Contenido
Debido a que el principal uso que se da a los sistemas de información es el de optimizar el desarrollo de las actividades de una organización con el fin de ser más productivos y obtener ventajas competitivas, en primer término, se puede clasificar a los sistemas de información en:.
• - Sistemas competitivos.
• - Sistemas cooperativos.
• - Sistemas que modifican el estilo de operación del negocio.
Esta clasificación es muy genérica, y en la práctica no obedece a una diferenciación real de sistemas de información reales, ya que en la práctica podríamos encontrar alguno que cumpla varias (dos o las tres) de las características anteriores. En los subapartados siguientes se hacen unas clasificaciones más concretas (y reales) de sistemas de información.
From a business point of view
The first classification is based on the hierarchy of an organization and was called the pyramid model.[5][6] Depending on the function for which they are intended or the type of end user,[7] information systems can be classified into:.
• - Transaction processing system (TPS): manages information regarding transactions produced in a company or organization, it is also known as Operational Information System.
• - Management information systems (MIS): aimed at solving business problems in general.
• - Decision support systems (DSS): tool to carry out the analysis of the different business variables in order to support the decision-making process.
• - Executive information systems (EIS): tool aimed at management level users, which allows monitoring the status of the variables of an area or unit of the company based on internal and external information. It is at this level when information systems manage strategic information for companies.
These information systems did not emerge simultaneously in the market; The first to appear were the TPS, in the 1960s; however, over time, other information systems began to evolve. The first provide information to the following as the organizational scale increases.
• - Expert system (SE): they emulate the behavior of an expert in a specific domain.
• - Resource Planning System (ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning): whose objective is the planning of an organization's resources. Typically this has been used in productive companies that have followed MRPII planning methodologies. The objective is to have clearly identified how to get to the final products from the raw materials; That is, from an inventory of raw materials and inputs, we can determine the amount of final products that we will generate to make them available to the market. They integrate an organization's information and processes into a single system.
• - Office automation systems (OAS): applications designed to help the daily work of the administrator of a company or organization.
The last were the SE, which reached its peak in the 1990s (although the latter had a timid appearance in the 1970s that did not catch on, since the technology was not sufficiently developed).
It can be considered the use of information technology to support or shape the organization's competitive strategy, its plan to increase or maintain competitive advantage, or to reduce the advantage of its competitors.
Its primary function is to create a difference with respect to the organization's competitors (or bridge said difference) that makes it more attractive to potential clients. For example, in banking, ATMs were implemented years ago, but at the time, the entities that first offered this service had an advantage over their competitors, and today any entity that intends to offer banking services needs to have ATMs if it does not want to start with a disadvantage compared to the rest of the entities in this sector. In this sense, ATMs can be considered strategic information systems.
Its function is to achieve advantages that competitors do not have, such as cost advantages and differentiated services with clients and suppliers. They support the product innovation process within the company. They are usually developed within the organization, therefore they cannot be easily adapted to packages available on the market. Among the most notable characteristics of these systems are:
• - They significantly change the performance of a business when measured by one or more key indicators, including the magnitude of the impact.
• - They contribute to the achievement of a strategic goal.
• - They generate fundamental changes in the way a company is run, the way it competes or the way it interacts with customers and suppliers.
If technological resources are heterogeneously distributed throughout the competition and if it is more expensive for companies that lack them to develop, acquire and use them to implement a strategy compared to companies that have already used them to implement that same strategy, these resources can be used as a source of sustained competitive advantage.[8].
Other classification, depending on the application environment
• - Decisional environment: this is the environment in which decision making takes place; In a company, decisions are made at all levels and in all areas (another thing is whether these decisions are structured or not), so all the IS in the organization must be prepared to assist in this task, although typically, it is the DSS that are in charge of this function. If the only information system of a company prepared to help decision making is the DSS, it must be adapted to all hierarchical levels of the company.
• - Transactional environment: a transaction is an event or event that creates/modifies data. Transaction processing consists of capturing, manipulating and storing data, as well as preparing documents; In the transactional environment, therefore, the important thing is what data is modified and how, once the transaction has ended. TPS are the typical information systems that can be found in this environment.
Spy information systems
Although most information systems operate with the knowledge of the agents about whom information is collected (publicly known systems), the rise of electronic communications has led to the proliferation of secret spy systems, such as the PRISM program through which the National Security Agency (NSA) established by the US government has operated since 2007, spying on leaders and presidents of other countries (allies and adversaries of the United States), and it has been stated that it has the capacity to intercept tens of thousands of telephone communications per minute. Much of what is known about this information system was known from the Edward Snowden leak scandal (2013).
Previously, the European Parliament had opened commissions of inquiry into electronic communications interception systems, currently known as Echelon, operated jointly by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.