The information processed by an organisation can be characterised by three components.

• The number of individual business transactions processed (Scale)
• The amount of information involved in completing each transaction (Complexity)
• The heterogeneity of the transactions being processed (Diversity).

These components represent three dimensions that make up an information space. There is a limit, at any particular time, to the amount of information that can be processed by an organisation.

Organisations choose to deploy their available capacity in different ways to maximise their perceived opportunity in their market.

The development of information technology over the last forty years has significantly increased the information processing ability of individuals and organisations. The increased capacity is used by organisations to evolve and develop their strategy, processes, products and customer relations to the extent that supportive information technology is now critical to business success.