INFORMATION SYSTEM & MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS INFORMATION SYSTEM:

Information technology (IT) has changed the way the world does business and has had a great affect on traditional management functions. Management no longer has to rely on manual processes and a paper trail to perform everyday transactions. IT has automated many of these key management activities. For instance, e-mail has accelerated communication while the Internet allows instant access to branch offices, bank accounts and information. While beneficial, IT has also created a host of new challenges, such as data security and compliance. Because of the explosion of electronic data, many executives are feeling the pressure to better manage critical information. IT mainly serves to cut down the amount of resources spent on repetitive and time consuming tasks. IT increases worked productivity and frees up employees time to spend on value added services. Early business computers were used for simple operations such as tracking sales or payroll data, with little detail or structure. Over time, these computer applications became more complex, hardware storage capacities grew, and technologies improved for connecting previously isolated applications. As more and more data was stored and linked, managers sought greater detail as well as greater abstraction with the aim of creating entire management reports from the raw, stored data. The term "MIS" arose to describe such applications providing managers with information about sales, inventories, and other data that would help in managing the enterprise. Today, the term is used broadly in a number of contexts and includes (but is not limited to): decision support systems, resource and people management applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise performance management (EPM), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), project management and database retrieval applications. The successful MIS supports a business' long range plans, providing reports based upon performance analysis in areas critical to those plans, with feedback loops that allow for titivation of every aspect of the enterprise, including recruitment and training regimens. MIS not only indicate how things are going, but also why and where performance is failing to meet the plan. These reports include near-real-time performance of cost centers and projects with detail sufficient for individual accountability.

Information is data that have been put into a useful and meaningful context and communicated to a recipient who uses it to make decisions. Information involves the communication and reception of intelligence or knowledge. (Burch & Grudnitski 1989) An information system (IS) is a formalized computer information system that can collect, store, process and report data from various sources to provide the information necessary for managerial decision making.(Hicks 1993)

Information systems Meaning However, we need to divorce the concept of information systems from its technological manifestation. Information systems are concerned with a much broader domain of interest than purely computerized application of information technology. Information systems incorporates information Technology, but is also concerned with information and organizational activities. Since it is concerned with activities which are defined as being relevant to different fields of knowledge, information systems can be seen as an interdisciplinary subject. However, all that this means in practice is that the information systems professional should not be hidebound into addressing issues from a single disciplinary perspective.

Information Systems Functions: We have identified that information systems is an interdisciplinary subject that must be seen as more than just computerised information collection, storage, processing and distribution. However, in order to justify this argument, we must also identify what other functions information systems perform. We can identify 5 functions of information systems (Jayaratna 1994), including the information processing function described earlier.