Abstract:

The MIS system is a system developed for management within Marketing and Sales at Volvo Car Corporation in Gothenburg, Sweden. The project started in 1986 and MIS has become a strategic product and a powerful support for management in their decision making. We have in MIS put together information from many different areas, for example sales, stocks, car market development, finance and research and we present this information in a clear and understandable way complemented with many different graphic display possibilities. The objective for the MIS project was: providing decision makers within Marketing & Sales with "management information" on a range of key areas and key markets. The guiding principle in our work was to "create order". In the first place MIS is developed for our Management Group, but we have gradually spread the use of the system and we have today some 100 users. As we have a considerable difference in computer experience among the users, we have made great efforts in keeping a uniform layout throughout the whole system and also to keep the system self instructive. The success factors for the MIS system is that we began to sell in the idea from the top and down through the organization, and that practically the entire organization was involved and last the close contact between the work group and the steering committee.