Group 2

The Virtual Organization and Information Services

Organization

Virtual Organization - Is an organization involving detached and disseminated entities

(from employees to entire enterprises) and requiring information technology to support
their work and communication.

-used to describe a network of independent firms that join together, often temporarily, to
produce a service or product.

- Virtual organization is often associated with such terms as virtual office, virtual teams
and virtual leadership.

Virtual Office- The operational domain of any business or organization whose workforce
includes a significant proportion of workers using technology to perform their work at home.

Virtual Teams- Is a group of individuals who work across time, space and organizational
boundaries with links, strengthened by webs of communication technology.

Virtual Leadership- It involves the performance of guiding teams working in the telecommute
or remote locations. They scale and distribute workload equitably.

The Societal Impact of the Virtual Organization

Although the virtual office and the virtual organization have been primarily identified as
business strategies, the concepts can eventually have a dramatic implication for society
as well.Education, health care, entertainment, travel, sports, and consulting as these
industries are attracted to the virtual office in increasing numbers, the movement can
affect the way that practically everyone lives and works. This effect will be most obvious
in the physical appearance and function of our cities. The virtual office and the virtual
organization will decrease the demand for more skyscrapers and commuters, making
our cities quieter, gentler, and more appealing as places to live in.

The Information
Services Organization
Information Services (IS)-Is the term use to describe the unit of the firm that has
responsibility for the majority of the information resources.

- is the collection of technical and human resources that provide the

storage, computing, distribution, and communication for the information
required by all or some part of an enterprise. A special form of IS is a
management information system (MIS), which provides information for managing
an enterprise.

The Information Resources

- are defined as the data and information used by an organization.

This including computer hardware, computer software, information specialist,

users, facilities, database, and information. Most of these resources are located in
information services and are the responsibility of the chief information officer (CIO).

The Information Specialists

We use the term specialist to describe the employee whose full-time

responsibility is to contribute to the availability of information resources in the firm. The
original information specialists included the systems analyst, programmer,
andoperator. Subsequently, the database administratorand network specialist were
added.

Systems Analyst -These specialists work with the users to develop new systems and
improve existing systems. Systems analysts are expert at defining problems and in
preparing written documentation on how the computer will assist in solving the
problems.

Database Administrators – An information specialist who has responsibility for the

database is called a database administrator (DBA).The duties of the DBA fall into four
major areas: planning, implementation, operation, and security.
Webmaster – is responsible for the content and presentation of the firm’s Web site. The
webmaster must work with network specialist in order to assure that the
communications network between the costumer and or business partner is always
open. Web sites rely heavily on images and the web master will generally have some
expertise in graphics manipulation or design.An important duty of the webmaster is to
track people who come to the firm’s Web pages. These statistics can provide important
information about the Web site effectiveness.

Network Specialist – network specialist work with systems analysts and users in
establishing the data communications network that tie together widespread computing
resources. Network specialists combine expertise from the fields of computing and
telecommunications. Maintaining network requirements for Web-based applications is
especially difficult since much of the communications take place beyond the boundaries
of the firm.

Programmers – use the documentation prepared by the systems analysts to code

computer programs that transform the data into information that is needed by the user.
Some firm combine the functions of the systems analyst and programmer, creating a
programmer analyst position.

Operators – run the large-scale computing facilities. The operators monitor the
consoles, change paper forms in the printers, manage libraries of tape and disk storage,
and perform other similar duties.