Information Systems (IS) and Their Use in Strategy
Any business, small or big, should always have a system to aid in processing collecting storing and sharing data. There earlier, the tasks required a lot of paper and time. However, today organizations use the current technology to smoothen and automate their functions. Thus, IS has played a vital part when it comes to decision making and data processing. If used in the right manner, the impact the companies in a positive way when it comes to general performance and revenue.
Furthermore, there is the technology of management information systems (MIS). The MIS helps a business in managing a massive amount of data. Information technology comes in to help, support, and facilitate the employment of the MIS systems. This paper will identify the significant role of information systems and management information systems. It will also look at the role of a data ware-house in a company and its utilization. Besides that, the paper will try to see how organizations use this technology.
IS and MIS
IS and MIS are all part of the IT infrastructure necessary when it comes to running an organization. However, there is a difference among them, but both work jointly to ease an organization’s IT technology. Thus, IS refers to the set of interconnected components that help in processing, collecting, and storing raw data that get delivered to the users as information. It also refers to a wide range of features like computer and software and methodologies that are essential in helping the internal day operations of an organization (Clarkson, 2019). Besides, MIS refers to a kind of IS used in business to boost the productivity of management and workers by gathering data from the various platform and analyzing to help in decision making. There are several research areas when it comes to MIS. Some of the regions may revolve around security, the alignment of IT business strategies, and business intelligence with the MIS technology (Amuna et al., 2017). An example of the MIS area of research is the field of mobile payment, where applications like PayPal get used in money management across different platforms.
Competitive strategy for IS
IS plays a crucial part in providing a competitive lead for a business. This gets achieved when the company aligns its objectives, mission, and plans with the information technology. Additionally, IS helps companies to divide their activities into economically and technologically distinct (Koch & Windsperger, 2017). Through this, the company gains a competitive advantage since it can assess how its actions can get executed at a lower cost. If it achieves low-cost operations, the business tends to maximize its profits hence having an advantage over its rivals.
Furthermore, IS gives a business a competitive advantage by enabling the company to reach broad and new markets. With wider markets, the industry tends to increase its profits. Besides that, IS helps businesses reduce the production cost, which enables the company to sell its product a better price compared to the competitors, thus attracting customers and gaining a competitive advantage. For example, most significant hotels use a customer IS with detailed information about the active guest, providing tailored services and rewarding profitable customers with extra attention and privileges hence giving it a competitive advantage while focusing on market gaps.
Benefits for cross functional enterprise
Cross functional enterprise design is very vital to business, and it helps in decision making and data processing activities of various departments in an organization. Moreover, they cut across the boundaries of the entire enterprise (Masuda & Viswanathan, 2019). This architecture is essential to a business as they help improve the internal process of the company. Additionally, they raise the level of work effectiveness and increase the efficiency cost of the business. Besides that, they help in saving time and value for the company. An example of a cross functional business process is when the sales department works with the shipping department, and the marketing department may work with the sales department within the same organization.
Creation of data warehouse challenges
When creating the ware-house, the primary objective is to identify a company’s objectives and goals. Next, a data management program gets conducted, and the data gets collected and cleaned. Before utilizing the data warehouse, it’s important to note whether one has the right storage capacity (Kimball & Caserta, 2004). The data warehouse gets housed on mainframes, cloud, and either enterprise server. The warehouse gets utilized in storing data and saving time and money for the business.
Additionally, the data warehouse helps make informed business decisions since decision-makers can get information from several areas in a single platform. However, the data warehouse has several challenges. Foremost, the creation and implementation of the data warehouse tend to be time-consuming and challenging, mostly if the organization does not have the right experts. Additionally, the data warehouse tends to be too complicated for average users. An example of a data ware house is the Oracle data warehouse, which is the industry-leading database that offers a wide range of choices for data warehouse both for the cloud and on-premises.
The relationship between the technology and contributions
The various technology across the document has a lot of cross-connection to the business and its growth. Foremost, all business needs to adopt the appropriate IS technology to aid them, in having a competitive advantage over their rivals and assisting in operations of the organization. When it comes to MIS, the business needs the necessary MIS to help in decision making. It makes normal activities simple. The company tends to adapt to a new market quickly—systems like payroll systems that help in processing transaction processes like collecting and storing the transaction in a company.
Summary and Conclusions
In conclusion, IS and MIS system is very vital for the growth of the business. This is because they help in the organization’s general management by providing a platform for better and more effective decisions that increase the productivity of the organization and gain competitive advantages. Besides that, there is the technology of data warehousing that help the organization when it comes to storing a large amount of data and quick access to the data. Thus, IT technology has become vital for the growth of any business, either small or large. And with better and appropriate technology, the company is bound for success.
References
Amuna, Y. M. A., Al Shobaki, M. J., & Naser, S. S. A. (2017). The Role of Knowledge-Based Computerized Management Information Systems in the Administrative Decision-Making Process.
Clarkson, A. (2019). Toward Effective Strategic Analysis: New Applications of Information Technology. Routledge.
Koch, T., & Windsperger, J. (2017). Seeing through the network: Competitive advantage in the digital economy. Journal of Organization Design, 6(1), 6.
Kimball, R., & Caserta, J. (2004). The data warehouse ETL toolkit. John Wiley & Sons.
March, S. T., & Hevner, A. R. (2007). Integrated decision support systems: A data warehousing perspective. Decision support systems, 43(3), 1031-1043.
Masuda, Y., & Viswanathan, M. (2019). The direction of Digital IT and Enterprise Architecture. In Enterprise Architecture for Global Companies in a Digital IT Era (pp. 17-59). Springer, Singapore.
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Wallace, P. (2015). Introduction to information systems (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson