Study Questions

Q1 What are the differences between

functional and cross-functional
systems?
Q2 How do functional systems relate to the value chain?
Q3 What are the functions of the five basic functional
systems?
Q4 What are the problems of functional systems?
Q5 What is business process design?

Q1 What are the differences between functional and

cross-functional systems?
This chart depicts the history of information systems beginning with
calculation systems, moving to functional systems that served a
single department or function, and ending with integrated systems
that span an entire organization.

Calculation System
The calculation system was the first information system. The
calculation system is now antiquated, but had been used for a
very long time.
Calculation machines were more accurate than humans.
Functional System
It was the second era of facilitated work of a single
department or function. This was a and-on to the calculation
system
They had problems with the functional applications. For the
most part, the applications were sometimes called island of
automation because they worked independent of one
another.

Q1 What are the differences

between functional and crossfunctional systems?

Many companies are moving to integrated,

cross-functional systems that integrate
activities of an entire business process, like
a customer order. This type of system may
also be called a process-based system
Most organizations use a mixture of oldstyled functional systems and newer,
integrated systems.

Integrated, Cross-Functional
System
Isolation problems of functional systems led to
the third era of information systems.
These were designed to integrate the activities of an
entire business process.

These activities which cross the departmental

boundaries are called cross functional or crossdepartmental systems.
Also they supported compete business processes
and are sometimes called process-based systems.

Who does it help?

The newer systems helped to increase the
functional abilities and the ability for the users
for which they were very grateful.
Most organizations today use a mix of functional and
integrated systems, which is why they are so
successful in competing globally.
Most of these systems are just for making money or
profit but in this case it also could be used for non profit
organizations that report financials at the end of the
year such as The Girls Scouts of America.