December 31, 2011

Today, most large enterprises cannot function well without the support of information systems. One might observe that most large enterprises cannot function well without the availability of electricity either. However, there is a big difference in how enterprises are dependent on information systems compared to their dependency on electricity. This blog provides Suresh Peram's opinions on information systems for large enterprises.

Electricity is a commoditized product that is consumed in a very standard manner at typically the same voltage across most consumer devices. There are voltage differences when it comes to factory devices, but these differences are also not material to the way electricity is consumed.

What is important to note is that the enterprise can depend on electricity being available when required, in all developed nations.

This is not the case when it comes to information systems. Information systems come in innumerable shapes and functions. Often one has to spend considerable amount of time learning an information system, before they can productively use it. For the same function, an enterprise X may be using an information system that is far superior or far inferior to the system that enterprise Y is using.

In addition, much depends on how well an enterprise's systems and networks are managed in determining the costs involved in making those available to users.

All of the above points to the need for an enterprise's management to allocate significant resources to the management of enterprise information systems. Aspects of managing enterprise information systems that require serious attention from the management are:

• Information systems strategy
• Enterprise requirements analysis
• Infrastructure and application architecture
• Information system operational management
• Information systems development
• Information systems process optimization