Business Information Systems

Companies that embrace IS in a profound way are called “Digital” or “IT-networked” enterprises. According to Laudon and Laudon (2007) these are organisations,

“… whose central business processes, all business functions, and the relationships with the environment (especially customers and suppliers) are supported by information and communication technology.”

Still, what does that mean? A useful way to look at this change is by interpreting the enterprise as an open system that exchanges energy (in a variety of forms) with its environment and that possesses information systems to organise itself (like communication systems, e.g. email) and to organise its business with the outside world (like customer relationship or supply chain management systems).

Many of the tasks involved (a business process is a bundle of commercial tasks) were there before the digital revolution – there always was the need for business correspondence, which is now mostly done via email, and used to be done via paper-based technology.  Reports and the like always had to be filed – the filing systems used to be cupboards, now they’re document management systems. Some tasks are entirely new  – e.g. business intelligence activities using reporting tools and datawarehousing technology.

The article by Laudon & Laudon (2009) gives a short overview of different areas (market, enterprise, global environment) which are being transformed as information systems are used more and more widely.

The resource by Rappa below is a complete course focusing on various aspects of managing the digital enterprise. It is fairly up to date and contains a wealth of additional reading material as well as podcasts.

Further reading:

• Emergence of the digital firm (Laudon and Laudon, 2009)

• Michael Rappa’s Digital Enterprise Management course is an excellent source to dig deeper without getting as technical as we will in this course.