1. Information Systems in Business
An Introduction
MIS1 L1 10
Ref. CH-1 of text

2. Contents
• Introduction to Information systems
• Business pressures and IT support
• IS for rural uplift
• Towards a new society
• Course details

3. Data and Information
• Data:
– Raw facts, such as an employee’s name and
number of hours worked in a week, inventory
parts etc. that are recorded ,collected and stored.
• Information:
– Data that have been organized so that they have
meaning and value to the recipient
– This requires a basic knowledge of the processing
to be done

4. UK Meteorological office
• The office provides daily weather prediction and
information regarding climatic changes, hurricane
warning and global warming effects.
• Data on temp., pressure, humidity, wind are relayed to
HQ at UK, from monitoring centers around the world,
• The data is processed with super computers every 90
minutes using Meteorological model which is
continuously refined by a team of experts
• Resulting information is relayed to media centers.

5. Some Characteristics of Valuable
Information
• Accurate – Error free
.
• Timely-When needed
• Economical-Cost vs. value
• Reliable- depends on the source
• Relevant-depends on applications

6. What is a System?
• A set of interrelated components, with a clearly
defined boundary, working together, to achieve
a common set of objectives
Examples:
Manufacturing systems
Railway systems
Educational systems
• A system concept become even more useful by
including feedback and control components

7. Systems: Some Examples
• University • Toyota Plant
–Inputs: Students, –Inputs: raw
Faculty, Textbooks materials,
components
–Processes:
–Processes: assembly
Education/Training line
–Output: graduates –Output: Cars /vans
–Feedback: surveys, –Feedback: customer
grades surveys, quality
reports

8. A Manufacturing System
Environment
Feedback Feedback
Signals Signals
Control Control by Control
Signals Management Signals
Input of Manufacturing Output of
Raw Materials Process Finished Products
System Boundary

9. What is an Information System?
A purposefully designed system that accepts data
resources as input , process them to information
products as output.
Control of System Performance
Input of Output of
Processing
Data Information
Data
Resources Products
Storage of Data Resources
Ex.: Weather forecast data

10. Components of an IS
1-10

11. Components of an IS

12. History of the Role of IS
1950-1960 1960-1970 1970-1980 1980-1990 1990-2000
Data Management Decision Strategic & Electronic
Processing Reporting Support End User Commerce
Transaction
processing Management
Systems- Information
TPS Decision
Systems-
Support
MIS
Systems
-DSS Exec Info Sys
Expert Systems Electronic
EIS/ES Business &
Commerce
- EC

13. Types of Information Systems

14. Roles of IS in Business
IS provide an organization with

15. Lufthansa IS
• In 2001, Lufthansa launched the “Lufthansa Mobile
Initiative,” which aimed to provide all pilots with
notebook computers.
• It helps 3,500 highly mobile airline pilots plugged into the
corporate infrastructure, that informs them about
schedules, weather events, and other facts that affect
their jobs throughout the world.
• Pilots use their notebook computers for computer-based
training whether they are learning about new aircraft or
things like specific hydraulic systems.
• This Lufthansa Mobile Initiative is yielding significant
productivity and efficiency improvements, while keeping
costs manageable.

16. IS and Business
Ref-Turban

17. New Economy vs. Old Economy

18. Today’s Business Environment
• Characterized by:
– Rapid Change
– Global extent
– Technology support
– Hypercompetition
– Customer Focus
• Businesses therefore requires the support of
IT/IS for survival

19. Business Pressures
• The three types of business pressures faced
are: market, technology, and societal pressures.
• These factors or forces can change
quickly, sometimes in an unpredictable manner
and it can create business pressures on the
organizations

20. IT support for organizational
responses
• Organization can respond to the business
pressures with activities, supported by IT
IT Support - Ex. Made-to-order

21. Intel and AMD
• Till 2006 the computing chip market was controlled by
Intel with Pentium.
• In 2005 AMD introduced a low energy consuming chip
Opteron with Pentium comparable performance and
captured the major share in Intel market.
• In 2006 Intel came up with a new very low energy
consuming chip with better performance than Opteron
and at a lower cost. Intel recaptured the market.

