TPA4 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

TPA4 - Assignment Example Despite the new proliferation of business information systems has supported the management core functions and other operations such as customer relationship management, accounting and inventory management, service scheduling and billing, supply chain management, contract management, manufacturing and e-business requirements with sophisticated user friendly customization tools, there is a need for due diligence prior to making decisions on the various computer components. The need for this action is because poor decisions when acquiring a computer system has seen some of them fail, leading to losses to the organization. For instance, around three-quarters of organizations across the Europe had their computer systems fail in 2011 only leading to data loss or system downtime (BBC, 2011). Another example is the loss suffered by the BBC when it was forced to abandon a  £98 digital production system because it was being outpaced by the changing technology (BBC, 2013). As defined by Kroenke and Hooper (2013), a system is an integration of several components that interact to achieve a common goal. Therefore, computer systems used by the businesses have several elements that managers must consider when making decisions to acquire them. These components include the hardware, software, people, data, and instructions/procedures. The hardware is the physical devices of a computer system used to input, process, output, and store data. The software refers to programs stored in the computer system. The instructions are related to the software while people are the system’s users. When an organization has a qualified workforce to run and operate its computer system, it goes ahead and considers other factors as discussed below. Expandability – The hardware should be scalable to meet the increasing needs of the business. This factor is especially important when considering the memory