The information systems we see around us today are at first sight very different from those that

were developed 15 years ago and more. On the other hand, it seems that we are still struggling
with many of the same problems. To understand how we can evolve future ISs, we should have
good understanding of the existing application portfolios. In this article we present selected data
from survey investigations performed in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 among Norwegian
organizations on how they conduct information systems development and evolution. A major
finding is that even if we witness large changes in the underlying implementation technology and
approaches used, a number of aspects such as the overall percentage of time used for maintaining
and evolving systems in production compared to time used for development is stable, and should
be taken into account in the planning of information systems evolution for the future.

INTRODUCTION

Modern information systems are the result of the interconnection of systems of many
organizations, which are running in variable contexts, and require the capability to actively react
to changing requirements and failures. Large changes in how we develop information systems
have been witnessed over the last 15-20 years. The prevalent development methods,
programming languages and general technological infrastructure have changed a lot.

Currently, organizations are in the race for enhancing their capability in order to survive in the
competitions of the new century global market. Therefore, organizations are attempting to
advance their agility level by improving the decision making process to be more efficient and
highly effective to meet the successive fluctuations of the market. In an effort to achieve this,
many modern organizations, either mid or large sized, have concerned with a cycle of
progressive investments in and adopted new management information systems components.
During last decade, a high percentage of financial organizations frequently used Management
Information Systems to facilitate the provision of services; and that the speed of the adoption is
expected to grow further as the technology expands.

Whitten et al. (2004, p.12.), stated that "information is an arrangement of people, data, process,
and information technology that interact to collect, process, store and provide as output the
information needed to support an organization," which indicates that information system is an
arrangement of groups, data, processes and technology that act together to accumulate, process,
store and provide information output needed to enhance and speed up the process of decision
making. In a Bank's information system, there is always a potential crisis which makes the bank
endure an insufficiency; thus, an advanced information system supported by a superior
mechanism control is required to make certain that an information system has achieved the
required processes.
If the relevant information required in a decision-making process or an organization planning is
not available at the appropriate time, then there is a good change to be a poor organization
planning, inappropriate decision-making, poor priority of needs, and defective programming or
scheduling of activities (Adebayo, 2007).

Information is essential for the endurance of a financial organization in the global and
competitive market.

The nature of globalization and competitiveness in the market stress on the importance of
developing an organization capability through better enhancing MIS.

Accordingly, the stored information must then be recalled and distributed for the use of an
organization leadership and top management as well as mid-level managers to take effective long
term (strategic) and short term (Tactical) decision-making. MIS is deemed to be a system which
provides organizations top management and, even lower level management, with appropriate
information based on data from both internal and external sources, to allow them to make
effective and timely decisions that best achieve their organization goals and satisfy stakeholder
requirements (Argyris, 1971, p. 291).

The conception of information catches the attention of different professionals from different
fields such as computer science, economics, business and management, political science,
statistics, communication and information studies (Newman 2001). However, the question is
"what type of information"? How Information management can play an essential role in the
decision making process? How can the coordination between different departments (internal
and/or external) and sharing information at the real time accelerate and enhance the process of
decision making and avoid decision making errors?

Referring to the literatures, the field of Management Information Systems (MIS) has had a
variegated development in its relatively short life span. MIS has developed its own theme of
research and studies (Baskerville and Myers, 2002).

Tracing previous literatures, we can report that during its first few decades, MIS concentrated on
the information in the context of:

Electronic data processing which carries out transaction processing functions and records
detailed factual data.

Management reporting systems which scrutinize the operational activities of an organization,

providing summaries, information and feedback to management.

Only during the last two decades, the MIS field has shifted to the primary, considered the second
type of communication, namely, instruction-based. This has become known as the domain of
expert systems (Sasan Rahmatian, 1999). In attempts to review published studies on MIS and
articles, Alavi and Carlson (1992) have identified popular research topics, the dominant research
perspective, and the relationship between MIS research and practice. In contrast, Baskerville and
Myers (2002) have examined the MIS field and found a constant shift of MIS research from a
technical focus to a technology-organizational and management-social focus.

Skyrius (2001) underlines the decision maker's attitudes towards different factors influencing the
quality of business decisions; these factors include information sources, analytical tools, and the
role of information technologies.

Handzic (2001) also pays attention to the impact of information availability on people's ability to
process and use information in short and long term planning and in decision making tasks. He
revealed that the better the availability of information, the better the impact on both efficiency
and accuracy of business decisions.

Liu and Young (2007) talk about key information models and their relationships in business
decision support in three different scenarios. The authors proved that global businesses are in
advance due to the Enterprise Applications System provided by modern IT tools such as
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) and Customer
Relations Management (CRM) to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Decision
Making process.

