Information System

Information system collects, processes, stores, analyzes, and disseminates information for a specific purpose. Like any other system, an information system includes inputs(data, instructions) and outputs(reports, calculations). It processes the inputs and produces outputs that are sent to the users or other system.

Data: are raw facts or elementary descriptions of things, events, activities, and transactions that are captured, recorded, stored and classified but not organized to convey any specific meaning. example grade point average, bank balance

Information: it is a collection of facts(data) organized in some manner so that they are meaningful to recipient. example student name with grade point average, customer name with bank balance.

Knowledge: consist of information that has been organized and processed to convey understanding, experiences, accumulated learning or expertise as it applies to a current business problem or process.

A computer based information system is an information system that used computer and telecommunication s technology to perform its intended task

Components of an Computer based information system
The compinents of an information system are hardware, software, database, net-works, procedures and people.
Hardware is a set of device sucs as a processor, monitor, keyboard and printer that accept data and information, process them and display them.
Software is a set of computer program that enable the hardware to process data.
A database is an organized collection of related files and records that stores data and the association among them.
A networks is a connecting system that permits the sharing of resources among different computers.
Procedures are the strategies, policies, method and rules for using the information system
The most important element in information systems is people, those persons who work with the information system or use its output

Cababilities of information system

1) Provide fast and accurate transaction processing
Every event that occurs in a business is called a transaction. Transactions include the sale of a unit of goods, a pay-check issued, a bank deposit, a course grade registered and so on. These data nust be captured accurately and quickly. This process is called transaction processing. A good example of transaction processing system ins point of sale.

2)Provide large-capacity, fast-access storage
Information systems must provide both enormous storage for corporate data, and also fast access to those data.

3)Provide fast communications(machine to machine, human to human)
Networks enable organozational employees and computers to communicate almost instantly around the world. High-transmission capacity networks(those with high bandwidths) make fast communications possible. In addition they allow data, voice, image, documents, and full-motion video to be transmitted simultaneously

4)Reduce information overload
Information systems(particularly networks) have contributed to managers having too much information. For example, the amount of sult, managers can feel drowned in information and unable to make decisions efficiently and effectively. Information systems can be designed to reduce this information overload.

5)Provide support for decision making
Decision support systems help decision makers across an organization and at all levels of the organization. Therefore, employees at lower organizationals levels have the authority and responsibility to make more and larger decisions than ever before.

Strategic use of information system
The forces that shape the level and type of competition in any industry include the relative power of buyers and suppliers, threats from substitute products and services, and the ease or difficulty with which new competitors can enter the industry. BAsic competitive strategies emphasize cost reduction and product differentiation. In addition, the value chain enables companies to understand and optimize the discrete steps involved in the manufacture of a product or the provision of a service, so as to add value to their products by improving quality and efficiency at every steps. These business concepts can be used to generate a series of questions about IT whose answers can shape an organization's competitive strategy. In general, IT give strategic competitive advantage through addressing and sometimes altering the nature of strategic competitive advantage through addressong and sometimes altering the nature of strategic force in industry, as well as advancing strategies based on cost and product differentiation


Major Is function
# Initiating and designing specific strategic information systems
# Infrastructure planning, development, and control
# Incorporating the Internet and e-commerce into the business
# Educating the non-IS managers about IT
# Supporting end-user computing
# Partnering with the executive level that runs the businerr