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Good information should have at least 3 Rs (Relevant, Reliable, Recent) and also complete, accurate, clear, it should inspire confidence, it should be appropriately communicated, its volume should be manageable, it should be timely and its cost should be less than the benefits it provides.
Let us look at those qualities in more detail.
(a) Relevance. Information must be relevant to the purpose for which a manager wants to use it. Report must be ' to the point' and contain relevant information which only needed.
(b) Completeness. An information user should have all the information he needs to do his job properly. If he does not have a complete picture of the situation, he might well make bad decisions.
(c) Accuracy. Information should obviously be accurate because using incorrect information could have serious and damaging consequences. There is no need to go into unnecessary detail for pointless accuracy.
(d) Clarity. Information must be clear to the user. If the user does not understand it properly he cannot use it properly. Lack of clarity is one of the causes of a breakdown in communication.
(d) Clarity. Information must be clear to the user. If the user does not understand it properly he cannot use it properly. Lack of clarity is one of the causes of a breakdown in communication.
(e) Confidence. Information must be trusted by the managers who are expected to use it. However not all information is certain. Some information has to be certain, especially operating information, e.g, related to a production process. Strategic information, e.g relating to the environment, is uncertain.
(f) Volume. An enormous mountain of information, even if it is all relevant, cannot be handled. Reports to management must therefore be clear and concise and in many systems, control action works basically on the 'exception' principle.
(g) Timing. Information which is not available in time may serve no purpose. Information prepared too frequently also can be a serious disadvantage. So least information are well in time than more out of time.
(h) Cost. Information should have some value, otherwise it would not be worth the cost of collecting and filing it. The benefits obtainable from the information must also exceed the costs of acquiring it, and whenever management is trying to decide whether or not to produce information for a particular purpose a cost/benefit study ought to be made.
(h) Cost. Information should have some value, otherwise it would not be worth the cost of collecting and filing it. The benefits obtainable from the information must also exceed the costs of acquiring it, and whenever management is trying to decide whether or not to produce information for a particular purpose a cost/benefit study ought to be made.
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