Chapter 1: Information Systems and the Role of the
Systems Analyst
1. The Pervasive Nature of Information Technology (IT)
Information Technology is fundamental to modern business success and society. It encompasses the
combination of hardware, software, and services that people use to manage, communicate, and share
information. Companies leverage IT to increase productivity, deliver quality products and services,
maintain customer loyalty, and make sound decisions. Its impact is so profound that in a global,
competitive economy, information technology can mean the difference between success and failure. IT is
constantly evolving, with each technology advance... part of a long-term process that often brings
dramatic change but never really ends.
A significant aspect of IT's societal influence is its impact on privacy, with capabilities for individuals to be
traced, analyzed, and surveilled without our knowledge, raising crucial questions about data security
versus functionality.
2. Understanding Information Systems (IS)
An information system is defined as a set of related components that produces specific results,
combining technology, people, and data to provide support for business functions.
2.1. The Five Main Components of an Information System:
The sources consistently identify five core components:
1. Hardware: Everything in the physical layer of the information system, including servers,
workstations, networks, telecommunications equipment, fiber-optic cables, mobile devices,
scanners, digital capture devices, and other technology-based infrastructure. The concept of
Moore's law highlights the continuous increase in hardware power coupled with decreasing cost.
2. Software: The programs that control the hardware and produce the desired information or
results. It is divided into:
a. System software: Manages hardware components (e.g., operating systems, security
software, device drivers).
b. Application software: Supports day-to-day business functions (e.g., order processing,
payroll, spreadsheets). This can include horizontal systems (adaptable to many company
types) and vertical systems (designed for specific industries).
, 3. Data: The raw material that an information system transforms into useful information. The rise
of big data has led to new storage and management approaches, including NoSQL databases
alongside traditional relational models.
4. Processes: Describe the tasks and business functions that users, managers, and IT staff members
perform to achieve specific results. They are the building blocks of an information system
because they represent actual day-to-day business operations.
5. People: Stakeholders who interact with the system, including management group, users
(sometimes called end users), and IT staff members. The success of an IS usually depends on
whether it meets the needs of its users.
2.2. Categories and Functions of Modern Business Information Systems:
Modern IS are categorized by their functions and features, rather than solely by users:
1. Enterprise Computing Systems: Support company-wide operations and data management, often
through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, aiming to integrate a company’s primary
functions... to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and help managers make key decisions.
2. Transaction Processing (TP) Systems: Process data generated by day-to-day business operations
(e.g., customer order processing). They are mission-critical systems because the enterprise
cannot function without them.
3. Business Support Systems: Provide job-related information support to users at all levels,
analyzing transactional data and aiding decision-making through features like decision support
capability and what-if scenarios. These evolved from management information systems (MIS).
4. Knowledge Management Systems: Use a knowledge base and inference rules to help users find
information by entering natural language queries (e.g., WolframAlpha).
5. User Productivity Systems: Provide tools to improve employee productivity (e.g., email,
spreadsheets, groupware like Slack).
6. Digital Assistants: A new type, combining knowledge management and user productivity with
artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, responding to natural language (e.g.,
Alexa, Siri).
7. Systems Integration: The common scenario where most large companies require systems that
combine transaction processing, business support, knowledge management, and user
productivity features.
3. Internet Business Strategies and Models
The Internet has profoundly shaped business, leading to e-commerce.
B2C (Business-to-Consumer): Online transactions between businesses and consumers, offering
convenience and lower processing costs.
B2B (Business-to-Business): Commercial exchanges between businesses, with volume... many times
greater than B2C. This initially used electronic data interchange (EDI) and has largely migrated to the
,Internet for its seamless communication between different hardware and software environments,
anywhere and anytime. Supply chain management (SCM) software is crucial in B2B to manage the flow
of materials and information.
4. Organizational Models and Information Needs
Understanding a company's organizational model is vital for systems analysts. While modern structures
are flatter, a hierarchy still exists:
1. Top Managers: Develop strategic plans defining the company's overall mission and goals,
needing information for long-term survival and growth, including external data.
2. Middle Managers and Knowledge Workers: Provide direction, resources, and feedback. They
need more detailed information than top managers but less than supervisors. Knowledge
workers (e.g., systems analysts, accountants) provide support for core functions.
3. Supervisors and Team Leaders: Oversee operational employees and handle day-to-day
functions, requiring decision support, knowledge management, and user productivity systems.
4. Operational Employees: Rely on transaction processing systems and are increasingly
empowered with more responsibility and accountability, requiring access to information.
5. Systems Analysis and Design: The Development Process
Systems analysis and design is a step-by-step process for developing high-quality information systems. It
is the process of developing information systems that effectively use hardware, software, data,
processes, and people to support the company’s business objectives.
