The whole purpose behind a Print MIS solution is to help you understand your business from every angle, your staff working in the shipping department knows what needs to be shipped in what order, while your accounting department knows exactly what still needs to be invoiced this month.

The roots of this understanding are in your Print MIS data model, I use the term “model” here because it’s more than just data, it’s the relationship between the data, that really allows you to get the business intelligence you deserve from your Print MIS.  You don’t create the data container; that comes with the Print MIS you purchased, you fill that container with YOUR DATA and that creates the data model for your company.

This is typically one of the very first steps in a Print MIS implementation, the Print MIS vendor will hand over a raft of spreadsheets for you to fill out including but not limited to customers, vendors, employees, departments, cost centers, activity codes, raw materials inventory, etc. Don’t be fooled by the tedious nature of this data collection, this is the make or break of your Print MIS implementation success. The Print MIS vendor can help you understand the Print MIS database but you have to invest the time and effort into thinking through how you want to structure your company’s data model. The vendor can’t do this for you, they can advise you on best practices but in the end, it’s your business and you need to decide how you want to model the data it generates.