CHAPTER 1 : Business Driven Technologies

Why we need to study Information Technology (IT)?

IT is everywhere in business. Understanding IT provides great insight to anyone learning about business.

➤Information Technology’s Impact on Business Operations

• Organizations typically operate by functional areas or functional silos

• Functional areas are interdependent

➤Information Technology Basics

• Information technology (IT)

      - A field concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information.IT is an important enabler of business success and innovation.

• Management information system (MIS)

      - A general name for the business function and academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies and procedures to solve business problem. MIS is a business function , similar to Accounting, Finance , Operations and Human Resources.

⏩ When beginning to learn about information technology it is important to understand :

• Data, information and business intelligence
• IT resources
• IT cultures

➤ Information

•  Data - raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event
•  Information - data converted into a meaningful and useful context.
•  Business intelligence - applications and technologies that are used to support decision                                                     making effort.

➤IT Resources

•  People use information technology to work with information.

➤ IT Cultures

    Organizational information cultures include:

• Information-Functional Culture – Employees use information as a means of exercising influence or power over others. For example, a manager in sales refuses to share information with marketing. This causes marketing to need the sales manager’s input each time a new sales manager’s input each time a new sales strategy is developed.

• Information-Inquiring Culture – Employees across departments search for information to better understand the future and align themselves with current trends and new directions.

• Information-Discovery Culture – Employees across departments are open to new insight about crisis and radical changes and seek ways to create competitive advantages.

• Information-Sharing Culture – Employees across departments trust each other to use information (especially about problems and failures) to improve performance.