22. IS Success metrics
• Efficiency
– Minimize cost, time, and use of resources
• Effectiveness. How IS :
– Support business strategies
– Enable business processes
– Enhance organizational functions
– Increase customer relations

23. Hospital information system
• Heart attack is the No1 killer in any advanced
country.
• Getting the health history is very crucial in
deciding treatment.
• The health information system provides doctors
with the necessary health details using Smart
cards, internet access and centralized database.
• Telemedicine extends this facility to remote
areas.

24. IS for Rural Uplift
An UN initiative

25. Gyandoot
• A Community owned self sustainable and
low cost, rural IS project
Started on January 1, 2000, Dhar
district, Madhya Pradesh Under the
initiative of Dr. Rojara, an IAS officer

26. Gyandoot
• An Intranet in Dhar District (MP, India) that
connects rural cyber cafes
• Main feature
– The intranet connects 21 rural cyber cafes
called Soochanalayas. Each Soochanalaya
provides services to about 10 to 15 Gram
Panchayats, 20 to 30 villages, 20,000 to 30,000
population. The net covers 5 out of 13 Blocks in
the district and 3 out of 7 tahsils in the district.

27. Typical Soochanalay

28. Gyandoot
• The Soochanalayas are located on the roadside of
the central villages where people normally travel. All
together they serve a population of over half a
million.
• Services Provided at present are:
– Commodity marketing information services
– Copies of land records
– On-line registration of applications (income
certificates, land demarcation)
– Public Grievance Redressal
– Hindi e-mail

29. Why follow Gyandooth Example?
• To improve the efficiency, effectiveness,
accountability and transparency of local government
• To increase access to services, information and policy
documentation by the public.
• To enhance the livelihoods of the public by providing
better access to agricultural information, commerce,
education and training facilities
A priority project for Government
Ref Text pp. 365: Drishtee.com: Connecting India Village by village

30. Questions?
.

31. Towards a new society
• Carl Sagan - The dragons of Eden
• Alvin Toffler – Future shock
• Thomas Friedman – The world is flat
• Peter F Drucker – Management challenges
for 21stcentury and
others books

32. Carl Edward Sagan
• Carl Edward Sagan , An American Astronomer,1934-
1996- a highly successful popular science Writer
• He published more than 600 scientific papers and
popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor
of more than 20 books
• The Dragon of Eden, Speculations on the evolution of
human intelligence, Pulitzer Price..
• If the discoveries of earth can be condensed to a
cosmic year, all of recorded discoveries occupies the
last one second of December 31
• In this period human beings have witnessed an
exponential growth in discoveries.

33. Alvin Toffler
• Alvin Toffler is an American writer and
futurist, known for his works discussing the
Information revolution
• A former associate editor of Fortune magazine, his
early work focused on technology and its impact on
society
• He has also been described in the Financial Times as
the "world's most famous Futurologist".

34. Future shock-in nutshell
• Toffler argues that society is undergoing an
enormous structural change, a revolution from an
industrial society to a “Super Industrial Society".
• “Man has a limited biological capacity for change.
When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity
is in future shock.”
• This accelerated rate of technological and social
change will leave them disconnected, suffering
from "shattering stress and disorientation"

35. A summary
• Learn to Learn Fast
• Selective Learning
• Overlapping Subject Boundaries
• Life Long Learning
• Job stress
• Repetitive strain (stress) injuries
• psychological impacts
• Digital Divide

36. Quote-Future Shock
• ‘If you look at the change today, the scale is
enormous, it’s increasingly global, and it’s
happening at an unbelievable speed.’
• ‘The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those
who cannot read and write, but those who cannot
rapidly learn, unlearn, and relearn’
• ‘Guru is anyone who bought his PC a week before
you bought ’

