What is an information system, and how does it differ from a computer system? What is a corporate information system? Let's try to answer these questions briefly and concisely. At a glance, an information system is a set of people, processes, data, and technologies used to manage and distribute information within an organization. Unlike a computer system, which refers mainly to hardware and software, an information system also includes human and organizational aspects.

Information System

An information system is a set of resources, both human and material, created with the aim of producing and exchanging the information necessary for the functioning and management of any organization, such as a company, a school, or a library. It can be said that every organization within which it is necessary to produce or exchange information has its own information system, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Within a company, it is desirable to be able to explicitly identify the information system. In this case, the corporate information system is composed of the following elements:

• a data base, with which to produce information;
• a set of procedures (automatic or otherwise);
• a set of tools (automatic or otherwise);
• a set of people (human resources) who manage the procedures;
• a set of organizational and management rules.

If we focus on a company system, therefore, we can provide the definition of a corporate information system as the set of people, resources, and machines that process data for the purpose of producing information to support business operations and decisions.

Within a company, it is possible to distinguish between:

• operational information system, which concerns the set of operations that flow within the company between multiple processes and/or between internal processes and the external operating environment;
• decision-making information system, which concerns the set of information necessary to guide individual operational processes as they unfold.

Computer System

A computer system or IT system, on the other hand, is the automated part of a particular information system, in which information is collected and processed digitally with the aid of IT tools. It follows that a computer system is a subset of an information system.

With technological innovation, however, as IT tools become increasingly easier, cheaper, and more powerful, the trend is to increasingly merge the IT system with the information system, reducing the areas in which information is produced and managed without the use of IT.

The security of information systems, which must also be implemented by the IT system, deserves a separate post. In this regard, some topics related to the security of a computer system are discussed in the section dedicated to Cybersecurity.