Nowadays, companies and their managers are facing a number of new challenges which are evolved from the change in business environment. There are increasing foreign trade worldwide. Companies are also distributing core business functions to locations in other countries where the work can be performed more cost effectively. This globalization is thought to be facilitated by today’s advanced information systems which provide the communication and analytic power for companies to conduct trade and manage businesses on a global scale. The advances in information technology also bring threats to the domestic market as customers now can shop in a worldwide market place anytime and anywhere. Many of the major industrial powers such as US, Japan, Germany are being transformed from industrial economies to knowledge- and information-based service economies. Knowledge-based products and services of great economic value, such as credit cards, overnight package delivery are based on new information technologies. As the employees’ productivity depends on the quality of the information systems serving them, it is important to have good information systems in order to maintain company’s prosperity and survival. There has been a transformation in the possibilities for organizing and managing the business enterprise. The new style of business firm is a flattered, decentralized, flexible arrangement of generalists who rely on nearly instant information to deliver products and services satisfied by customers. Finally, intensive use of information technology in business companies since the mid-1990s has created the conditions for a new phenomenon the fully digital firm.
Today it is widely recognized that information is important to managers because most companies need information systems to survive and prosper. Information systems can help companies extend their reach to distant locations, offer new products and services, reshape jobs and work flows, and perhaps profoundly change the way they conduct business.
