The Role of Computers In Business

When first developed, computers were not used in business. It was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that computers began to be used to organize, store, process, and present vast amounts of business information. In 1954 the first business application of a computers system was made for the processing of payroll. Today payroll is just one of many routine computer operations. There has been a rapid increase of computer usage into almost every aspect of business: factory production, inventory control, warehousing and distribution, record-keeping, and even assistance in problem-solving and decision-making.
Computers handle large amounts of data rapidly and can efficiently categorize, process, and report information for a variety of business operation. Computers, in fact, have a virtually unlimited capacity for processing business data, However, since computers cannot think, their role in business is limited to those areas in which they can process information more effectively and efficiently than human beings. Figure 2 lists a number of tasks and compares the effectiveness of computers and human beings for each task. At the administrative level, managers decide how computers and humans can be used most effectively to perform a particular business task.