
resources available.

- To identify needs for change in the organizational posture, in addition to promoting a

internal process of change.

- To worry about organizational culture.

Each of these characteristics responds to the reflection that must be promoted within the
organizations about what it is intended to accomplish in the horizon of future development.

Planning deals with the future. To address the complexity of corporate development, the
whole process will need strategies to link the current situation to tomorrow's pretensions.

The reason to associate planning with strategy.

The strategy has a clear purpose with the planning, to substantiate the actions for the
correct use of the organizational resources (internal and external) available to achieve the
pre-established objectives. The strategy can be defined as a set of actions and approaches
that management uses to achieve organizational performance goals.

The planning framework

Currently, planning and strategy are considered as a single management model called
strategic management. Strategic management developed from the 1960s onwards with so-
called long-term planning, which consisted of long-term competitive positions through
operational plans and annuals budgets.

The understanding of long-term organizational development was based on econometric

predictions and concern for diversification strategies, where products and markets were the
beacons used. What led to the next step, in the 1970s and 1980s, was the lack of flexibility
in the long-term view that ignored risks.

Strategic planning, a stage following long-term planning, developed within the perspective
of total quality (the 1970s and 1980s), where the organizational development strategies
were geared toward wide segmentation of markets, and such, they sought to broaden the
strategic vision for what is conventionally called prospecting, that is, search for future
consequences for decisions made in the present.

Along this period, organizations invested in environmental monitoring and surveying

techniques. As an example, we can take Benchmarking to focus on best practices and
market performance and situational analyzes using the SWOT technique for the analysis of
strengths and weaknesses in the internal environment and opportunities and threats in the
external environment to organizations.

The current stage in management has reshaped planning by incorporating it into strategy.
With this, from the 80's, the formulation and operationalization of the strategy became the
paradigm of the management model with the focus on the competitive analysis for the
correct change management.

Another distinguishing factor of this stage is the concern in internally disseminating the
corporate strategy and with that transforms employees into collaborators.
It should be noted that the stages of the development of the strategic vision are cumulative,
which means that no vision has been discarded, but adapted to new environmental realities.

Techniques such as Scenarios, SWOT and Benchmarking continue to be widely used for
strategic diagnosis. Similarly, econometric forecasts or matrices of portfolio analysis of
products and services, typical of long-term planning, still retain their utility in times of
strategic management.

The planning models

The planning model to be used in the information systems is based on the diagnosis of the
current situation, where the actions to be developed and the choice of the strategy are
conditioned to the reality of the information systems in the organizations.

With this, the first stage that must prevail is the examination and contextualization of the
objectives of these systems.

The consideration of the objectives of the information system allows to initiate the planning
process through a proposal of integration of its task environment to the organizational
environment.

However, it is important to note that environments are limited to the external pressures
(constraints) that influence and transform future organizational goals.

The planning model must be systematic, that is, it does not only apply in a specific situation
or only for a certain time, and it must be adopted as a continuous solution in which the
results achieved, in the end, restart a new process. Nor is it planned only when problems
are encountered, but for the continual improvement of the objectives and expected results
with a view to full organizational development.

According to Chaín (2000), we must, before starting planning, answer two questions:

a) Is there an immediate perception that the information system is inconsistent? and

b) Is it clearly perceived by the people in the organization, the presence of failures or the
need for changes in the strategy of information distribution?

To answer these questions is to establish a connection between the objective reality and the
planning process that will now be modelled.

The planning model proposed by Chaín (2000), has four stages:

Philosophical stage: it consists in the declaration of principles and values that explain the
options of the organization when constructing the planning.

The definition of the mission that underlies and drives the creativity of an organization and
the macro policies arise as a logical consequence.
The fundamental action in achieving this first stage is to answer the following questions: -
How does the organization intend to operate in its market? "What are you going to do?"

- To who is the organization's products and services intended for?

The answer to the questions should guide the organization in the formulation of its
objectives, from the description of the services and products offered, how they are
developed and what their clients are;

Analytical stage: it consists in the precision of the specific reality of the organizations'
performance through an analysis of their internal and external environments. This
knowledge is essential to situate the activity of information management in the concrete
reality of organizational methods and processes.

a) Internal analysis: corresponds to the evaluation of deficiencies, weaknesses and forces,

the values, resources and qualities necessary to achieve the company goals.

