Information Technology Workbook
8 Using information systems
Information systems exist to enable the interaction of an organization
with its customers. In manufacturing industries
this means keeping
track of supplies of raw materials and the labor and processes
to transform them into finished goods. For all
organizations it means recording revenues and expenses
in accordance with accounting principles,
paying its employees, and maintaining
records for tax purposes. In earlier days
many organizations created their own business computer
programs. Now
organizations often license software for these
purposes from vendors. This may be
integrated across many business areas as an enterprise
resource planning (ERP) system. An ERP
system may integrate
raw materials supply, warehousing, accounting, shipping,
marketing, finance, and customer relationship management
(CRM) in a large common database.
A business system accumulates data
as it handles transactions such as orders and payments.
Reporting is done from this data
for daily operations and to manage financial status.
Trend and status data is
often summarized for management in graphic form
by an Executive Information Systems (EIS). Many times this
data is combined with a Geographic
Information System (GIS) to associate it
with geographical areas.
8.1 Enterprise Resource Planning Systems
8.2 Risks and a case study
8.3 CRM and the limits of data usage
8.4 Executive and Geographic Information Systems
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