what does providing management control information mean?

Answer 1

This term is usually used in big Companies to mean 'finding out what is actually happening to the Business'.

In smaller Companies the Boss knows exactly what's going on because he authorises all the Orders, signs all the Cheques and banks all the payments ...

In larger Companies the 'Boss' is usually a Board of Directors who have little or no idea of how much is being spent, how well Sales are going, how much money is coming in or the overall performance of the Business until the Monthly /Quarterly accounts have been prepared.

So, in order to get some idea of what's actually happening (and what might happen next) various Computerised 'data mining' systems have evolved that (in theory) allow Managers to discover the 'facts' (for example, how many orders booked, how many Customers visited etc) and thus make decisions that (in theory) allow better control (for example, hire more sales staff or start considering redundancies) well before everything goes pear shaped