Smith Systems Consulting Essay Example
Smith Systems Consulting and Information Systems
The assignment for week two is to study three virtual organizations, choose one, and write about an information system that is critical to that organization’s business processes. The chosen organization for this paper is Smith Systems Consulting (SSC). SSC Inc. is a technology-driven company that offers services building and maintaining databases, designing and hosting websites, and all types of programming. This makes SSC the perfect organization to focus on because their entire business focuses on some aspect of information systems. This paper, however, will focus on how important computers are to SSC Inc.
To understand how information systems affect SSC, it is necessary to first understand just what an information system is. An information system can be described as “any combination of information technology and people's activities using that technology to support operations, management, and decision-making” (Wikipedia, 2010). Jon Jensen, instructor for the Business Systems in the IT department at University of Phoenix in Taylorsville, Utah, teaches that information systems are things that “collect, store, analyze and disseminate information for a specific purpose. An information system includes inputs and outputs.” By either of these two definitions, a computer is undoubtedly an informtion system. A computer actually contains smaller classes of information systems like a processor, hard drive, and keyboard, but for the purpose of this paper they will be combined as a single item.
The focus then becomes how computers are critical to the business processes of SSC Inc. A business process can be defined as “a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers” (Wikipedia, 2010). There are three types of business processes.
1. Management Process: This is just as it sounds.
The assignment for week two is to study three virtual organizations, choose one, and write about an information system that is critical to that organization’s business processes. The chosen organization for this paper is Smith Systems Consulting (SSC). SSC Inc. is a technology-driven company that offers services building and maintaining databases, designing and hosting websites, and all types of programming. This makes SSC the perfect organization to focus on because their entire business focuses on some aspect of information systems. This paper, however, will focus on how important computers are to SSC Inc.
To understand how information systems affect SSC, it is necessary to first understand just what an information system is. An information system can be described as “any combination of information technology and people's activities using that technology to support operations, management, and decision-making” (Wikipedia, 2010). Jon Jensen, instructor for the Business Systems in the IT department at University of Phoenix in Taylorsville, Utah, teaches that information systems are things that “collect, store, analyze and disseminate information for a specific purpose. An information system includes inputs and outputs.” By either of these two definitions, a computer is undoubtedly an informtion system. A computer actually contains smaller classes of information systems like a processor, hard drive, and keyboard, but for the purpose of this paper they will be combined as a single item.
The focus then becomes how computers are critical to the business processes of SSC Inc. A business process can be defined as “a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers” (Wikipedia, 2010). There are three types of business processes.
1. Management Process: This is just as it sounds.