In order to improve the financial organizational capability and enhance its level of competition in
the market, financial organizations should understand the dimensions of the Information
Management, and clearly define and develop the resources in case of human, technological, and
internal operations, among others,, and manage them well across the organizational boundaries.
However, establishing the link between Information System Management, planning and decision
making is, at best, tricky.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a method of using computer technology to link various
functionssuch as accounting, inventory control, and human resourcesacross an entire
company. ERP is intended to facilitate information sharing, business planning, and decision
making on an enterprise-wide basis. ERP came into sharp visibility in the mid-1990s and was
still energetically developing in the mid-2000s a decade later. ERP enjoyed a great deal of
popularity among large manufacturers in the mid- to late-1990s.
 2000s Extended ERP

1990s Enterprise Resource Planning

(ERP)
1980s Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP II)

1970s Material Requirements Planning (MRP)

1960s Inventory Control Packages

According to TechRepublic, The future of IT will be reduced to three kinds of jobs: consultants,
project managers, and developers. Our jack-of-all-trades are our systems and business analysts
who are at the center of all communications. Communication. Perhaps the most important key
trait for all MIS grads. IS professionals provide a bridge between the organization, technology,
and the customer. The systems analyst is always asking questions and communicating, providing
this bridge. And when viewpoints differ, must come to resolution and clarity on how to remedy.

MIS grads will need to solve problems more effectively through abstraction. They will do this
through Computational Thinking. Critical Thinking + Technology = Computational Thinking.
Computational Thinking represents away of solving problems, designing systems, and
understanding human behavior and applying technology to understand the world.

Solving problems has taken on an entirely new perspective with the use of analytics. We can and
are able to predict outcomes before diving in. Analytics will guide decision-making, by
predicting, forecasting, and optimizing via the use of statistical analysis. This is quite more
pervasive due to bigger data, better computers,and wider familiarity. Let me paint a picture of
how some of these are already in use today.Living in Southeast Michigan, it only seems
appropriate to use a car as my example. I borrow this example from Eric Siegel (1). First, in
order to open the car door, we have incorporated anti-theft devices that use biometrics to
determine your identity. Assuming you have successfully gained access to your vehicle, for your
vehicle, for your entertainment, Pandora chooses music it thinks you will like. In traffic, our
navigation system suggests alternate routes and bases speed on hills in order to optimize the fuel
economy. Breakfast? An en-route system suggests restaurants based on your daily food
preferences. Socially,your social techretary offers to read you select Facebook feeds, voicemails,
and match.com that it has already filtered predicting your likes. Actually driving the car, we have
now incorporated collision avoidance systems that vibrate when it senses you are distracted or
there is an obstacle (e.g. a dog or child) that may be in the way. Predictive analytics has not
conquered itself. But we can confidently predict more prediction. Every few months another big
story about predictive analytics rolls off the presses. We're sure to see the opportunities continue
to grow and surprise.
Another area where MIS students will always be needed will be in innovation. As the individual
that bridges the gap between business and technology, MIS grads will be applying the latest
technologies to solve the worlds problems.

The Market Intelligence Trends 2020 survey by M-Brain surveyed 139 business managers
predominantly located across key cities in Europe and identified three key technology trends that
will impact how information management systems are to develop over the next five years.

1. Data collection automation

83% of the survey respondents said that market intelligence systems should be able to automate
data collection by 2020. Increasingly, companies must implement systems to collect information
online and in real time, so as to proactively identify and respond to emerging market
opportunities and threats faster than the competition.

IT managers must work to ensure that data can be fed into information systems that have built-in
features or with best-in-breed automation tools, which handle everything effectively and through
a minimum number of different user interfaces.

Implementing ways to ensure the effectiveness and timeliness of the data automation is critical.
IT managers need to identify the optimal set of data sources and tools for their organisations, as
well as the optimal level of human involvement.

With the expansive range of information that can be collected, many companies find they need
guidance on how to avoid overlapping activities and optimise costs, such as subscription fees.

They may choose to outsource the management of their entire information source portfolios and
the monitoring of news outlets, web blogs and websites to specialists that can offer economies of
scale and virtually endless source portfolios. There is a caveat here: you will have to make sure
you choose a partner that has the flexibility to adapt to your changing requirements.

2. Information analysis automation

With the onslaught of big data and quantitative data, 91% of all respondents said they need the
implementation of automated data analysis by 2020. In fact, 78% of the business managers
surveyed considered big data to have a large impact on market intelligence activities.

IT managers also need to continuously learn and keep abreast of the latest available possibilities
and options within the realm of automated analysis stools. Statistical and modeling tools such as
Spotfire and Targit can be considered. Here, again, partnering with a correct specialist service
provider may be of great advantage.

3. Cross function integration

Almost two-thirds (64%) of all respondents expected information collection and analysis
programmes to be integrated with other organisational functions in the future. This would
certainly be a positive move.

Most companies today use separate systems to serve their different information requirements
for example CRM, market intelligence portal, intranet, social media platforms and ERP. Many
recognise the need to integrate these tools or at the very least to arrange for a single point
access to all relevant systems.

Technical integration can and should also be considered, but the level of requirement should
always be evaluated carefully. Often, its enough to only share views or move needed data
between systems, instead of implementing actual system or database level integrations, where the
returns on the investment may be limited.

Information management systems should always support the sharing of views or movement of
data from other systems, regardless of the level of integration selected.

These three trends show that companies will need more and more sophisticated systems that can
combine all the data they have within their organisations and proactively interpret both negative
and positive market signals, in the context of the companys specific circumstances and goals.