Information systems for the 1990s

Ten internal auditing veterans discussed the five most important information technology concerns for the year 2000 as identified in a survey of internal auditing and systems professionals. The areas of concern were high-level software, data communications, information system design, transaction processing automation, and data security. The panel predicted not only advanced software that would allow managers to customize programs to address complex business problems, but the widespread use of knowledge-based expert systems as well. Data communications by the year 2000 would allow data bases to be highly networked. The panel predicted most information systems would use distributed data processing, and many systems would be centralized by the end of the century. Some members of the panel expected most hard-copy business documents to be replaced by electronic media.