Andrea Carson
University of Phoenix
Supporting Activity: IT Systems
The use of information in the modern enterprise
Information is any detail that is of importance to a company and may be in the form of data. Companies worldwide have understood the value of information (Elliott, 2004). With the simplicity of access to information technology, it is easier now for every enterprise to transform information-wise. All organizations find the efficient use of information to be fundamental for success.
The information within a company is used to identify with the business and know the relevant details of input, outputs and processes it entails (Gottschalk & Thomson Gale, 2008). The organization's list of people is the most significant piece of information that can be recorded. The names, addresses and phone contacts of people give an enterprise a certain level of intellect. Such people may be the workforce, customers, potential clients, and the greater community. These people act on the success or failure of the business, and it is, therefore, necessary to gather and store information about them.
There are several processes that define the success or the failure of a company. It is equally necessary to store the information regarding the processes (Plant & Murrell, 2007). Information about these processes helps the company know what to obtain in regards to time, money, resources, and what to produce and when to produce it.
How does it affect its systems?
The growth in the companies calls for the management of information. Software applications and gadgets that assist monitoring and managing the flow of data in an organization are used. The applications allow access to data only to the right individuals.
Supporting Activity: Protecting Information
The importance of protecting the information of organizations today
Information is the most valuable aspect of a business in the present day. It is, therefore, important that the information is protected. Organizations have a lot of information which needs to be accessed only by certified users (Gottschalk & Thomson Gale, 2008). Such information disclosed can pose a lot of risks to a company. It may lead to lawsuits by other parties, or the information can result in defeat by competitors. If not protected effectively, cyber-crime can happen. Information or data loss can lead to malfunction of the business since information is key to all the processes to be perfect.
The elements that help in the protection of information
There are three main components that help with the protection of information. They include;
Confidentiality/ Secrecy -Confidentiality is referred to as the essential aspect of information safety by the International Organization for Standardization (Plant & Murrell, 2007). It without doubt states that information be available only to authorized persons. The control in entrée is the root of sustaining privacy regarding any information in the business.
Integrity-This entails protecting data from being tailored by unauthorized users. The provisions of data users should be sustained for the security of information.
Availability- This refers to ensuring that only authorized users can access information when required (Tansey, Wateridge, & Darnton, 2010). Availability regards the processed information.
Supporting Activity: Information Systems
Parts of a system likely to handle information and what each part does to make information more accessible to the organization
For information to become useful information, there needs to be processing of data. Database processing is the process of undertaking specific operations on a set of a database. A database refers to statistics and information.
Data processing is principally performed on information systems. An information system consists of input, processing, and output. It also provides for feedback from output to input. The input devices gather and capture raw data and can be either manual or automated