IS/IT DEFINED
Having discussed the role of IS/IT and its relative contribution to the business strategy both historically and future perspective, it is important to have common definition and understanding of what IS and IT are as a common platform for our discussion on IS/IT strategic planning for the rest of the semester.
In this course, we shall adopt the definition proposed by the UK Academy of Information Systems (UKAIS) as follows: “Information Systems as the means by which people and organizations, utilizing technology, gather, process, store, use, and disseminate information” (cited from Ward (2004), pp. 3). Several keywords follows.
- IS is a system.
- Use by – hence the users – the organization, including all people as a mean to generate information through activities (gather, store, use, and disseminate) using technologies. The business organization uses it in order to achieve its purpose through all its activities (i.e., in this case decision makings) as a system by itself.
- One important component of the system (among others) is the Information Technology (IT).
In this course, we shall also define Information generally to include data, information, knowledge, and others needed by a business organization as a system in achieving its goal/objective/purpose as system (refer to definition of system).
Information Technology (IT) shall be defined to include hardware, software of every types, and telecommunication networks, with the role of facilitating the Information system in its process. (Ir. Togar Alam Napitupulu, MS., MSc., PhD)
