As a reminder, there are four main types of organisational information systems.

Operational level – to track the flow of transactions through the organisation.

Knowledge level – to help integrate new knowledge into the organisation and control the flow of paperwork.

Management level – serve monitoring, controlling and decision making activities.

Strategic level – help senior management address strategic issues

It is also important to note that collaboration begins at home. These systems are developed to encourage internal communication. I have often heard of organizations very keen to ‘engage with partners’, but the same organizations suffer from a lack of engagement between departments. The systems not only serve the purpose of maintaining institutional knowledge, developing intellectual capital and storing and analysing core institutional performance indicators, but also serve to develop synergies within an organization at an interpersonal, programme and corporate level through the sharing of information.