As an example, we can have an organization that has an information service supported by

professionals who are not specialized in information management. The forces are the values
that the organization has and that serve to reach the pre-established goals.

b) External analysis: corresponds to the evaluation of opportunities, problems and threats.

Opportunities are environmental forces that can favour, through actions, the development
of the organization.

Information on a need to design a new packaging for a given product is an example of an

opportunity. Threats are situations of risk that paralyze or permanently interrupt the
information flow.

Stage of elaboration of the plan: the synergy between the previous stages should be the
initial motivation for the formulation of a master plan of development of the information
system. This plan must have objectives, strategies and plans of action; and

Evaluation and control stage: consists in the execution of all proposed activities, as well as
their control and feedback. The purpose of this stage is to correct the course of the planned
actions according to the requirements contained in the pre-established objectives.

The design of the information system

The design of an information system should be based on the assumption that information is
a strategic resource for management; it must play a particularly important role in
developing efforts to create and maintain differentiation of products and services. In the
moment of interaction with the client, the information becomes an essential tool for the
personalization of the service, which can evolve into market niches, centred on groups of
users, or even consider each user in an individualized way, a niche market.
Therefore, information systems should reduce uncertainty and increase knowledge,
through access to information, about the environment that surrounds them, particularly in
the inputs they receive. Such inputs, whether of a financial, material or demand nature,
must be known, calculated and anticipated.

In information systems, as well as in organizations, the decision-making process originates in

the identification of problems or opportunities, in the collection and analysis of data and
information on these problems / opportunities and in the conversion of this information
into action. Based on the global analysis of these elements, the administrator obtains
information.

The close relationship between information systems and the decision-making process shows
the purpose of these systems. They must have their mission and goals set on the mission
and goals of the host organization. This prerogative is essential if the results presented are
to meet the information needs of all components within organizations.

However, in order for the information system to be geared to the informational needs of its
users, in addition to its mission and objectives, it must establish the information quality
requirements:

In relation to the content:

- Accuracy: the information must not contain errors and be in conformity with the
information needs of users;

- Succinctness: all necessary information must be made available;

- Amplitude: the information can be specific or general, depending on the demand; -

Performance: the information can have its content focused on the performance of a system.

In relation to form:

- Clarity: information must be made available in a clear and easy-to-understand way;

- Completeness: the information must be made available in full or synthesized, according to

the demand;

- Format: the information must be made available in a format that makes it intelligible and
in accordance with the users' access requirements.

Data exploration is another modality that can help in the composition of information
systems geared to users' information needs and coupled with the strategic diagnostic scope,
which is dear to the drafting process.

In addition, if we consider that during the evolution of information systems the maturation
of information systems has been incorporated as a measure of the quality of the products
and services offered, prospecting should be used as a model for monitoring the
environment organization that hosts information systems.

During the management of these systems it is important to have the option of more
convenient environmental examination models, since adopting this or that type of
examination can reveal qualitative characteristics of the reactivity and / or proactively of the
systems in the service of informational demands .

The environmental examination is classified in three ways:

(a) Irregular systems of examination: they are directed environmental studies made when
some crisis is about to occur.

They should only be incorporated into the examination model in extreme situations and
never as a common practice. Systems equipped with irregular monitoring models reveal a
reactive and deficient posture in meeting the demands of users. On the other hand, the
setting up of irregular examination systems has a lower cost and is often compatible with
the financial capacity of micro and small companies;

(b) Regular examination systems: they are based on regular reviews of the environment
and its components. They are intermediate models of monitoring that congregate relatively
low costs, without, however, completely compromising the proactively that must exist in
the examination of the information needs of the users of the information systems; and

c) Continuous examination systems: systematically monitor the components of the

organizational environment.

It is the Ideal model to generate proactively in the decisions regarding the consumption
behaviour of the information of the areas that use the information systems.

They allow information systems to offer products and services that are more suited to the
environmental realities of organizations competing for a highly volatile market that requires
assertive decisions in shorter and shorter terms. However, the assembly of continuous
systems cost and can, if not well exploited in the generation of competitive advantage,
quickly compromise the cost versus benefit ratio, thus making it unfeasible to continue.

