M&E and MIS are two terms often talked about in the corporate world, and in large organizations. M&E refers to monitoring and Evaluation and MIS refers to Management Information System. In businesses and organizations, collection of data concerning different departments and their analysis is important to assess past performance so as to devise methods to overcome shortcomings and to improve the efficiency and output. Many people are confused by the use of these similar terms. There are differences between the two and this article intends to highlight these differences by discussing features of both the concepts.
MIS
Management Information System is a system that is intended for the use of the management to manage organizations in a more efficient and effective manner. It makes use of three important tools namely people, information and technology. MIS has gradually evolved over a period of time from the simple practice of gleaning information periodically and analyzing it. With the advent of time and advancement of technology, MIS today keeps the management abreast of all the data about different departments of the organization that enables them to come up with required solutions to various problems without any delay. Though it has many subsets such as ERP, CRM, project management etc, MIS on the whole is the best resource management has to work with to come up with solutions to problems and also to plan accordingly for better results in future.
M&E
Monitoring is a natural and constant collection of information from various projects and programs. Evaluation, on the other hand refers to systematic assessment of all this information to come up with decisions and also to devise better methods to remove any shortcomings in procedures and operations. M&E is therefore collection and assessment of information for improving the efficiency of any organization. This is done to judge the performance of any project or program. M&E is effectively a dialogue on development and its progress among all stakeholders.