Use of IT Systems in Business Organizations : 693802

Tesco is considered to be as a multinational grocery shop in the United Kingdom. It is the largest retail market in the world, which is measured in terms of profits. The Tesco supermarket has their several stores that are located in 12 countries across Europe and Asia. It is also the marketing leader in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Thailand and Hungary. In order to expand the business of the supermarket, they should also implement IT systems within the supermarket business community. A business information system is capable of carrying out precise functions which would support the operations, storage of the records of the employees, payroll, preparing and storing the documents of the company and the processing of the credit cards. The information systems also help in controlling and monitoring the various activities of the employees. The proper management of information systems can be helpful in preventing theft and fraud (Xie and Allen 2013). The use of information systems also helps in making proper decisions for the benefit of the business organizations. The managers of the business have the ability to get all the information about the activities within the company. A complete and detailed information about the decisions of the management is effective in supporting the operations within the business organization.

The introduction of the IT systems in the Tesco supermarket would have a major impact on the scenario of the business strategies. They can impact the finance, sales, distribution and marketing of the daily figure of sales. The supermarket business can implement various measures and strategies in their business areas.

Use of IT Systems for Operation in Business: The Tesco supermarket can implement IT systems for their automatic billing systems inside the retail sector. As for example, when a person picks up an item from the store and places the item in the trolley, the price of the item would be recorded automatically and stored in the billing account of the customer. After the customer finishes his shopping, the total price would be displayed in his account through a notification and he would have to pay his bill. This would lower the use of manpower within the retail sector. This would help for managing the costs of the retail industry. This would also help in a smooth working of the operation of the business within the retail sector.

Use of IT Systems for the Analysis of Data: Based on the purchasing habits of a person, the data should be collected for the analysis of the marketing choices of a person. The IT systems inside the supermarket sector should keep a track of the orders purchased. An algorithm should be designed in order to keep a record of those items.

Use of IT systems for Decision Making: After a proper analysis of the data of various persons have been made, the Tesco supermarket sector should provide suggestions to their customers based upon the decisions made after the proper analysis of the data. They should provide offers to their customers and provide notifications on their mobile phones or in their social media platforms. This would help the customers to be aware of the recent offers and this would enhance the growth of the business in the retail sector in the Tesco supermarket.

Different business organizations are dependent on a large amount of data. These values of data are stored in a database. An information system could be described as the software system, which can help in organizing and evaluate the data. Hence the purpose of the database system is to convert the raw data into a useful source of information which could be helpful in making important decisions for the organization. The database management system (DBMS) is a particular combination of data and software. This helps in organizing the data (Laudon and Laudon 2016).

A Transaction Processing System (TPS) is a form of system, which processes information for all the transactions in business. The system involves the collection of information, modification and recovery of the data of the transaction. The main features of TPS include reliability, consistency and performance (Rainer et al. 2013). TPS systems is responsible for the smooth working of Tesco supermarket. This system includes the real-time and accurate recordings of the various transactions. Various control procedures such as paychecks should be implemented into the system. A computer based processing of transactions would be extremely helpful for the Tesco supermarket to keep a record of the various documents such as paychecks, statements of the customers, payment reminders and invoices.

This is a kind of computer system that can help in generating and making use of the knowledge that are mainly collected from various sources, information and raw data. These systems help in solving complex problems, supports the learning of humans and aids in making the desired actions. The use of KBS systems within the Tesco supermarket would be helpful in increasing the performance of the staff, satisfaction of clients and service quality. The KBS system within the supermarket is the core of innovation and operations. (Smith and Rupp 2013).

This kind of system of software would enable the user to develop relationships with various customers and scenarios in order to drive sales. The software would also sustain a long-term profitability. The CRM systems should also be a cumulative stream of the data of the customers. The main features of CRM systems is in helping different companies to establish and manage their relationship with their customers and thus increase the profit of their organization. Customer satisfaction is an important aspect of Tesco supermarket systems. A continuous feedback from the customers would be extremely helpful for the proper working of the supermarket business. Customers might be also able to recommend better ways to improve the business strategies within the supermarket (Orel and Kara 2014).

The storage of data in computer could be divided in three basic processes. At first, the data is converted into simple and basic numbers, which can easily stored in the computer system. Secondly, the simple numbers are recorded by the hardware of the computer system inside the CPU of the computer. Lastly, the numbers are organized in such a way that they could be moved to the temporary storage and then manipulated with the help of software and programs.

The processing of data could be defined as the conversion of the raw data into some meaningful information with the help of a process. In this process, the data can be employed in order to produce results, which would lead to a problem resolution or an upgradation for an existing solution. The processes of data follow the path of a cycle. In this process, the raw data are being fed into a system process in order to produce output (Hair 2015).

