Why are information systems essential in business today? Describe four trends in the global environment that have made information systems so important.

The emergence of a global economy, transformation of industrial economies, transformation of the business enterprise, and the emergence of the digital firm make information systems essential in business today.  These trends present the business firm and its management with several new challenges. .   

As a growing percentage of the advanced industrial economies in the United States, Europe and Asia depends on imports and exports, information systems supply both communications and analytic instruments for engaging in trade and for managing businesses that are spread throughout the world. 

The major industrial powers in the United States, Europe and Asia are being transformed from industrial economies to knowledge- and information-based service economies.  In such economies, information systems and technology have become critical to these economies, and in this day and age, they have become essential to economies that primarily remain reliant upon manufacturing.
Development of the power and capabilities of information systems has transformed the possibilities for organizing and managing business enterprises.  Businesses of this style are less hierarchical (flatter) and are more decentralized, allowing them to rely more on informal commitments and temporary task forces.  Many managers have become more reliant upon individuals who report to them for decision making as these reportees have more learning and current knowledge.  Also, more and more under this transformation, companies are becoming more customer-oriented. 

The emerging technology and the organizational redesign that has accompanied it have created the condition for the emergence of the digital firm.  While firms of this type are still few and far between, they are growing in number.  Perhaps more important right now, almost all larger firms and even many smaller ones have become reliant upon the digital firm technology for much of their activity, including relations with customers and suppliers.