Feedback and Control

The system concept becomes even more useful by including two additional components: feedback and control. A system with feedback and control components is sometimes called a cybernetic system, that is, a self-monitoring, self-regulating system.

• Fedback is data about the performance of a system. For example, data about sales performance is feedback to a sales manager.
• Control involves monitoring and evaluating feedback to determine whether a system is moving toward the achievement  of its goal. The control function then makes necessary adjustment to a system's input and processing components to ensure that it produces proper output. For example, a sales manager exercises control when he or she reassigns salespersons to new sales territories after evaluating feedback about their sales performance.

Components of an Information System. An information system depends on the resources of people (end-user and IS Specialist), hardware (machines and media), software (programs and procedures), data (data and knowledge bases), and networks (communications media and network support) to perform input, processing, output, storage, and control activities that convert data resources into information products.
Trend in Information System. Until the 1960s, the role of information system was simple: transaction processing, record-keeping, accounting and other electronic data processing (EDP) applications. Then another role was added, as the concept of MIS was conceived. This new role focused on providing managerial end users with predefined management reports that would give managers the information they needed for decision-making purposes.
By the 1970s, it was evident that the prespecified information products produced by such management information systems were not adequately meeting many of the decision-making needs of management. So the consept of decision support system (DSS) was born. The new role for information system was to provide managerial end users with ad hoc and interactive support of their decision-making processes. This support would betailored to the unique decision-making styles of managers as they confronted specific types of problem in the real world.

In the 1980s, several new roles for information system appeared. First, the rapid development of microcomputer processing power, application software packages, and telecommunications networks gave birth to the phenomenon of end user computing. Now, end users can use their own computing resources to support their job requirements instead of waiting for the indirect support of corporate information services departments.
Second, it became evident that most top corporate executives did not directly use either the reports of information reporting system or  the analytical modeling capabilities of decision support system (DSS), so the concept of executive information systems attempt to give top executives an easy way to get the critical information they want, when they wan it, tailored to the formats they prefer.
Third, breakthrough occurred in the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to business information systems. Expert system (ES) and other knowledge-based systems forged a new role for information systems. Today, expert systems can serve as consultants to users by providing expert advice in limited subject areas.
An important new role for information systems appeared in the 1980s and continues into 1990s. This is the concept of a strategic role for information systems, sometimes called strategic information systems (SIS).
In this concept, information technology becomes an integral component of business processes, products, and services that help a company gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
Finally, the rapid growth of the Internet, intranets, extranets, and other interconnected global networks in the 1990s is dramatically changing the capabilities of information systems in business as we move into next century. Such enterprise and global internetworking is revolutionizing end user, enterprise, and interorganizational computing, communications, and collaboration that supports the business operations and management of successful global enterprises.