IS THEORY AND PRACTICES
IS321
University of Benghazi
Faculty of information technology
Instructor : Mr. SAMI BENAMER
BUSINESS INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
Ref. Essentials of Management Information Systems Fifteenth Edition Kenneth C. Laudon New York University Jane P.
Laudon Azimuth Information Systems Carol Guercio Traver Azimuth Interactive, Inc.
OBJECTIVES OUTLINE
• Understand why information systems are essential for running and
managing a business.
• Define an information system, explain how it works, and identify
its people, organizational, and technology components.
• Apply a four-step method for business problem solving to solve
information system-related problems.
HOW INFORMATION SYSTEMS
ARE TRANSFORMING BUSINESS
• Smartphones, tablet computers, email, and online videoconferencing have all become
essential tools of business.
• Around 175 million businesses worldwide had registered .com or .net Internet sites.
• More than 2.6 billion people worldwide bought something online, spending about $5.7
trillion.
• More than 3.6 billion people worldwide use a social network such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, or Pinterest, including 97 percent of Fortune 500 firms, who use them to
communicate with their customers.
• Digital advertising spending worldwide was expected to reach almost $570 billion in
2022, growing at more than 20 percent a year from 2014 through 2021.
• Various laws require many businesses to retain email messages for a specified period,
depending on the law.
KEY CHALLENGES IN
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
• Technology
• Cloud computing platform emerges as a major business area of innovation.
• Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT)
• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• The mobile platform
• Management and People
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Online collaboration and social networking
• Organizations
• Security and privacy
• Social business
• Remote work (telework) surges
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT)
• Information technology (IT) consists of all the hardware and
software that a firm needs to use to achieve its business objectives.
• This includes not only computers, storage technology, and mobile
devices but also software, such as the Windows or Linux operating
systems, the Microsoft Office desktop productivity suite, and the many
thousands of computer programs that can be found in a typical large
firm.
WHAT IS AN INFORMATION
SYSTEM?
• An Information System (IS) can be defined technically as a set of
interrelated components that collect (or retrieve), process, store, and
distribute information to support decision making, coordinating, and
control in an organization.
• In addition, information systems may also help managers and workers
analyze problems, visualize complex subjects, and create new
products.
• Information systems contain information about significant people,
places, and things within the organization or in the environment
surrounding it.
DATA AND INFORMATION
• Data, in contrast, are streams of raw facts representing events
occurring in organizations or the physical environment before they
have been organized and arranged into a form that people can
understand and use.
FUNCTIONS OF AN
INFORMATION SYSTEM
• An information system contains
information about an organization and
its surrounding environment.
• Three basic activities (input,
processing, and output) produce the
information organizations need.
• Feedback is output returned to
appropriate people or activities in the
organization to evaluate and refine the
input.
• Environmental actors, such as
customers, suppliers, competitors,
stockholders, and regulatory agencies,
interact with the organization and its
information systems.
FUNCTIONS OF AN
INFORMATION SYSTEM
• Input captures or collects raw data from within the organization or
from its external environment.
• Processing converts this raw input into a meaningful form by
classifying, arranging, and performing calculations on it.
• Output transfers the processed information to the people who will use
it or to the activities for which it will be used.
• Information systems also provide feedback, which is output that is
returned to appropriate members of the organization to help them
evaluate or correct the input stage.
DIMENSIONS OF
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
• To understand
information systems fully,
you will need to be aware
of the broader
organizational, people,
and information
technology dimensions of
systems and their power
to provide solutions to
challenges and problems
in the business
environment.
DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION
SYSTEMS-RELATIONS
ORGANIZATIONS
• Information systems are an integral part of organizations, and although we be likely to
think about information technology changing organizations and business firms, it is, in
fact, a two-way street.
• The history and culture of business firms also affect how the technology is used and how
it should be used.
• Organizations have a structure that is composed of different levels and specialties.
• Their structures reveal a clear-cut division of work.
• A business firm is organized as a hierarchy, or a pyramid structure, of rising authority and
responsibility.
• The upper levels of the hierarchy consist of managerial, professional, and technical
employees, whereas the lower levels consist of operational personnel.
• Experts are employed and trained for different business functions, such as sales and
marketing, manufacturing and production, finance and accounting, and human resources.
ORGANIZATIONS
• The firm builds information systems to serve these different specialties and levels
of the firm.
• Business processes, which are logically related tasks and behaviors for
accomplishing work.
• Developing a new product, fulfilling an order, and hiring a new employee are
examples of business processes.
• Each organization has a unique culture, or fundamental set of assumptions,
values, and ways of doing things, that has been accepted by most of its members.
• Parts of an organization’s culture can always be found embedded in its
information systems.
PEOPLE
• A business is only as good as the people who work there and run it.
• Likewise with information systems, they are useless without skilled
people to build and maintain them or people who can understand how
to use the information in a system to achieve business objectives.
TECHNOLOGY
Information technology is one of many tools managers use to cope
with change and complexity.
• Computer hardware physical objects—“things”— that are embedded
• Computer software with sensors, software, and other technologies
for the purpose of connecting and exchanging
• Data management technology data with other devices and systems over the
• Networking and telecommunications Internet
technology, • Cloud computing is a centralized system for
• All these technologies, along with the people storing, managing, and processing data across
required to run and manage them, represent the Internet using a network of remote
resources that can be shared throughout the computing centers.
organization and constitute the firm’s• Big Data large quantities of structured and
information technology (IT) infrastructure. unstructured data provide useful information but
• Internet of things (IOT) describes a network of are often too vast or complex to process using
traditional methods
FOUR-STEP METHOD FOR BUSINESS
PROBLEM SOLVING TO SOLVE
INFORMATION SYSTEM-RELATED
PROBLEMS.
1. Problem identification involves understanding what kind of problem
is being presented and identifying people, organizational, and
technology factors.
2. Solution design involves designing several alternative solutions to
the problem that has been identified.
3. Evaluation and choice entail selecting the best solution, taking into
account its cost and the available resources and skills in the
business.
4. Implementation of an information system solution entails purchasing
or building hardware and software, testing the software, providing
employees with training and documentation, managing change as
the system is introduced into the organization, and measuring the
outcome.
• Problem solving requires critical thinking in which one suspends
judgment to consider multiple perspectives and alternatives.
