Information Systems and Flows

Qualitative

Opinion/tastes/employee motivation+attitudes

Cannot be collected in numerical terms

Why?

To help a business understand staff, customers and to develop products.

How?

Customers panels, focus groups, observation of behavioural patterns, surveys.

Quantitative

Can be expressed numercially

Why?

• Find trends

• Size of markets

• Seasonal variations

• Productivity rates or levels of labour turnover

What is Information Processing?

Can be paper based = Manual

 Can be IT based = Electronic

Steps of information processing & efficiency:

• Storing information- Stored in a logical order? Easy to reieve and accessible? Easy to edit
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• Processing information- Text manipulation? Mathematical manipulation? Classification by categorising data?
• Retrieving data- method used?
• Information dissemination- (to spread infor widely) Manual? Electronically?
• Validation and Verification- Checks of original source? Fact or opinion? Who wrote it?

Manual

• Ring binders
• Card indexes
• Document files
• Box files
• Filing cabinets

Benefits

• Low risk of hacking
• Access can be easily restricted
• Cheaper to set up

Drawbacks

• Requires large amounts of space
• Easy to manually misfile
• Data access can be slow

Electronic

• CD
• DVD
• Disks
• Memory sticks

Benefits

• Speed of access
• Automatic validation checks
• Less storage space required

Drawbacks

• Volatile memory - loses its contents if power supply is lost
• Expensive to set up
• Media (examples above) can become corrupted.

Downward communication- Flows from higher to lower hierarchical levels

Upward- Flows from lower to higher hierarchical levels

Horizontal- Flows between employees on sames hierarchical level.

Qualitative information- Is data an individuals' opinions and tastes.

Quantitative information- Is expressed in numerical terms so is measurable.

How does information flow in an organsiation?

Vertically- Down and up the hierarchy.
Horizontally- Acorss the hierarchy & within and across functional departments.