Introduction
Information technology can be defined as an application or study of computers or any other kind of technology that can be used for storing, sending data, retrieving or receiving data or information (Dutta, Geiger and Lanvin, 2015). It is a broad concept which is used by organizations in order to sustain within this competitive market. It is one of the most important factors which is required by the organizations to focus on if they want to compete with their competitors in this competitive market. IT not only helps an organization to increase their productivity, efficiency but also helps them to gain competitive advantage (Schwalbe, 2015). This assignment will focus on role of IT in the success or failure of Tesco, ethical and social issues that pertain to running businesses, different types of networking technologies, importance of social media in your business different stage of system development life cycle, potential benefits and drawbacks of Tesco. Tesco is a British multinational retail sector organization that was founded in 1919 in England, United Kingdom.
Literature review
Role of information technology in Management
According to the view of Zurawski, (2018) Information technology plays a vital role in management. It helps the managements of an organization to focus on enhancing overall efficiency and effectiveness of the business process, increase collaborative working, enhanced decision making. It helps in simplifying various kinds of management functions such as planning, budgeting, retaining staff members, saving and protecting employee's information. Other than this information technology helps management of an organization to track their sales data, their productivity level, expenses etc. this information extracted from information technology system can be used by management to track their profitability, maximize investment or return as well as also helps identifying improvement areas in which organization can bring improvement. Effective and proper use of Information technology can also help the management of an organization to maintain and manage their relationship within their customers, analyse needs, wants and desires of their customers so that if any kind of change is required to be done then it can be done. In this manner importance of information technology in management increases as it can enhance decision making done by the management of an organization, identify improvement areas for the growth of an organization and many more.
Ethical and social issues associated with Technology
As per the view of Saunders and Brynjolfsson, (2016) due to advancement in technology. Ethical and social issues associated with technology are continuously increasing that are faced by organizations. Ethical issues associated with technology are: Individual privacy is one of the most important factor issues which is faced by organizations as well as by individuals due to advancement in technology. Privacy of individual is continuously been compromised. Most of the companies collect personal data of their customers for their business which is completely unethical. Organizations nowadays continuously monitor their employees, clients and customers information on the name of security. Not only this organizations continuously record their employee's activities through security cameras which is completely unethical. Due to this increase in usage of technology ethical issues are increasing and putting organizations into an ethical dilemma of whether they should track their employees of customers information or not. Many organizations on the name of business and security track their employee's location which is completely unethical and wrong. Due to this tracking of an individual's location organizations are slowly controlling their employee's movement and limiting their rights in many different ways. This in completely unethical and wrong in many different ways. Saunders and Brynjolfsson, (2016) further explains that, other than ethical issues, social issues related to technology are also increasing in a drastic manner. Due to increasing use of technology social issues such as online harassment is increasing continuously. It is one of the main social issue which being faced by many people today. Usage of technology has increased till an extent that spreading of fake news has increased because of which people are being manipulated. It is one of the major social issue which is associated with the technology.
Differentiate between types of networks
As cited by Lee, Thomas and Baskerville, (2015) explains that, there are various kinds of networks that are used by organizations as per their requirement and convenience. There are mainly three main types of networks that uses different medium and connect different number of computers depending upon the geographical location. Local area network (LAN) is the first main type of network. It is a type of network in which data can be shared between personal computer and work stations. All the computers in this network are connected with the help of a switch using some kind of addressing scheme defined by TCP/IP protocol. It can be said that it is mostly used for connecting small geographical area. Speed provided by LAN is quite high. Second type of network is metropolitan Area Network (MAN). It covers much larger area as compared to LAN and can connect more than two computers together to share data or information (residing in same or different cities). It can also be said that this network can cover larger areas such as town or cities. Last type of network is Wide area network (WAN). WAN is a kind of network that covers larger geographical location such as state or a country. This network is comparatively costly and has high speed.
