* Data 
Data are raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event or object. Before the information age, managers manually collected and analyzed data, a time-consuming and complicated task without which they would have little insight into how to run their business. Lacking data, managers often found themselves making business decisions about how many products to make, how much material to order, or how many employ- ees to hire based on intuition or gut feelings. In the information age, successful manag- ers compile, analyze, and comprehend massive amounts of data daily, which helps them make more successful business decisions. 
Figure 1.2 shows sales data for Tony’s Wholesale Company, a fictitious business that supplies snacks to stores. The data highlight characteristics such as order date, cus- tomer, sales representative, product, quantity, and profit. The second line in Figure 1.2, for instance, shows that Roberta Cross sold 90 boxes of Ruffles to Walmart for $1,350, resulting in a profit of $450 (note that Profit = Sales − Costs). These data are useful for understanding individual sales; however, they do not provide us much insight into how Tony’s business is performing as a whole. Tony needs to answer questions that will help him manage his day-to-day operations such as: * Who are my best customers? * Who are my least-profitable customers? * What is my best-selling product? * What is my slowest-selling product? * Who is my strongest sales representative? * Who is my weakest sales representative? 
What Tony needs, in other words, is not data but information. Management Information Systems: Business Driven MIS Order
Date Customer
4-Jan Walmart 4-Jan Walmart 5-Jan Safeway 6-Jan Walmart 7-Jan 7-Eleven 7-Jan Walmart 8-Jan Kroger 9-Jan Walmart 10-Jan Target 11-Jan Walmart
Sales