5.1. Systems Development Methods:
Three popular approaches are highlighted:
1. Structured Analysis: A traditional systems development technique that is time tested and easy
to understand. It uses the systems development life cycle (SDLC), often depicted as a waterfall
model, where the result of each phase is called a deliverable, which flows into the next phase. It
is a process-centered technique, focusing on how processes transform data.
○ SDLC Phases:Systems Planning: Begins with a systems request, leading to a preliminary
investigation and feasibility study to assess costs, benefits, and viability.
○ Systems Analysis: Builds a logical model of the new system, involving requirements
engineering through fact-finding (interviews, surveys). The system requirements
document is the deliverable.
○ Systems Design: Creates a physical model satisfying requirements, designing user
interfaces, inputs, outputs, processes, and controls. The system design specification is
the deliverable.
, ○ Systems Implementation: The new system is constructed (programs written, tested,
documented, installed), data converted, and users trained. Includes systems evaluation.
○ Systems Support and Security: Ongoing maintenance, enhancements, and protection to
maximize return on the IT investment, ensuring the system is secure, reliable,
maintainable, and scalable.
2. Object-Oriented (O-O) Analysis: Combines data and the processes that act on the data as
objects. An object represents a real-world entity, possessing properties (characteristics) and
methods (built-in processes). Objects communicate via messages. O-O methods are popular due
to their easy transition to O-O programming languages and their ability to design reusable
components.
3. Agile Methods: The newest development approach, attempting to develop a system
incrementally by building a series of prototypes and constantly adjusting them to user
requirements. They emphasize continuous feedback and typically use a spiral model with
iterative revisions. While offering flexibility and responsiveness, potential disadvantages include
weak documentation, blurred lines of accountability, and too little emphasis on the larger
business picture.
5.2. Supporting Tools:
Various tools aid systems development:
● Modeling: Produces a graphical representation of a concept or process, including business, data,
object, network, and process models. Business process modeling (BPM) uses business process
modeling notation (BPMN).
● Prototyping: Involves creating an early working version of an information system to test
concepts, input, output, and user interfaces. It can speed up the development process
significantly.
● CASE Tools (Computer-Aided Systems Engineering): Powerful software that provides an overall
framework for systems development, supporting various methodologies and often generating
program code. Other terms include application lifecycle management (ALM) and integrated
development environments (IDE).
● Project Management: Essential for planning, scheduling, monitoring, controlling, and reporting
upon the development of an information system.
6. The Information Technology (IT) Department
The IT department is responsible for developing, maintaining, and operating a company's information
systems. Its structure varies, but typical functions include:
● Application Development: Leading and guiding teams that develop systems.
Systems Analyst
1. The Pervasive Nature of Information Technology (IT)
Information Technology is fundamental to modern business success and society. It encompasses the
combination of hardware, software, and services that people use to manage, communicate, and share
information. Companies leverage IT to increase productivity, deliver quality products and services,
maintain customer loyalty, and make sound decisions. Its impact is so profound that in a global,
competitive economy, information technology can mean the difference between success and failure. IT is
constantly evolving, with each technology advance... part of a long-term process that often brings
dramatic change but never really ends.
A significant aspect of IT's societal influence is its impact on privacy, with capabilities for individuals to be
traced, analyzed, and surveilled without our knowledge, raising crucial questions about data security
versus functionality.
2. Understanding Information Systems (IS)
An information system is defined as a set of related components that produces specific results,
combining technology, people, and data to provide support for business functions.
2.1. The Five Main Components of an Information System:
The sources consistently identify five core components:
1. Hardware: Everything in the physical layer of the information system, including servers,
workstations, networks, telecommunications equipment, fiber-optic cables, mobile devices,
scanners, digital capture devices, and other technology-based infrastructure. The concept of
Moore's law highlights the continuous increase in hardware power coupled with decreasing cost.
2. Software: The programs that control the hardware and produce the desired information or
results. It is divided into:
a. System software: Manages hardware components (e.g., operating systems, security
software, device drivers).
b. Application software: Supports day-to-day business functions (e.g., order processing,
payroll, spreadsheets). This can include horizontal systems (adaptable to many company
types) and vertical systems (designed for specific industries).
, 3. Data: The raw material that an information system transforms into useful information. The rise
of big data has led to new storage and management approaches, including NoSQL databases
alongside traditional relational models.
4. Processes: Describe the tasks and business functions that users, managers, and IT staff members
perform to achieve specific results. They are the building blocks of an information system
because they represent actual day-to-day business operations.
5. People: Stakeholders who interact with the system, including management group, users
(sometimes called end users), and IT staff members. The success of an IS usually depends on
whether it meets the needs of its users.
2.2. Categories and Functions of Modern Business Information Systems:
Modern IS are categorized by their functions and features, rather than solely by users:
1. Enterprise Computing Systems: Support company-wide operations and data management, often
through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, aiming to integrate a company’s primary
functions... to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and help managers make key decisions.
2. Transaction Processing (TP) Systems: Process data generated by day-to-day business operations
(e.g., customer order processing). They are mission-critical systems because the enterprise
cannot function without them.
