COMPLEX HETEROGENEOUS ENVIRONMENTS
In a perfect world, a single system would be developed fully customized for all of an organisation's needs and operations. Some systems even try to achieve this with varying levels of success but typically at a high financial cost and high rates of failure. In most cases, organisations have several separate systems each responsible for their own functions (e.g. a human resource system, an accounting system, a helpdesk system, a custom information system). Each system typically provides value to the organisation but not as much as with a fully unified and integrated system as depicted below (e.g. online company website capable of showing customer invoices from accounting system, school website displaying student portfolio with grades and calendar of activities from the student information system, hospital website offering a portal for patients with doctor's instructions.)