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Growth in ICT and use of the Internet and its effects on business
As per the view of Passey and Samways, (2016) ICT or information and communication technology is an extended term of IT which is mostly used for integrating telecommunication and computers. Due to advancement in technology ICT is continuously growing and rapidly enhancing. ICT is impacting the manner in which people access information. Most of the people are focusing on accessing information with the help of internet. Growth of ICT has also helped people in sharing information through internet, electronic mails etc. Samways, (2016) further says that, usage of internet today is also increasing continuously which is impacting business in a drastic manner. More and more number of businesses today are using internet for various purposes such as for research, develop new idea, connect within their customers. In fact, it can be said that it is affecting business in many. Organizations are slowly becoming dependent upon internet for their daily functions. Usage of internet has helped the business to enhance their communication through which they can communicate with their customers as well as employees. Usage of internet has also increased area of marketing through which organizations can reach a greater number of customers in an easy manner. Other than this collaboration with other businesses has also increased, organizations can easily communicate and build relation with other organizations as well as can also focus on enhancing their business globally.Worried about assignment help? Take Expert's Help Now!
Different stages of systems development
As per the view of Rivard and Aubert, (2015) explains that, system development is a process of defining, testing, designing, and developing new software's of systems. System development is one of the most important area which is being focused by various organization like development of internal systems, development of database etc. There are various stages of system development that can be used by organizations to develop a new system or project. As advancement in technology is continuing demand of various kinds of system is increasing. As a result, demand of new different kinds of system is increasing. In order to develop a new system, a project need to go through various stages of system development. Sanchez, (2018) says that there are seven main stages of system development. First is planning in which scope of the system development is determined and resources as time required is identified. Second stage is of system analysis and requirement in which both functional and non-functional requirement of the system are identified. Third stage is system design in which necessary specification, operations and features of the system are designed and proposed. Fourth stage is of development in which real development of the system take place. Fifth stage is of integration and testing in which all the phases of the developed system are integrated together and tested. Sixth stage is implementation stage in which production of system take place and data or information from old system is transferred into new system. last is maintenance stage in which maintenance of system take place and if any kind of new requirement is required to be added then it can be done.
Analysis and discussion
Role of IT in the success or failure of Tesco
IT plays a vital role in success of Tesco especially in management of their complex retail operations (Gunasekaran, Subramanian and Papadopoulos, 2017). Its importance in retail sector has been increasing continuously especially because of globalization. Globalization has increased competition of Tesco in the market in which they operate and because of this usage Information systems within the organization has increased like point of sales, point of supply systems etc. these kind of systems helps Tesco to manage their business operations in an appropriate manner. Not only this as advancement in technology is increasing, competition in this sector is also increasing due to which demand for management system that can control or store data or information and can cope up with all kinds of transactions involved in Tesco has also increased (Thomas, 2015). These information system has helped Tesco to gain competitive advantage and perform their operations in an appropriate manner such as: it has increased Tesco's ability to respond to the evolving or changing market needs and requirements, collect and analyse customer's data so that they can understand their customer's needs, requirements and preferences and bring changes within their business accordingly. Other than this Tesco also uses information technology systems for tracking of all their transactions, goods and to synchronize their global data so that they can manage their inventory level.Take online essay help from top essay writers!
Ethical and social issues that pertain to running businesses
There are various kinds of ethical and social issues that are faced by retail organizations like Tesco in running a business. Tesco saves all the information of their customers. Not only this they even track their customers shopping behaviour in order to understand their shopping behaviour which raises ethical issues as privacy of their customers is being compromised because of this (Shao and Lin, 2016). Another ethical issue faced by organizations in running a business is related to market research. Retail sector organizations like Tesco conduct an online market survey in which quite personal questions are asked to the respondents on the name of market research which further creates ethical issues for the organizations as privacy of their customers is being compromised due to this. social issues that pertain to running businesses: Due to advancement in technology most of the business operations are becoming fully automatic due to this job cut is increasing i.e. organizations are cutting off job as most of the tings are done automatically. It is one of the main social issue which pertained for running business. For example, most of the retail sector organizations are focusing on automatic their inventory management with the help of inventory management systems due to which job cut in this field is increasing. Another social issue faced by retail organizations like Tesco because of Information Technology is Education i.e. at many places ibn the world people are not much advance or literate about types of technology or the ay in which it can be used. This creates a social issue for Tesco i.e. people will not be able to use their technology like self-check out etc. as they won't be able to use the technology in a proper manner.
