In many companies, operational employees need information to handle tasks and make decisions that previously were assigned to supervisors. This trend, called empowerment, gives employees more responsibility and accountability. Many companies find that empowerment leads to better employee motivation and increased customer satisfaction. Examples might include increasing an employee’s authority to resolve a customer issue, allowing lower-level employees to take over short-term operations planning, and allowing them to handle issues usually managed at a higher level.

What will be an ideal response?

Large companies require many different types of information systems. For example, all employees, including top managers, use office systems. Similarly, operational personnel often require information support from what formerly were called management information systems. Now, it is more useful to identify a system by its functions and features, rather than by its users. Today’s systems include enterprise computing systems, transaction processing systems, business support systems, knowledge management systems, and user productivity systems. The best answer probably is that a smaller firm might use any or all of these systems, but as scaled-down versions appropriate to size of the firm. This is where scalability would be especially important in order to meet the future needs of a growing business.