3. Business Support Systems: Provide job-related information support to users at all levels,
analyzing transactional data and aiding decision-making through features like decision support
capability and what-if scenarios. These evolved from management information systems (MIS).
4. Knowledge Management Systems: Use a knowledge base and inference rules to help users find
information by entering natural language queries (e.g., WolframAlpha).
5. User Productivity Systems: Provide tools to improve employee productivity (e.g., email,
spreadsheets, groupware like Slack).
6. Digital Assistants: A new type, combining knowledge management and user productivity with
artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, responding to natural language (e.g.,
Alexa, Siri).
7. Systems Integration: The common scenario where most large companies require systems that
combine transaction processing, business support, knowledge management, and user
productivity features.
3. Internet Business Strategies and Models
The Internet has profoundly shaped business, leading to e-commerce.
B2C (Business-to-Consumer): Online transactions between businesses and consumers, offering
convenience and lower processing costs.
B2B (Business-to-Business): Commercial exchanges between businesses, with volume... many times
greater than B2C. This initially used electronic data interchange (EDI) and has largely migrated to the
,Internet for its seamless communication between different hardware and software environments,
anywhere and anytime. Supply chain management (SCM) software is crucial in B2B to manage the flow
of materials and information.
4. Organizational Models and Information Needs
Understanding a company's organizational model is vital for systems analysts. While modern structures
are flatter, a hierarchy still exists:
1. Top Managers: Develop strategic plans defining the company's overall mission and goals,
needing information for long-term survival and growth, including external data.
2. Middle Managers and Knowledge Workers: Provide direction, resources, and feedback. They
need more detailed information than top managers but less than supervisors. Knowledge
workers (e.g., systems analysts, accountants) provide support for core functions.
3. Supervisors and Team Leaders: Oversee operational employees and handle day-to-day
functions, requiring decision support, knowledge management, and user productivity systems.
4. Operational Employees: Rely on transaction processing systems and are increasingly
empowered with more responsibility and accountability, requiring access to information.
5. Systems Analysis and Design: The Development Process
Systems analysis and design is a step-by-step process for developing high-quality information systems. It
is the process of developing information systems that effectively use hardware, software, data,
processes, and people to support the company’s business objectives.
5.1. Systems Development Methods:
Three popular approaches are highlighted:
1. Structured Analysis: A traditional systems development technique that is time tested and easy
to understand. It uses the systems development life cycle (SDLC), often depicted as a waterfall
model, where the result of each phase is called a deliverable, which flows into the next phase. It
is a process-centered technique, focusing on how processes transform data.
○ SDLC Phases:Systems Planning: Begins with a systems request, leading to a preliminary
investigation and feasibility study to assess costs, benefits, and viability.
○ Systems Analysis: Builds a logical model of the new system, involving requirements
engineering through fact-finding (interviews, surveys). The system requirements
document is the deliverable.
○ Systems Design: Creates a physical model satisfying requirements, designing user
interfaces, inputs, outputs, processes, and controls. The system design specification is
the deliverable.
, ○ Systems Implementation: The new system is constructed (programs written, tested,
documented, installed), data converted, and users trained. Includes systems evaluation.
○ Systems Support and Security: Ongoing maintenance, enhancements, and protection to
maximize return on the IT investment, ensuring the system is secure, reliable,
maintainable, and scalable.
2. Object-Oriented (O-O) Analysis: Combines data and the processes that act on the data as
objects. An object represents a real-world entity, possessing properties (characteristics) and
methods (built-in processes). Objects communicate via messages. O-O methods are popular due
to their easy transition to O-O programming languages and their ability to design reusable
components.
3. Agile Methods: The newest development approach, attempting to develop a system
incrementally by building a series of prototypes and constantly adjusting them to user
requirements. They emphasize continuous feedback and typically use a spiral model with
iterative revisions. While offering flexibility and responsiveness, potential disadvantages include
weak documentation, blurred lines of accountability, and too little emphasis on the larger
business picture.
5.2. Supporting Tools:
Various tools aid systems development:
● Modeling: Produces a graphical representation of a concept or process, including business, data,
object, network, and process models. Business process modeling (BPM) uses business process
modeling notation (BPMN).
● Prototyping: Involves creating an early working version of an information system to test
concepts, input, output, and user interfaces. It can speed up the development process
significantly.
● CASE Tools (Computer-Aided Systems Engineering): Powerful software that provides an overall
framework for systems development, supporting various methodologies and often generating
program code. Other terms include application lifecycle management (ALM) and integrated
development environments (IDE).
● Project Management: Essential for planning, scheduling, monitoring, controlling, and reporting
upon the development of an information system.
6. The Information Technology (IT) Department
The IT department is responsible for developing, maintaining, and operating a company's information
systems. Its structure varies, but typical functions include:
● Application Development: Leading and guiding teams that develop systems.
