Treating IS development as a business: an agenda for research

Abstract

The Data Processing Department: Role, Function, Structure The role of the DP department is to provide information services, software, and consulting to the rest of the firm. The first role is historically the oldest and is closely related to the roots of the DP department in mechanical processing of records relating to personnel and sales. It is a bulk, batch processing activity historically, although today a great deal of this processing is done on-line through terminals at managers' and analysts' desks. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that the majority of CPU cycles and the bulk of operational labour involved in running a data processing department is dedicated to batch processing of records.