The Role of Information Systems
Now that we have explored the different components of information systems, we need to turn our attention
to the role that information systems play in an organization. So far we have looked at what the components
of an information system are, but what do these components actually do for an organization? From our
definitions above, we see that these components collect, store, organize, and distribute data throughout the
organization. In fact, we might say that one of the roles of information systems is to take data and turn it
into information, and then transform that into organizational knowledge. As technology has developed, this
role has evolved into the backbone of the organization. To get a full appreciation of the role information
systems play, we will review how they have changed over the years.