Organizations, Business Processes and Information Systems

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Organizations, Business Processes and Information
Systems
Panagiotis Kanellis, ?p?st?µ?????? S??e???t??
?µ?µat?? ?????f?????? ???? Business Consulting,
377 Syngrou Ave., 175 64 Athens, Greece Email
kanellis_at_di.uoa.gr
??a?????? ?a?t????, ?p??????? ?a????t?? ?µ?µat??
?????f?????? ???? ?t???a ?????f??????,
?a?ep?st?µ??p???, 157 84 ????a Email
martakos_at_di.uoa.gr
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Talk about...

• Organizations
• Business Processes
• The Ways Organizations Affect IS
• The Ways IS Affect Organizations
• Implementing Change

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Organizations and IT
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Common Features of Organizations

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
• Politics
• Culture
• Organizational change requires far more time that
  technological change requires

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Organizations and Environments

• 10 of Fortune 500 companies in 1918 survived
  more than 50 years
• 50 of new private organizations are out of
  business within 5 years
• Reason Inability to adapt to a rapidly changing
  environment

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Business Processes

• The unique ways in which organizations
  coordinate and organize work activities,
  information, and knowledge to produce a valuable
  product or service
• Business Processes are cross-functional
• Not deciding how to use computers to improve
  business processes but instead to first
  understand what business processes need
  improvement

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Salient Features of Organizations
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How Organizations Affect Information Systems

• How have organizations actually used information
  systems?
• Who operates information systems?
• Why do organizations adopt information systems in
  the first place?

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How Information Systems Affect Organizations

• Economic Theories
• Microeconomic theory
• Transaction cost theory
• Agency theory

• Behavioral Theories
• Decision and Control Theory
• Postindustrial Theory
• Cultural Theory
• Political Theory

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Implementing Change
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Implications for the Design of Information Systems

• The environment in which the organization must
  function
• The structure of the organization hierarchy,
  specialization, SOPs
• The culture and politics of the organization
• The type of the organization
• The extent of support and understanding of top
  management
• The level of organization at which the system
  resides
• The principal interest groups affected by the
  system
• The kinds of tasks, decisions and business
  processes that the information system is designed
  to assist
• The sentiments and attitudes of workers in the
  organization who will be using the information
  system
• The history of the organization past investments
  in IT, existing skills, important programs, and
  human resources