Importance and Role of Information in Management
...ived for sales every month of a particular year. This data, without little manipulation, is useless for the company. The systems analyst needs after the acquisition of this data to transform it into something significant and valuable. For this example, the company needs to calculate the percentage of increase/decrease of the sales, what product is the most sold, and so on. When data is finally useful, it becomes information. The transformation of the data into information is called processing. (Systems Analysis and Design, 1.3) As we saw, information system is divided into three basic steps, input (data), processing, and output (information). In addition, information systems possess several components. From Systems Analysis and Design, "An information system (IS) is the effective use of hardware, software, data, procedures, and people to achieve results that support the company's business objectives. (1.4) Understanding what information is and the different components of the information is not enough. A system analyst, in order to be able to help the company, must understand the background of the company. From the handbook Systems Analysis and Design, "A corporate culture is the set of beliefs, rules, traditions, values, and attitudes that define a company's personality and influence its way of doing business. (1.6) Depending of the company's culture, the information received will have a different meanings or use. The system analyst needs to know what kind of company he is working with. A system analyst must be also aware of the relation of the information between the different systems. Th...