
18 ◾ Information Systems: What Every Business Student Needs to Know
Conformity to Expectations
Information must conform to the expectations of the person who will use it. Conformity
to expectations is how well its processing, timeliness, etc., match what this person expects.
Consider a request to provide last year’s dollar volume:
• Does dollar volume mean what customers ordered, what was shipped, what custom-
ers accepted, or what they paid for?
• Is last year the most recently ended calendar year, the most recent calendar year for which
we have complete data, the most recent scal year, or the most recent twelve months?
• Should this g