Throughout the 20th century, businesses thrived by making their production methods more and more efficient by improving production processes and developing better ways for making things. However, efficiency in production methods is no longer the only success factors in today's business world. The excellence of 21st century lies in Information management i.e. having the right thing, on the right time, in the right quantity. Information is one of the most critical elements for the success of a business. Information has become one of the most significant assets for a business. The performance of a business depends on how it manages this asset like every other assets such as finance, humans, buildings, products, customers, etc. (Ward, 1995). The advancements of Information and Communication technology have provided various tools to effectively manage information. Using information and communication technologies, businesses and organizations nowadays rely largely on Information systems to store and manage and analyse data. Information system is a combination of various subsystems that coordinate with each other to collectively gather, store, manage, retrieve, distribute, and transfer information. Information systems help businesses to enhance their productivity by increasing the efficiency and value of business processes (Porter & Millar 1985).
Using information technology tools for managing information in conducting business is referred to as E-Business. E-business is a very wide concept comprising of different aspects of business transaction or transferring information by means of Internet. E-business can be classified into three categories. It can be within an organization which may include of various information systems such as Accounting Information System, Knowledge management system, Decision support system, Executive support system, etc. This type of communication technology is called Intranet. The standards used for Intranet are the same as for Internet communication. Accessibility to the Intranet is limited to organization-specific applications or web sites. These web sites and applications are protected against any unauthorized personal by firewalls and other security measures. The second category is involves business-to-business (B2B) communication conducted via Extranet. The Extranet integrates two Intranets which are inter-connected to each other via Internet, which facilitates two separate organizations to communicate and share confidential data. Thirdly category is the business-to-consumer (B2C) communication which occurs over the Internet. The business-to-consumers activity is the most prominent feature of e-business (Amor, 2001).
The purpose of an information system is to empower its users. There is a wide difference in a simple database which stores data and return it to its users upon request. A database can be created in a way that manages and retrieves information in a sorted manner. This information can help make decision at various levels within an organization. Information system recognize that there are different levels of workers in an organization who have their specific duties and thus provides them information is different ways (Heinrich, 2002). Its purpose is to make sure that the users of the system are quickly able to access, comprehend, and react to the information provided to them. Wiseman (1985) mentions that the information system improves business functionality by automating some of the fundamental information procedures. He further mentions that the information system increases the effectiveness of the management by satisfying their information demands.
Information demands of businesses vary at different organizational levels. Various business functions at strategic, tactical and operational level have different types of subsystems of information system to serve their information demands. Some of the commonly used subsystems are as follows:
• Management Information Systems (MIS)
• Decision