The context of information systems

The evolution of information systems followed two clear trends

- The expansion in the scope and precedence of the role played by information systems in
business and strategic administration; and

- The expansion of the systematic use of products and services offered by information
systems in the context of strategic management.
From the 1950s onwards, these two trends marked the transformation of the so-called
electronic data processing systems, which, in turn, dealt with tasks related to transaction
processing, record keeping of data and applications in the accounting and financial
administration of companies, in management information systems as early as the 1960s.

Management information systems were created and maintained by master plans that were
concerned with the design of administrative reports. It was also in this period that its ability
to support decision-making processes in organizations became a trend that would later
consolidate in the 1970s with so-called decision support systems.

Decision support systems were subdivided into support systems for the decision-making
process itself and support systems for administrative management. In any case, support
solutions were eminently interactive and ad hoc to the decision-making process. This was
the main line of transformation and development of these systems.

Between the beginning and end of the 80's information systems, in addition to consolidating
their decision-support role, have created new mechanisms for providing more specialized
information. Its approach to users' information needs has gained strength through strategic
products and services to generate competitive advantage. In this period, the environmental
examination models became part of the information management in the organizations,
giving rise to the so-called executive information systems.

In the period from the early 1990s to 2000, information systems were able to bring together
the full potential of information and communication technologies. From there,
interconnected information systems and the possibility of strategically managing the
information resources available on the Internet and the Intranet, have given another
dimension to the information itself.

Models of identification of information needs

For the congregating and administration of an information system it is necessary that those
responsible carry out a basic study of information needs in the company. Only through such
a study will managers be able to offer information systems capable of supporting the
decisions of an organization.

The knowledge of the 'consumer' profile of the information will give the guidelines for:
selection, collection and analysis of the data that will integrate the system.

This will make it possible to use this data for the benefit of organizational development and
improvement.

The CRM - Customer Relationship Management.

In this model, the strategy consists of including the following elements in surveying
information needs:
- Understanding the needs of customers / users.

- Anticipation of users' needs.

- Administration of user needs.

The act of defining a culture of customer relationship management must take into account
the identification and understanding of its needs.

The same can be said when looking for the accuracy of response from feedbacks, where the
measurement of user satisfaction must be proportional to the identification and
understanding of their needs.

The proposal for the planning of information systems

The operative insertion of the information systems in the strategic administration of the
organizations is the purpose of the planning of information systems. This will mean that this
system should add three capital elements:

- Adaptation of the mission and objectives of the system to the mission and objectives of
the organization in which it is inserted. Through periodic evaluations of the statistics of use
and satisfaction of information needs of system users, systematic collection of data for
updating users' information consumption profiles, correction of the proposed strategic
management model to host the information system organization.

- Broad consideration of users' information needs. By means of detailed surveys of the

information consumption profiles of organizations and their users, a study of their
information needs and the formatting of products and services to be made available in the
field of information management.

- Constant technological updating with the objective of balancing the cost versus benefit
ratio. Through the establishment of benchmarking and technological monitoring processes
in a specific business area, monitoring and systematic mapping of the state of the art in the
development of information technologies and communication with a view to promoting
updates on the instruments of data collection.

To plan information systems is to design the information management model that will
support the organization in its development, that is, to collect data, process it, analyze
information, formulate strategies supported in the analysis performed and enable action in
accordance with the defined strategies.

Therefore, it is an activity that must deal with the following tasks:

- Collection of information.
- Storage of information.

- Processing of information.

- Promotion of access to information.

- Organization of information.

- Modelling and analysis of information.

The planning of information systems should also implement changes in the flow of
information of an organization, since the aggregation of value and the information system
itself must be considered as indispensable elements in the production, organization and
transfer of information. This fact will invariably impact the day-to-day business decisions
and can perfect the pre-established information flow.

The changes in the flow of information should occur from the planning of the information
system and directly influence the speed and reliability in meeting the demands for
information.

The fulfilment of demands can only be done reliably and expeditiously if the process that
originates it is endowed with sufficient information. This characteristic should be linked to
the information flow of the company, which is basically reflected in internal communication
and in determining priorities in internal processes.

Finally, the planning of information systems should provide:

- Increased order and agility of the decision making process within the organization that
hosts the information system, with a view to promoting the improvement of the tasks for
these systems.

- Correct identification and location of needs for changes in the structure of information
systems.

- Adoption of a proactive stance on the future development of information systems.

- Establishing the balance between strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities that
challenge the effectiveness of information systems.

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