Foundations of Business Computing for Pros- MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theFoundations of Business Computingfor Pros and Cons. Answer: Pros and Cons of Information Technology Information technology is an application that assists human beings in storing, retrieving, manipulating and communicating information mostly in businesses and other enterprises. There are various advantages and disadvantages of always being available to your employees regardless of where you are and what you are doing. Advantages of Information Technology With the help of information systems, the right information is provided to the employees and clients and at the right time. There is the use of direct messaging, emails, voice and video calls which makes communication of important messages fast, contemptible and more efficient. Information technology is cost effective and productive; the business managers or owners can control the productivity in the enterprise using the automatic task managers. For instance, the temperature sensors can be used in bakeries to control increase or decrease of temperature. This saves time and leads to quality products. It improves financial management; using the bookkeepers and the quick books business owners and managers can balance their books of accounts with less knowledge about accounting (Willcocks 2013, p.65). Moreover, IT allows managers to work remotely. The ease of access allows one to boost productivity as one can get things done even when not physically in the office. The use of information technology helps business managers updated on the market trends. This helps them serve their clients with up to start and products and services. They are therefore able to overcome the competition in the market through creativity, innovation, and specialization. Consequently, information technology has made the world a global village because the business managers can reach out to their clients within a short period. Ultimately, information technology has allowed the economy to be interdependent (Orlikowski et al. 2016, p.68). Disadvantages of Information Technology to Employees and Clients Information technology fails in small businesses as the implementation expenses are costly than the services offered to the clients. This will, in turn, lead to loss of clients to big businesses which can manage them. There is also the initial purchasing cost and therefore the maintenance, updates and training costs. Additionally, cyber-crimes has been an emerging issue with any business using information technology. Carter ( 2014, p. 19) stipulates that information security is easily compromised with and sensitive information about the business can lead to a significant loss. With information technology, the manager is always available for his clients despite the location leads to the elimination of jobs to some employees. For instance, the accounting services can be handled by software. Five Forces of Porters Competitive Forces Model Porters competitive forces model is a psychoanalysis tool that uses the business forces to verify the intensity of competition in the market and its productivity level. They include; The threat of new entry: Its a force that limits how simple or tough it is to get in a particular business. In case the industry is lucrative and has few barriers for ingress, there will be a rivalry. This is because many organizations will compete for the same market share; therefore, the profits begin to fall. It is thus necessary for existing firms to craft high barriers to discourage new entrants. E-business models enable easier access to the business. This, in turn, decreases the administration intricacy among the new entrants (Porter 2008, p. 25). Bargaining power of suppliers; suppliers possessing strong bargaining power sell high priced or low-quality products to their target market. This directly affects the profits margins. The suppliers have high bargaining power when they are few in the market or when there are few close substitutes of the raw materials. The internet has increased the suppliers bargaining power as information convenience is increased and information gap is narrowed (Porter 2008, p. 29). Bargaining power of the buyers; buyers with strong bargaining power demand for high-quality products and at a lower price. This results in low-profit margins to the producers. When there are only a few buyers in the market and multiple substitutes, the buyers have strong bargaining power. The Internet has significantly affected it as the e-business has enabled customers to reach which lowers their bargaining power (Porter 2008, p. 31). The threat of substitutes; this is when buyers can easily shift from one product to another which of higher quality and lower cost. This force studies the ease of a consumer to move from one competitor to another. It shows how their profit and excellence of products compare to theirs. For instance, switching from taking tea to coffee if the price of coffee is lower than that of tea (Porter 2008, p. 34). Rivalry among existing competitors; this force determines how profitable or competitive industry is. When products are not highly differentiated and can be easily substituted, rivalry among competitors increase. Rivalry increases when there is only few business selling equally the products and services. The rivalry is quantitatively measured using the concentration ratio (CR) (Porter 2008, p. 38). Is Google Making Us Stupid? The world has evolved from the traditional concepts of gaining knowledge. In the past, people had nurtured a reading culture, and the minds were used to searching for information in large books and turning pages in libraries. Currently, this trend has changed with technology that has facilitated online access of information. Notably, most people prefer reading articles online and books in soft copy rather than hard copy. This trend has manipulated the minds, and often people lack concentration when reading online. It is common for people to skim through paragraphs when reading a long article online instead of reading page deeply after page. Moreover, technology has had an influence of the circle of friends we keep and how we communicate and interact with them. The July/August 2008 issue of The Atlantic, features a cover story by Nicholas Carr: Is Google Making Us Stupid. The story analyses how the internet affects our brains. Nicholas discusses the transformations in reading habits a nd thinking habits about effects of the internet (Carr 2008). Although the internet has changed human thought process, I disapprove the point that the internet makes people stupid. Besides, the internet makes us think and act smarter rather than become stupid. With the global growth of new information, the internet makes us smart rather than stupid. Apparently, the reading habits have changed hence altering information processing (Lajoie Derry 2013, p.91). To sum it up, the society is changing, and it is imperative to keep up with the technological trends hence the broad reading is not necessary to the extensive growth of new information regularly. Ultimately, the society is changing hence people's interest are changing, it is therefore expected that old habits of life will fade away with technological advancement. Will Business Intelligence Replace Business Analysts? Robots will partially replace the human efforts in most businesses in