Example Of Business That Had Applied It

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Introduction

Nowadays, IT play big role in helping business to manage their business in many sections such as administration department, marketing department, finance department and etc. before we go further on how IT give a big help and become a key to business success, let understand the definition of IT. Refer to www.techterms.com, IT which is stands for Information Technology can be defined as "anything related to computing technology, such as networking, hardware, software, internet or the people that work with these technologies". In other word, the key word of IT is computing technology.

In addition, the website also tell that the important of IT had make a company nowadays find initiative to have IT department where they responsible to handle IT jobs includes computer programming, network administration, computer engineering, web development, technical support and many other related occupation. From the definition, we can see that IT really have big role in business and it meet the needs for the current situation of world which work fast and like Thomas L. Friedman had said-The World is Flat.

Business success can be measured by profit, customer base, customers’ satisfaction, employees’ satisfaction and owner satisfaction. Profit easy to be measured as when businesses have high profit, people will consider that business is success. Thus, when we mentioned IT as a key to business success, we can see that in order to have high profit, large customer base or customer satisfaction, IT had played some role in it. Example, by using IT, a company can store data of their customer and this will help them to identified their types of customer and help them to create product or service that can attract loyal customer to keep loyal and new customer to buy their product or service.

Objective

There are several objectives had been identified under topic of IT is a key to business success. First objective is to define Information System in business. In this section, we will also highlight about Management Information System that had been applied in business nowadays.

Second objective is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of IT in business field. As we all know, IT really important and become trend and a ‘must need tool’ whether in business or social life. However, it is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of usage of IT in order to avoid IT make harm on user.

Third objective is to identify reason for not applied IT in business. Although IT had been used in business widely these days, but yet still some of business’ owner avoid using IT. Thus, we will emphasize this matter neatly.

Body of Article

Information System in Business

Information System (IS) can be defined as "an integrated set of components for collecting, storing and processing data and delivering information, knowledge and digital products". In other word, Information System help user to obtain data, keep and process the data until it turn into valuable information for user. In business field, Information System that had been used is Management Information System (MIS) which it had been designed to help three levels of management in making decision, such as Top, Middle and Lower level management.

Each level of management requires different type of information in order to make decision. Example, for Lower level management, they need information in terms of operational decision and they will use Transaction Processing System (TPS) and Manufacturing Information System (MIS). Thus, the example decision that Lower level management should be regarding the stock of product left or they type of product that meet demand of the customer.

Meanwhile, Middle manager (tactical management) needs information that will help them to make tactical decision like budgeting, quality level, service level or inventory level as they need to communicate and dealing with external side like supplier or customer. The example of MIS that needed by tactical management is Marketing Information System (MIS) and Accounting Information System (AIS).

For Top level management, they need to make strategic decision where, The information system they need is such as Expert System (ES), a kind of software that attempts to provide an answer to a problem and help clarify uncertainties result. Meanwhile, Decision Support System (DSS) is class of information systems that support business and organizational decision-making activities. Still, DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile information from combination of raw data, documents and personal knowledge.

Thus, Management Information System really play big role in help owner manage their business as it can help each level of management in make decision and stored data

Advantages and disadvantages of IT in business field

Although IT had help businesses to manage their business, yet it still have its own advantages and disadvantages that user need to know and understand. There are several advantages of IT which first is improving communication where, IT had help user to communicate effectively. Other than that, IT had make communication become cheaper, quicker and more efficient. Example, if manager need to have business dealing with his client but the distance become barrier, they can have video conference using Skype-a kind of online video calling.

Second advantage is bridging the cultural gap where, IT helps people from different cultures to communicate each other. Other than that, they can exchange any ideas and have effective conversation between them. Example, by using IT business man from Malaysia can exchange idea with other business man outside Malaysia such as Europe. At the end of the conversation, both of them might have more understanding regarding the culture of Malaysia which consist of Muslim’s citizen and have several races and Europe which is combination of seven continents.

