The term "Information Age" has now been in so much use in recent years that you are expected to know what it means. It conjures up images of people who make their living solely by pushing information about, such as lawyers and teachers, or programmers and stockbrokers. Others argue that what makes today the Information Age is the fact that so many people rely on computers, especially since the advent of the personal computer and the Internet. Sociologists would have us believe that the Information Age is one in which people are networked together through technology and rely on such things as television, radio, and computers with which to conduct their lives, creating a culture different from that which came before it. Economists write that the Information Age is one in which either the computer sector of the economy is massive or the number of office workers doing knowledge work has been growing, providing an economy with more than its Gross Domestic Product. But here are you and I, having to make sense of what the Information Age is about. I describe many of the features of the Information Age in this book, yet I focus only on those elements of the new age that most directly affect businesses. http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/management/0130305693/introduction-what-is-the-information-age/pref02?readerfullscreen=&readerleftmenu=1&reader=html&imagepage= Data: The collection of various raw facts through experiments, focus groups, interviews, or survey.
Information: When these facts are analyized, arranged and presented in a meaningful manner through reports, emails, journals or books is considered as information. http://onlineres.swin.edu.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/1119445.pdf Knowledge: is required to understand the information and how that information can be used to obtain a specific decision or task. Knowledge consists of an individual’s experience, skills and intellectual ability required to interpret and analyse data into meaningful information.
Business Intelligence: The process of collecting information from various sources and utilizing this information to reach to decision for efficient and effective business management is known as business intelligence. This information can be collected from various stakeholders of the business such as competitors, internal departments, customers and merchants.
For example, Census is collection of data on various demographics of people living in a country. After the careful analysis and application of knowledge this data is converted into useful information. This information is used by various business organizations to take strategic decision on their products/services offered to their target market using business intelligence.

2. System thinking is combination of various IT systems used in many business departments to provide information to assist strategic business decisions.

4. The three levels responsible for making decisions in business are Strategic, Managers and Operational. They take decisions of different nature and involve different level of scrutiny in information before a decision is made.
Strategic:
Characteristics: At this level the decisions are unstructured, untimely, long term, critically important for business.
Importance: These decisions provide a strategic guidance to business which gives a mission and vision to business.
Examples may include: Long term strategy to capture a market share, Response to the changes in economic and government policy, Introduce a new segment to business.
Managerial:
Characteristics: The individuals responsible for these decisions are generally department managers or team leaders. At this level the decisions are generally semi-structured which