a few years to come. The recent research shows that robots are now designed to solve problems in organizations. Business analysts will always be required for the triumph of the business intelligence (Wixom, Yen Relich 2013, p.10). This will be disadvantageous to the firms because the BI systems are not able to interact with the customers as the business analysts did. The understanding of customers needs is crucial for the decision making and the success of the business as a whole. On the other hand, business intelligence systems can do business calculations faster and accurate than the analysts. The emerging business intelligence has made the business organization more effective, nimble and responsive (Sharda et al. 2014). Is Security a Technical Issue, a Business Issue or Both? Gone are the days when security was only a technical issue. Its both a technical and security issue. Information security is a technical issue in business. The safety of any information in a computer can be compromised if the links are leaked since a mobile device can be accessed by hackers. On the other hand, security can be a business issue when an employee spends time on his or her personal or inappropriate things; it affects the business performance. There will be a breach in the business security to identify and solve the business problem. Security is more of business than a technical problem because the technology only needs to be maintained and advanced unlike the fact that all business plans should focus on its security (Peltier 2016, p.14). How an Organization Can Employ Social Computing Technologies and Applications to Benefit its Business Processes For a business to the full succeed in using the social tools and techniques, it must understand its goals and objectives. The execution plan should slot in with both the domestic and peripheral stakeholders. Organizations can begin small by initiating a Twitter or Facebook account, or they can take an enterprise-wide loom, such as developing a social plan and supporting it with an enterprise-wide employee association application or a social policy to better unite customers with brands (Ngai et al. 2015, p. 792). It is crucial for corporations to take advantage of the global trends about social computing technologies. With the growth of online customers, business should utilize social media tools such as Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Instagram and Snapchat for customer relation and marketing purposes. Cybersquatting Cybersquatting is registering, using or selling a domain name with the intention of self-gains from the goodwill a registered trademark. A squatter can register a domain and sell it companies expensively. For instance, a non-profit organization website may be registered by another individual with an aim of selling it back to the rightful owner at a hefty profit. This case of cybersquatting is liege as provided by the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), that gives domain owners authority to sue any alleged cyber squatter in a federal court as far as the domain owner provides legit lea claims to prove cybersquatting allegations. Under the set laws in effect, it is unethical to obtain a website domain with a bad-faith intent to get unwarranted profits from the original trademark owner (Jain 2015, p. 100). Another form of cybersquatting is whereby individuals register domains identical or confusingly similar to the original trademark. For instance, a cyber-squatter may register a company under the domain name samsvng.com to sell services and products similar to Samsung. This case, may attract buyers who are not aware of the misspelling errors and thus it is unethical that the cyber squatter will earn profits from the domain name. Under a federal court, the trademark owner, -Samsung, may sue the cyber squatter for registering a confusing similar website and earning profits from it. However, it may be ethical if a person registers a domain name similar to Samsung but for a different industry such as Samsung Tours. With the global trend of registering webpages with country specific suffixes, it is ethically illegal to take advantage of popular domain names to promote other businesses or to taint the companys image. For instance, suing the popularity of amazon.com to promote other business es or to upload immoral content (Janisand Dinwoodie 2014, p. 56). Role of the Web in Human Resource Management Human resource is a combination of different values, skills, knowledge behaviors and capabilities within an employee. The web is mostly used in recruitment, developing the human resource and management. Recruiting potential human resource using the web is cost-effective compared to the traditional ways of recruitments by use of newspapers, trade journals, and billboards. The web can easily reach out to a lot of candidates and at the same time advertise a lot of jobs. The companies can evaluate the potential candidates and decide on whom to hire using special search engines on the web. The recruited employees are evaluated, maintained and developed. All this is provided through information technology through the web. The web plays an important role in developing new ways of carrying businesses so as to remain marketable and ensure the employees remain knowledgeable. Information technology keeps track of payrolls and employees records. This is mostly done using the e-HRM (Electronic Hu man Resource Management) (Sparrow, Brewster Chung 2016). Difference Between Customer-Facing CRM and Customer-Touching CRM Applications Consumer facing refers to how a consumer views or sees a business service in an enterprise. The principal role of consumer relationship management (CRM) is to provide satisfaction to the customers. The operational CRM consist of direct interaction with the customers. The customer-facing CRM involves literal interaction between the customers and the organizations representatives. For example, when acquiring customers service and reports or while marketing. On the other hand, the customer-touching CRM application occurs when the customers interact with the employees indirectly using the systems (Choudhury Harrigan 2014, p.157). For example while searching for technical information about the organization or asking the frequently asked questions. References Alvarez, J.L. ed., 2016.The diffusion and consumption of business knowledge. Springer. Bratianu, C., 2016. Knowledge dynamics.Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy,4(3), p.323. Carr, N. (2008).Is Google Making Us Stupid?. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/ Carter, R., 2014.Students' guide to information technology. Elsevier. Choudhury, M.M. and Harrigan, P., 2014. CRM to social CRM: the integration of new technologies into customer relationship management.Journal of Strategic Marketing,22(2), pp.149-176. Jain, S., 2015. Cyber Squatting: Concept, Types and Legal Regimes in India USA. Janis, M.D. and Dinwoodie, G.B., 2014.Trademarks and Unfair Competition: Law and Policy. Wolters Kluwer Law Business. Lajoie, S.P. and Derry, S.J. eds., 2013.Computers as cognitive tools. Routledge. Ngai, E.W., Moon, K.L.K., Lam, S.S., Chin, E.S. and Tao, S.S., 2015. Social media models, technologies, and applications: an academic review and case study.Industrial Management Data Systems,115(5), pp.769-802. 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