Role of Information System - Essay Example

Name Tutor Course Code Date Introduction Information system is combination of information technology and activities of people using this technology to support management, decision making, and operations. It is an incorporated collection of constituents for storing, collecting, and communicating information. Organizations, individuals and business firms in modern society use information system to control their operations, contend in marketplace, and supply services. An information system is implemented in a corporation for the intention of improving efficiency and effectiveness of that corporation. The capacities of information system and the characteristics of the corporation, its work schemes, its workers, and its development and execution methodologies determine the level to which the purpose is achieved. Role of information system Information system is essential in supporting business operations and processes. Information system assists managers to undertake their everyday functions and activities properly. For instance, in banks, different activities such as account creating, statement generations, and money withdrawal takes place. An information system assists bank managers to carry out these banking activities in a timely and accurate manner with the aid of software. It supports the process of decision making for managers and employers. Information system takes in data as input, processes them, and produce information and managers may utilize this information to improve their organizations. For instance, information system may be utilized to analyze existing past data on bank customers and produce informations such as bad customers and good customers and managers may utilize this information when making decisions on granting loans to new customers. Information system support strategic decision making for competitive advantages (Powell, 325). It can offer informations such as which items are supposed to be launched and in which locations through analyzing data gathered from different sources and the company may have advantage through utilizing this information over its business competitors. The strategic role of the information system is also significance for organizational planning since through strategic function, the organization is able to plan for the future. Information system and rational decision Rational decision making is the systematic, step by step scheme in which quantitative or hard data attained via observation or statistical modeling or analysis is applied for making lasting decisions. Efficient decision making requires accurate, relevant, and timely information. Decision support systems are interactive computer bases schemes that help users in choice and judgment activities. They offer data retrieval and storage but boost traditional information retrieval and access function with support for the model based reasoning and model building. They support structuring, problem solving and modeling decision supports systems supports organizational and business decision making activities and serves the operations, planning and management levels of a corporation and assist in making decisions, which might be changing rapidly and not simply stipulated in advance. Decision support system helps decision makers to compile practical information form a mix of personal knowledge, business model, documents, or raw data to recognize and resolve problems and make lasting decisions. According to Cooper, & Herskovits, (315), decision support systems are useful in situations where the quantity of accessible information is exorbitant for instinct of an independent human decision maker and whereby optimality and precision are of significance. They can help deficiencies in human cognitive by incorporating several information sources, offering intellectual access to pertinent knowledge, and helping the procedure of constructing decisions. Decision support systems can also support alternative amid well defined options and generate formal approaches, like methods of operations research, engineering, decision theory, and statistics. They may also use artificial intelligence techniques to deal with heuristically difficulties that are intractable through formal techniques. When decision making tools are properly utilized, they increase efficiency, productivity, and grants several organizations a competitive advantage over competitors, enabling them to make optimal selections for technological procedures and their parameters, logistics, investments and planning business operations. Role of the accounting information system An accounting information system gathers and stores data which it then processes into information utilized by decision makers such as managers, creditors, and investors. Accounting information systems merges the practice and study of accounting with design, monitoring, and implementation of information system. Accounting financial systems are valuable for businesses and organizations that need to make accounting procedure easier by using computer programs that perform payroll and other accounting functions. These systems, particularly the accounting software, make it simple to gather fiscal data for utilization in payroll, taxes, and additional bookkeeping requirements. A Computer based accounting information system streamlines and automates reporting. Reporting acts as a chief tool for corporations to precisely view summarized, appropriate information utilized in financial reporting and decision making. Marshall & Steinbart (210) argue that accounting information system obtains data from centralized database, processes and transforms it, and eventually produces a review of the data as information that can easily analyzed and consumed by managers, business analysts, and financial analysts. The accounting systems make sure that reports are timely because decision makers require relevant and timely information in order to be able to act swiftly and efficiently base their decisions on report outcomes. Majority of accounting information system programs are server or web based and this allows managers to collect and evaluate financial information from several locations at the same time. Information system and intuitive decision Intuitive decision making is more than utilizing common sense since it entails additional sensors to identify and become conscious of information from outside. There are two different models to supporting decision making. The first approach intends at creating support systems or procedures that mimic human experts. The most outstanding element of this decision support systems are expert systems, computer programs that are based on rules educed from human experts that mimic reasoning of human expert within a particular domain. Experts systems are usually able to support decision making in that area at a degree analogous to human specialists. Whilst they are flexible and usually capable of addressing intricate decision difficulties, they are founded on intuitive human thinking and lack formal and soundness guarantees in regard to hypothetical dependability of their outcomes (Dawes, 58). The second model is based on presumption that the most steadfast way of dealing with intricate decisions is via a little set of normatively sensible principles of the way decisions must be made. While heuristic techniques and these reasoning systems that mimic human cognitive might in several areas function well, several decision makers will not be willing to rely on them when the rate of incurring an error is great. Application of formal techniques in decision support systems makes these systems philosophically different from those founded on heuristic artificial intelligence techniques, like rule based schemes. The goals of DDS in intuitive decision making is to support independent human intuition just as the aim of utilizing a calculator to aid limited capacity of human for mental arithmetic. Conclusion Information system is fundamental in supporting contemporary business operations and processes. It collects data, stores it, and processes it into useful information which is used by managers to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their organizations. It enables managers to makes financial and other organizational decisions by compiling sensible information from raw data, documents, and business models to identify and resolve business problems and make long term decisions. Works Cited Dawes, Robyn. Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making California: Sage, 2005. Marshall, Romney, & Steinbart, Paul. Accounting Information Systems. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Powell, Philip. Strategies for growth in SMEs: the role of information and information systems. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Cooper, Gregory., & Herskovits, Edwards. A Bayesian method for the indication of probabilistic networks from data, Machine learning, 9(4):309-347, 2002. Read More