Third advantage is businesses have more time to operate their business as IT make possible for businesses to open 24x7 all over the world. As the time of each of countries in the world is different, they still can operate the business at anytime, anywhere, dealing sales and purchase from different countries and so on. Plus, IT also let people to shopping without need for them to go out to shopping mall. Example, Lazada had applied IT in their business which they try to meet the needs of their customer-shopping within a minute and save more time to do other things.

However, IT still have disadvantage which first is privacy invaded because IT let people who have expertise in technology to misuse the technology by hack and steal data or information of other people with bad intention. Example, when we put information like full name and phone number, hacker will invade our private information and spread it to public.

Second disadvantage is increase unemployment rate. This happened when people using IT to reduce the cost of labour, outsourcing and downsizing might be applied and let lower or middle level jobs to be unemployed and these might cause economic problem. Example, factory has high potential to apply downsizing method as they use IT to increase production level.

Third disadvantage is high expenses. We should understand that not every business owner or company can afford to implement IT in their business especially small business due to not enough capital. At the end of the day, small business might face difficulty to support high expenses for technology or losing their clients to company or business which has improved its technology and able to provide good service or product

Reason for not applied IT in business

There are several examples of business that did not apply IT in their daily activities. Firstly, small business like sell food and drink at small food stall or night market might not apply IT. They prefer to record profit in ledger book rather than computer. This matter might happened due to lack of IT knowledge.

Secondly, due to tradition of business such as the origin company that use old method of business model feels difficult to them to apply IT as they feel comfort to use old method. Example, Mr. Ali had own family business of laundry shop where any record of data will be stored in book. He refuses to use IT as he feels comfort with the way his manage the business currently.

Thirdly is a person feels that IT need is costly as they need to have worker to know about IT if they want to implement IT. In addition, they also need to send their workers to get training or course of IT and this will make them to pay for the cost.

Discussion

Way to overcome disadvantages of IT in business

Firstly, as IT might make privacy invaded, business owner need to do something to protect the data. As for that, business owner need to enhance security of information in order to avoid data and information from being steal by other person who has intention to steal the data and misuse the data. They might ask expertise of IT to develop software to secure the data and information and give and advice to their valued customer to update antivirus.

Secondly, IT might increase unemployment rate. We need create awareness of importance of IT knowledge, way of generate income using IT and become entrepreneur with IT knowledge. Other than that, we need to create awareness of business owner to balance the use of IT with labour cost because high unemployment rate will affect business performance

Thirdly, IT had been said need high expenses. Business owner need to know the utilization of IT in his business. He also needs to rearrange his capital to provide sum capital to buy the software or hardware that suitable with his business.

Example of business that had applied IT in their daily operation

Firstly is fast food restaurant such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), McDonalds and Domino’s Pizza had applied IT in their business such as online ordering which customer can make an order via online. Other than that, customer also can order via phone call.

Secondly is banking industries such as CIMB Bank and Malayan Banking that provide online banking to their customer in order to let their customer to transfer fund or buy stock via online. Other than that, bank also has a system that can check the balance in customer Saving or Current account in order observe transaction of customer so that bank can offer any service that they feel suitable with their customer and ATM machine to let customer withdraw their money using bank card.

Thirdly is hypermarket such as Mydin, Tesco, Jusco and Giant that had applied IT in daily activities such as Transaction Processing System (TPS) where when sales person scan the bar code of product, they will be given the data of product such as price and the left stock of the product.

Conclusion

From body of article, we had discussed about the IS and advantages and disadvantages of IT in business field. From the advantage, we had highlight how IT can help business to improve their performance and become a key or business success as IT had become a tool that business person need to have.

In addition, although IT has several disadvantages, we still can use IT in our business as the disadvantages can be overcome such as if the expense to have IT in business is high, business owner should understand the need of the IT and prepare some money to have it or wait until business stable.

Thus, IT really important in daily life activities and it had been used or applied in business purpose or leisure activities. That’s why IT is a key to business success