CIS Chapter 1

Data

Are raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event or object.

Finance:

Deals with strategic financial issues including money, banking, credit, investments, and assets.

Fact

Is the confirmation or validation of an event or object. In the past, people primarily learned facts from books. Today, by simply pushing a button people can find out anything, from anywhere, at any time

Human resources

Maintains policies, plans, and procedures for the effective management of employees.

Operations management

Manages the process of converting or transforming or resources into goods or services.

Sales

Performs the function of selling goods or services

Accounting

Records, measures, and reports monetary transactions.

Marketing

Supports sales by planning, pricing, and promoting goods or services.

Knowledge workers

are individuals valued for their ability to interpret and analyze information

goods

are material items or products that customers will buy to satisfy a want or need. Clothing, groceries, cell phones, and cars are all examples of goods that people buy to fulfill their needs.

services

are tasks performed by people that customers will buy to satisfy a want or need. Waiting tables, teaching, and cutting hair are all examples of services that people pay for to fulfill their needs

Knowledge

includes the skills, experience, and expertise, coupled with information and intelligence, that creates a person's intellectual resources.

Management information systems

is a business function, like accounting and human resources, which moves information about people, products, and processes across the company to facilitate decision making and problem solving. MIS incorporates systems thinking to help companies operate cross-functionally. For example, to fulfill product orders, an MIS for sales moves a single customer order across all functional areas including sales, order fulfillment, shipping, billing, and finally customer service.

system

is a collection of parts that link to achieve a common purpose. A car is a good example of a system, since removing a part, such as the steering wheel or accelerator, causes the entire system to stop working.

variable

is a data characteristic that stands for a value that changes or varies over time.

Systems thinking

is a way of monitoring the entire system by viewing multiple inputs being processed or transformed to produce outputs while continuously gathering feedback on each part

Information

is data converted into a meaningful and useful context. Having the right information at the right moment in time can be worth a fortune

Business intelligence

is information collected from multiple sources such as suppliers, customers, competitors, partners, and industries that analyzes patterns, trends, and relationships for strategic decision making.

Feedback

is information that returns to its original transmitter (input, transform, or output) and modifies the transmitter's actions. Feedback helps the system maintain stability.

Production

is the process where a business takes raw materials and processes them or converts them into a finished product for its goods or services. Just think about making a hamburger

Productivity

is the rate at which goods and services are produced based upon total output given total inputs. Given our previous example, if a business could produce the same hamburger with less expensive inputs or more hamburgers with the same inputs it would see a rise in productivity and possibly an increase in profits.

information age

when infinite quantities of facts are widely available to anyone who can use a computer.