Managing corporate information systems

In the past decade, three developments have brought the issues of information systems maintenance and evolution to the fore. First, the creation of large-scale distributed systems, which are dynamically configured and re-configured, and running over global networks. Second, abetted by Internet technologies, the whole business model for many enterprises has been significantly changed. Third, global business competitiveness and complexities have been increased dramatically. Computing technologies, tools, and systems platforms are changing rapidly; so are the business strategies, scope and dimensions. In the past, enterprises could only do business in a particular geographical area. Today, organizations are increasingly becoming location independent and heavily depend on new distributed technologies such as the Internet. Enterprises are finding themselves to be strategically disadvantaged if they do not take advantage of the new technology. The consequence of advances in technologies and the changing business needs have virtually forced the organizations to let their legacy systems evolve more rapidly than they anticipated a few years ago.
In this rapidly evolving world, a corporate information system that interacts with its environment is inevitably required to evolve and to be maintained in order to keep its business competitiveness with others. Information systems (IS) always change and evolve; some more frequently, some are less frequently. System evolution refers to a process of continual change in systems functions and non-functional properties. Evolution of information systems is unavoidable, and organizations need to support and manage systems evolution to take advantage of the new technology and to address the changing business rules. The evolutionary nature of IS products, in fact, leaves us with two options: either maintain the products with their continual changing nature, or accept the degrading performance of the product. In this ever-increasing competitive business environment, the latter one would hardly be an option for most enterprises. A corporate system evolution process often requires managerial and technical skills in order to manage and control system evolution .


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