Best practices in IT/IS...and the journey of finding the company.

The planning…

Yesterday – June 24, 2009 –my classmates and I decided on what company shall we interview for the assignments. There were lots of companies that had been mentioned so we made up our mind and came up with the solution of having an ambush interview and do a ‘company hopping’ until a company entertains us. Our first stop was the business process outsourcing company – CALLBOX – because it is the nearest company from our school, of all the other companies that we have in mind. Before we went to the said company we first had our request letters printed and we’re on. (^_^)

The First stop – Callbox

The company Callbox occupies the 9th floor of the LandCo building and at around four in the afternoon we visited their office. We were a bit hesitant to go inside their office because there was nobody in there. For few minutes we stayed outside the women’s washroom when an employee who was about to go through the second door gently asked about our purpose. He then suggested to us to just enter at the main door and wait until their fellow worker comes out and entertain us. Soon after, a young woman went out and she asked if we are going to apply – needless to say that we answered ‘no’ (naturally!). We gave her the letter and elaborated our concern. Subsequently, she spoke to her co-employees – whom I guessed are under the MIS department. Well, I guessed it right! The two gentlemen are indeed from the MIS department. After the MIS guys read the letter, one of them advised us to write down our questions so that we can get the answers on Friday. For a second we were tongue-tied but afterwards we diffidently said that the deadline for the submission of the assignment was today and as a result he said that the answers will just be sent via e-mail to make it faster. We had given them only two e-mail addresses – Sarah’s and John’s – because they can access the Internet at their respective houses; they will just forward the message sent by Callbox to us.

We were so happy that they were still able to entertain us even with their hectic time! And we thought that we don’t have to visit other companies anymore to answer this assignment, but unfortunately, there were no e-mail message that our classmates had received. So, just this morning – June 25, 2009 – we planned to visit another company which is Global Connect E-Solutions, it is also a call center company here in Davao.

The Second stop – Global Connect E-Solutions

One of our classmates had worked at this company – Global Connect E-Solutions – so we went their with her. The programmer of their MIS department was having a meeting when we arrived at their office. He went out for a while to entertain us and since he's still having a meeting we just gave our questionnaire and he told us that we can have the answers minutes after the meeting.

Global Connect E-Solutions is just a kilometer away to Concentrix which is also a business process outsourcing company so we decided to visit Concentrix as well.

The Third stop – Concentrix

At last! In this company we were able to conduct a face-to-face ambush interview to the MIS Supervisor.(^_^)

Concentrix maximizes the long-term value of the clients' customers with solutions that support the entire customer life cycle and provide a high return on investment. And, by delivering from their locations in Asia, Latin America, and the United States in 12 major languages, they give their clients the global reach essential for business success. Their results: satisfied clients, some with relationships of 12 years or more.

Company Profile:
Parent company: SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX)
Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry
Lines of business include technical and customer support,
sales and marketing, and back office transaction processing
Experience 25 years
Industry expertise in technology, communications, and consumer electronics
Quality process: ISO 9001-2000, ISO 27001, CMMI
Mission statement: At Concentrix, we deliver knowledge-based services that have one measure of success — customer satisfaction.

The Interview...

• What is the basic function of MIS in this company?
  
  • Help Desk - personnels assigned in repairing, installing and troubleshooting basic networking problems. They are also responsible in user configurations such as adding a username for the newly employed and access restrictions and sites as well.
  • Network Specialist - they are the mentor of the 'help desk'. They are responsible for the deeper aspect of troubleshooting.
  • Senior Network Specialist - this person is responsible for configurations of servers and telephone companies. They suggest for upgrades if ever they find something that needs more improvement on the system.
  • MIS Supervisor - this person is the one who makes the decision for the changes to be made and he also recommends for the development of all accounts.
    
  
  

They make sure that the development to be made is properly planned and conceptualized so they submit or conduct a feasibility study before it will be approved.

• What are the best practices of MIS which you think contributes to the success of the company?
  
  • Teamwork - they are cooperating and they do have a good communication to each other.
  • Constantly evolving - they are open to changes as long as properly justified. In fact, the systems that the company uses are developed by them. One of the systems is:
    
    • CMS (Call Monitoring System) - the system that records all the discussion between their employees and their clients' customers.
      
    
    
  
  

The MIS Supervisor said that generally, MIS is the core of the company because Concentrix is a technological call center thus MIS is an essential part of it. One of the things that the MIS Supervisor is very proud about their MIS is that among all the call centers here in Davao they have the best MIS. Some of the call centers have their MIS personnels just similar to the level of their 'help desk' which is also synonymous to technicians. Concentrix' MIS has its service not only in local but also global, because their server is actually accessible in different parts of the globe.

To all the companies: Thank you for the journey..we will keep on traveling.
The end of the beginning.

Note: Concentrix had already been informed that the contents of their interview will be posted in the Internet and agreed.

First day learnings in MIS.

Management Information Systems learnings:

Management - it is the Planning, Directing, Organizing, and Controlling a certain matter or event.

Information Technology = HARDWARE + SOFTWARE

Information Systems = HARDWARE + SOFTWARE + PEOPLEWARE

Therefore, MIS is planning, directing, organizing and controlling IT and peopleware?

But our MIS Instructor said that people can't be managed because we are not robots, thus we have feelings.

What we can only do to people is to LEAD them.. give directions and be a guide.

We can all be MANAGERS but not LEADERS.

Aside from learnings I also gained confusions during our first meeting..hehe

Sir Gamboa left us the question "Is the subject MIS, correct?".

Well, a part of me says 'YES' because if it's wrong, then why would we have this subject?

And a part of me says 'NO' because only software and hardware could be manage..

So I browsed the meaning of Management Information Systems in wikipedia and below is just a part of it..

"Management information systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. decision support systems, expert systems, and executive information systems."
Source: en.wikipedia.org

The way I understand it, MIS is a method (Software + Hardware) to support or guide human (Peopleware) in decision making.