Different types of networkitechnologies
Network is one of the most important things which is required to be focused on by the retail sector organizations as most of their business is managed online for which they require networking technologies (Kawakami, Barczak and Durmuà Ÿoglu, 2015). There are various kinds of networking technologies that can be used by Tesco at different levels for different purposes. In order to connect all of their branches together, manage their online business, transfer funds, verify funds and many more they require networking technologies. Local area network or LAN is used by Tesco for connecting all the systems of their organizational building together such that data transfer or receiving within the building can be done in an appropriate manner. Each of the organizational building has their own LAN network. LAN not only helps the organization to connect all of their systems together but it works as a backbone for the organization to manage all of their functions properly. It helps the organization to communicate with each other without requirement of passing through the third-party network. This also helps them to maintain security and protect their data or information. They also use wide area network or WAN for connecting all of their branches present globally together. This helps then to communicate or send or receive data globally.
Importance of social media in Tesco
Tesco is one of the best example of the way in which retail organizations should use social media as they use is as a platform to provide service to their customers and engage themselves with their fans in an appropriate manner (Bala and Venkatesh, 2015). First of all Tesco uses Facebook for interacting with their fans and customers. They have more than 1.6 million fans on Facebook. They uses Their Facebook page timeline so that if their customers have any kind of query then customers can tell them that on their timeline. Any kind of day to day update within their products or services then they post it on social media so that they fans or customers can get to know it. They also have their presence on other social networking sites such as Twitter. They have separate accounts for each of their stores so that customers can directly message their queries to the respective store. On other social media they focus on posting any kind of delicious recipes for healthy living or any kind of promotional events. This easily helps them to connect with their customers and if their customers are facing any kind of issue then they can directly get to know the issue they are facing.
Different stage of system development life cycle
System development is a process which is used for deploying any kind of information system or project. It is an important aspect which is required to be considered by organizations whenever they want to develop an integration system (Kawakami, Barczak and Durmuà Ÿoßlu, 2015). There are various stages in which system development is sone. These stages are known as system development life cycle. It is also known as application development life cycle. These stages help in system development by following a sequential process so that information system developed is developed and deployed in a sequential manner. First stage is planning in which requirements of the system are defined, resources required for system development are also defined. Second stage is Analysis stage in which functional and non-functional requirements are defined. Third stage is Design in which design document is prepared in which functionalities that are required to be delivered are defined. Next stage is Implementation in which implementation and integration of the system is done and last is Maintenance stage in which maintenance and testing of the system is done.
Potential benefits and drawbacks of Tesco in Information Technology
Potential benefits of using informational technology for Tesco are: Central system can help Tesco in managing ad maintaining information of all of their products or items (Bala and Venkatesh, 2015). Availability of all the information within a central system has helped then in enhancing their decision making for business expansion, increasing product sales etc. IT system also helps them to speed up their warehouse efficiency which further helps them to reduce distribution of products.
Drawbacks of Tesco for using information technology are: One of the main drawback is that Tesco's routine investment because of these IT system increases which further enhances their operational cost. Cost for Recruitment of IT team who maintain and manages their IT system increases. Another drawback of using these systems is that their maintenance of the system, its confidentiality, integrity and availability of system data has increased their targeted budget which has further affected their overall revenue and overall profit.
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Information Systems Management
Conclusion
From the above assignment it has been summarized that usage of information technology is continuously increasing within organizations. Mostly information technology is used for sending, receiving, analysing or interpreting data. It has been analysed that information technology plays a vital role in management of an organization like maintaining relationship with customers or employees. But it has also been analysed that due to increase in usage of information technology various kinds of ethical and social issues are increasing that are been faced by organizations or other individuals. These issues are putting organizations in ethical dilemma of whether they need to do such unethical thing or not. It has been observed that usage of internet is growing within organizations in many ways affecting businesses in many ways. Not only this organizations are continuously becoming dependent upon these technologies and are using these technologies for various purposes such as research, development of new ideas etc.