Information System: Forms And Purposes

What is Information?

Information is a form that provides answer to a question of something or someone. When an information is entered into a computer storage it is generally known as data. This form contain a lot of information which need to be keep safe because an unauthorized person can use it to cut down financial spending or find out organisations plane of success.

Qualitative

Qualitative data is descriptive or observation which uses words for example describing thing by their looks for example colour of the shirt, texture, and etc.

Quantitative

Quantitative data is data that is numerical which means the data can be in numbers which is known as discrete data which is one of the two type of quantitative data and measures is the other type of quantitative data which is known as continuous.

Primary

Primary data is the data that you collect by yourself, basically what it means you do your research from getting interviews, using methods like surveys, experiments, or by observing someone this is how you get your primary data.

Secondary

Secondary data is data that you collect from someone other than yourself, what its means is that you gather data from external sources such as through internet, television, newspaper, or data told to you verbally.

What is information used for and by who?

Information are used in many ways in order to make their organisation more effective. Some organisation use information to improve their knowledge so they can take their organisation to a next level. Some other companies gain valuable information to compete or to surpass other companies for example Apple companie bring more and more phones with new feature and Samsung also bring more and better phones to compete in the stock market. The information are used by

• Operational support
• Analysis
• Decision making
• Gaining advantage.

Operational Support

Monitoring and controlling activity - Information is needed to provide operational support, because the organisation can make immediate use of the information from its operation support system to make its decision depending on the level of information they get. For example in restaurant business some of their products are freshly prepared, while others are cooking in batches or need time to defrost. So if the customers orders are recorded on an EPOS system then an operational support system can alert the managements as to when they need to cook or defrost more bulk items.

Analysis

To identify patterns or trends - The information which the organisation is going to use must be analysed before using it. This allows them to identify key information relevant information to apply to the operation and make the organisation improvements. For example In a Tesco business they uses this information to see whether the profits are increasing or decreasing then compare it with other schemes and how this have affected the business so by doing this process it can help the business run effectively and in profits.

Decision making

There are three types of decisions in an organisation which are Operational, tactical strategic. Operational decision is carried out by the junior managers and which the decision has to be made everyday, this decision are simple and routine such as staff rota, switching project manager for marketing to someone who knows more about the business, as its also includes tactical decisions as the middle managers will have to come up with ideas if the organisation is experiencing loss or has any issues within the business areas. Strategic decision are long term which are made by senior management which can affect the business on a wide range so the decision must be well through as it will affect the long time strategy. Tesco goes through this different decisions process (method) to get information to make effective decisions on its business and coming up with new ideas to make better sales in the business.

Gaining commercial advantage

Gaining commercial advantage is what makes the organisation grow and make more profit. Basically if the organisation gather more knowledge then other organisation then they can make their own cermashil so it will benefit the organisation because no one will have the information unless them. For example In tesco business they used this information to find out what new products does other business sell and find out their prices so they can lower the price so they get more business which means more profit then other business.