37. Management orientation

38. Thomas L. Friedman
• Thomas L. Friedman, a world-renowned author and
journalist, joined the New York Times in 1981 as a
financial reporter
• A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he has traveled
hundreds of thousands of miles reporting the Middle
East conflict, international economics, and the
worldwide impact of the terrorist threat.
• His foreign affairs column, which appears twice a
week in the Times, is syndicated to seven hundred
other newspapers worldwide
See - MIT Video

39. Why does Friedman say the world is
flat?
• “Only 30 years ago, if you had a choice of being born
as a student in Boston or a genius in Bangalore or
Beijing, you probably would have chosen Boston,
because a genius in Beijing or Bangalore could not
really take advantage of his or her talent. They could
not plug and play globally. Not anymore. Not when
the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to
Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the
innovation fray.”-Friedman

40. Globalization
• Friedman credits the creation of Business
software and the internet, and political factors
that caused several developing countries,
including China, Russia, India and Latin America,
to open their borders and be technologically in
par with USA in the technological front.
• Friedman agrees that these developments in
Globalization and Outsourcing are desirable and
unstoppable, and he feels that American society
has to wakeup to remain a world leader
In sourcing

41. Peter Drucker
• Peter Drucker is a writer, teacher and consultant who
has published 32 books, mostly on various aspects of
society, economics, politics and management.
• Born in 1909 in Vienna, Mr. Drucker was educated in
Austria and England, and holds a doctorate from
Frankfurt University.
• Since 1971 he has been Professor of Social Science
and Management at Claremont Graduate University,
California.

42. The next society- Peter Drucker
• The next society will be a knowledge society. The
term “Knowledge society” is first used by Peter
Druker in 1969 as a fancy neologism.
• In such a society Knowledge will be its key resource,
and knowledge workers will be the dominant group
in its workforce. Its three main characteristics are:
– Borderlessness, because knowledge travels even
more effortlessly than money.
– Upward mobility, available to everyone through
easily acquired formal education.
– Selection, Anyone can acquire the knowledge
required for the job, but not everyone can win.

43. Information Society And Knowledge
society
• “Information society is the building block for
knowledge societies. Whereas I see the concept of
‘information society’ as linked to the idea of
‘technological innovation’, the concept of ‘knowledge
societies’ includes a dimension of social, cultural,
economical, political and institutional
transformation, and a more pluralistic and
developmental perspective..”
- Sally Burch

44. Knowledge society
Wealth Generation Social Transformation
Focus Areas Focus Areas
Information Technology Education
Bio-Technology Health Care
Energy Agriculture
Environment Regeneration Employment generation
Tele-Medicine Services Rural prosperity
Native knowledge products

45. Knowledge Commission
• “……Whether a nation has arrived at the state of
knowledge society is judged by the way the country
effectively deals with knowledge creation and
knowledge deployment in all sectors like IT,
industries, agriculture, health care etc”
Dr.Abdul Kalam.

46. Organization of the future
• The percentage of older population in developed
/developing countries is on the increase
• Majority of these people may work for an
organization either as part-time staff, multiskilled
workers or outsourced ‘deployees’, managed
either independently or through a separate
outsourcing organization
• ¨ large organizations, and even medium-sized
ones, will need to disintegrate into federations of
associated companies “

47. World of Tomorrow
• The world of tomorrow will not be dominated or
even shaped by information technology, but IT will
be only one of several important new technologies
like Bio-technologies, Nano -technologies etc.
• Drucker comments, “…the resource crunch makes
‘economic miracles’ increasingly difficult for
developing countries to achieve”.
• Drucker also warns that protectionism and tariff
barriers against the ‘developing countries’ are likely
to increase - defeating the ‘global benefit’ promises
made through GATT and the like. - Survival

48. In Short

49. In short
• “We are schooled to learn from the past. Our
predictions are often based on what we see when we
look back and examining the patterns that lead us to
where we are. The age we are in doesn’t work that
way any more. In these times evolution is just as
likely to be created by discontinuous change as it is
by steady progression.”
Business Standard

50. The next society