Information Systems

Information Systems

Introduction

The technology has evolved rapidly in the recent past. This development has intensified with the passage of time. Almost all the fields of life have benefitted greatly from this evolution of technology. Tasks that were to be performed manually in the past with a great difficulty have now become automated. This is due to the continued enhancement in technology.

Like all the other technologies, Information Systems have also evolved greatly. Perhaps, one can easily say that it is amongst the fastest growing technologies of the world at present. An information system is basically defined as a group of computer based resources including software, hardware devices, users or operators and infrastructure. Moreover, the system is differentiated from other systems by clearly defined boundaries.

Information Systems find their applications in a number of fields in the modern world. Offices, education, businesses, media, sports, and medicine, all these fields of life heavily deploy information systems for their smooth operations (Fortune & Peters, 2005). Sending and receiving information and managing huge databases and that too with great convenience have now become possible through the utilization of information system. Furthermore, a number of different industries are associated with them including computer systems manufacturers, software developers, semiconductors and electronic equipment manufacturers, telecommunication equipment vendors and internet service providers. Information systems work by encompassing all these industries and therefore have become a growing domain.

Discussion

As discussed above, information systems have been growing at a rapid pace since the recent past and incorporate a number of industries to work with. There are different types of information systems that are deployed in different areas as per requirement. These include office information systems, transaction processing systems, management information systems, decision support systems, process control system, expert systems and integrated information systems. All these have become quite common in the world at present.

Decision Support System

One of the aforementioned systems that would be discussed in detail is decision support system. As the name suggests, decision support systems are systems that help in the decision making process. It is a type of information system that helps its users to come up with a decision whenever a situation of decision making arises. The functioning of a decision making system is mainly dependant on the available information provided by either internal or external or both sources. Based on this information, a decision support system assists its user to reach a decision.

This pool of data is known as knowledgebase and usually consists of the data of the company in which it is operated in a digital format. It may information like employee records, production data, inventory data etc. Whenever the company needs to make a decision or introduce any change within the company that requires decision making, the decision support system collects the information that is relevant for the decision to be made, analyses it, compiles it and presents it in a manner that makes it convenient for the decision maker to make a decision. As a result, the workload on the decision ...