Integrating Business Management Processes

Chapter 4Information Systems and Technology

4.1 Introduction

The dawn of the year 2000 marked a new era in information technology (IT). As the church bells began to toll at midnight on December 31, 1999, sceptics expected aircraft to fall from the sky, all communications to fail, bank transactions to crash and so on because of the Y2K problem, which was also known as the millennium bug. But nothing of the sort happened. Advances in IT were able to cope with the change successfully and there was a smooth transition to the new millennium. Today IT has permeated every aspect of our lives, and it is hard to imagine a world without it.

Over the past few decades, we have witnessed rapid changes in the nature and organisation of industries, businesses ...