An information systems profile of U.S. companies

The information system (IS) characteristics of U.S. companies were surveyed to produce an overall IS profile. This profile was examined for statistical differences as a function of size of company and stage of IS sophistication. In general, most firms surveyed are in the so-called integration or data administration stage. There were apparently no significant differences found in EDP/MIS expenditures, computing hardware expenditures, and MIS-supported activities, due to the organization’s stage of IS sophistication. The size of company is found to have no significant effect on the stage of IS sophistication. Most companies have formal IS planning and control systems and some form of distributed data processing (DDP). The majority of the companies use software for conventional programming and database management purposes with very little emphasis on their use in decision modeling and statistical analysis. Quite surprisingly, IS is still being used primarily for operational and management controls rather than for strategic planning.