Information Technology: What is Information System? Essay Example

Systems (DSS)

Write the importance of Information System in today’s business. Information systems are the foundation for conducting business today.

In many industries, survival and even existence without extensive use of information technology is inconceivable, and information technology plays a critical role in increasing productivity. Although information technology has become more of a commodity, when coupled with complementary changes in organization and management, it can provide the foundation for new products, services, and ways of conducting business that provide firms with a strategic advantage. The system provides information on the past, present and project future and on relevant events inside and outside the organization .

It may be defined as a planned and integrated system for gathering relevant data, converting it in to right information and supplying the same to the concerned executives. The main purpose of information system is to provide the right information to the right people at the right time. All medium to large organizations depend on Information technology for their continued survival. Consider organizations like Petronas, Telecom Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and others the Power and Water companies having to manually calculate, millions of customer bills every month or quarter!

Clearly the clerical effort involved would make it difficult if not impossible for the organization to make a profit. Similar arguments apply to many other organizations such as banks, central and local government. Without information system and information technology, I believed that many large organizations could last no longer than 24 hours without IT support! There should be little wonder that attitudes to the development of information systems have changed over the years from an ad hoc

almost traditionally approach to a professionally managed, disciplined, planned, engineering approach.

In the past, end-users interacted with systems via the system analyst or programmer who translated the user requirements into system input in order to generate the output required for the end-users’ analysis and decision making process. However, now end-users are more directly involved with the systems as they navigate themselves typically via an interactive user interface, thus assuming more responsibility for their own applications.

Therefore, the ability to capture and measure end-user atisfaction serves as a tangible surrogate measure in determining the performance of the IS function and services, and of Information System (IS) themselves. Besides evaluating IS performance, it is also important to evaluate whether IS in an organization meet users’ expectations. Effective management information systems are needed by all business organization because of the increased complexity and rate of change of today’s business environment .

For Example, Marketing manager need information about sales performance and trends, financial manager returns, production managers needs information analyzing resources requirement and worker productivity and personnel manager require information concerning employee compensation and professional development. Thus, effective management information systems must be developed to provide modern managers with the specific marketing, financial, production and personnel information products they required to support their decision making responsibilities.

Information technology can change the way businesses compete. The strategic role of information systems involves using information technology to develop products, services, and capabilities that give a company strategic advantages over the competitive forces it faces in the global marketplace. This creates strategic information systems, information systems that support or shape the competitive position and strategies of an enterprise.