Role of Management Information Systems on Strategic Decision Making Among Tea Factories in Kenya

Abstract

The continued increase in the use of Information systems in organizations has significantly changed the manner in which organizations operate and communicate. Information technology and information systems play a crucial role in the present knowledge based economy and are applied in a wide range of areas in several organizations. This study therefore sought to bridge this pertinent gap in literature by establishing the role of management information systems on strategic decision making among tea factories in Kenya. The objective of the study was to establish therole of management information systems on strategic decision making among tea factories in Kenya. Specifically the study sought to find out the role of human resource management information system, customer relationship management information system, supply chain management information system, computerized accounting and financial management information system and executive management information system on strategic decision making among tea factories in Kenya. This study adopted a descriptive survey design. The target population of this study was all employees, management and directors of tea factories in Kenya. The tea factories which are the units of analysis and which constitute the population of study are 108 factories which are licensed by the Tea Directorate formally known as Tea Board of Kenya. Stratified random sampling was used. Within each tea factory three strata was created of employees, management and directors. Within each stratum, simple random sampling was used to identify individual respondents. The target and accessible population was large and greater than ten thousand and hence the study used a sample of at least 390 respondents. Primary information was gathered by use of a likert scale questionnaire coupled with informal interviews that were guided by the questionnaire. Information was sorted, coded and input into the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) for production of graphs, tables, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The study findings indicated that the role of management information system was statistically significant in explaining the strategic decision making among the tea factories in Kenya. The study concluded that intensive usage of management information systems in the tea factories generally increases the efficiency of doing business by creating new products and services, shortening the time to get to market, reducing the costs, decreasing the prices and more efficiently answering on the moves of the competitors and market changes. Therefore the strategic intention of managers of these factories should be a creation of new organizational climate based on the tighter cooperation between the individuals with the aim of achieving the synergic effects in internal entrepreneurial activities. The study recommends that tea factories should emphasize customer relationship by investing in a customer relationship management system. Specifically, tea factories should invest in a robust Information technology system as this can certainly help companies to create satisfied and loyal customers. It is further recommend that companies must develop a supportive organizational culture, market relationship management internally, intimately understand customer expectations, create and maintain detailed customer database and organize and reward employees in such a way that the objectives of customer relationship management are achieved.