CHAPTER NINETEEN
Information Technology and IT Systems
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) and IT systems are used in all business domains. For example, finance uses information to forecast revenues and maximize investment, make selections on stocks, and even predict bankruptcies. Accounting uses information systems to record transactions, prepare financial statements, manage cash flow, or predict profit or loss. In marketing, information systems are used to develop new merchandise and services and customer segmentation, determine the locations for production and distribution facilities (so that the cost can be reduced and more customers will be attracted), formulate price strategies (so they can maximize total profits), and even develop the promotion policies (so that advertising will be more efficient). In manufacturing, information systems are used to process customer orders, develop production schedules, design new products, and test the quality of products.
COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES AVAILABLE FOR BUSINESS
Network technologies allow users to share information and other resources. As a result, information retrieval can be more efficient and available. Current Internet technology provides businesses with a variety of external business information. Multimedia information transmissions (text, graphics, images, and video) are also available on the Internet. With the impact of the Internet, intranet becomes another new technology popular to business. Intranet is a small version of the Internet ...