1. Manual Processing of Data

In manual processing of data, the data is processed on a manual basis. This does not requires the help of any tool or machine. The entire set of calculations and logical operations are performed manually. The process of manual data processing is extremely slow and there are several cases of error, which may occur during the output.

2. Mechanical Processing of Data

            In this method, the data is being processed with the help of different devices, which includes mechanical printers, typewriters and several other kind of mechanical devices. This mode of data processing is faster than the manual data processing.

3. Electronic Processing of Data

This kind of processing of data is a very modern process. The processing is usually performed with the help of computers. The data and the instruction set are provided to the computer as a form of input. The computer is programmed to process the data automatically. This is also known as the electronic data processing machine. The electronic method is the fastest and the accurate method of processing of data. With the help of the electronic processing of data, the Tesco supermarket business would be able to keep a look over the choices of the customers and thus would make changes if necessary. For the supermarket business, the cheapest options for backup are memory sticks and CDs. For larger amounts of data, external hard drives or cloud is the most preferable option, which could be made use by the Tesco supermarket (Kurnia, Karnali and Rahim 2015).

Different supermarkets have larger databases to store their data. These data are mainly related to the expiry dates of food products, information regarding shipment of items and the stock of different items. The scanners used in Tesco supermarkets scans every items and adds them to their database systems. The collected information is used by the marketing department to make important decision regarding the sales.

1. The DBMS system inside the Tesco supermarket mainly focuses on the purchasing habits of every customer. They store the data from the previous orders of their customers and thus makes it easy for their customers to find the product on the net time of purchase by providing them suggestions, which are related to the item.
2. The use of DBMS in this sector would reduce the chances of duplicity of data of the several customers who would purchase from their store.
3. The data collected from the store are stored in a cloud database format. This helps in saving the storage space and use of manpower required for the data entry operations.
4. Tesco supermarkets makes use of high level of security in their database systems. This ensures that the major data of the customers such as their saved card numbers, phone numbers, addresses and their purchasing habits are kept secured with high encryption technology. The level of security is so high that only authorized persons are able to access the data.

Based on the above report, it can be concluded that the use of IT systems within the Tesco Supermarket could be a beneficial step towards their marketing system strategy. IT systems can strengthen the base of the supermarket as they would secure the database system and ensure the high quality of the business. The use of the IT based systems could be helpful in offering the customers of the supermarket with improved quality delivery of their products, better service and many other benefits (Zhao 2014).

The IT systems can genuinely benefit the Tesco supermarket. They need to ensure that the latest innovations within the IT sector that includes database management and other innovations in the technology of payment, should be advanced and improved so as to avoid vulnerabilities within the business of supermarkets.

The security systems should be highly encrypted such that the details of the customers would not be leaked or be vulnerable to attacks. The security of the information of the customers is a matter of high concern. If in case the data of the customers is leaked, it would be a huge loss for the reputation of the supermarket.

In the age of digitization, it is very essential for managers of various business to know about the changes in the structure of organization. The change in the information systems could be because of the advances in the field of information technology and computing. The recent developments in the IT systems have brought about a series of opportunities for the retail sector. These have also brought about many threats in the sector.  The main focus of this report is to discuss and identification of the various opportunities and threats and thus to develop various strategies in order to mitigate them and hence increase the productivity (Hagberg, Sundstrom and Egels-Zanden 2016).

The advantages can be described as under:

1. The value-added change is an extremely flexible tool for viewing the business, the competitors and the particular places within the value system of the industry.
2. It could be used to diagnose and create several advantages on differentiation and cost.
3. The comparison of the business model would provide a deep understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization (Brettel et al. 2014).

The disadvantages are described as follows:

1. The scope and scale of the analysis of the value-added change could be unapproachable. It would be a lot of work in order to finish a full analysis of any company.
2. The information systems of business are not structured in a way to get the information easily (Van Der Aalst, La Rosa and Santoro 2016).

The recommendations that would be needed in order to improve the IT systems in the support of the organizational context are:

1. An agreement for the usage of technology should be developed for the staff that might include issues related to the compliance. These might include inappropriate surfing of the internet, policy for downloading music or data and confidentiality of the data.
2. A comprehensive plan for the technology should be developed, which would address the replacement of old workstations and hence evaluate different ways for emerging technologies (Proctor, Powell and McMillen 2013).
3. The Internet Service Provider should keep a watch to increase the bandwidth, which would be helpful in multitasking processes.
4. Software as a Service (SaaS) should be chosen as an option for various functions such as customer relationship management, word processing and many others.
5. The utilization of free software should be implemented in order to free up the technology budget for upgrading the faster working of machines.
6. There should be a proper scheduling of the downtime of the computers. The IT companies should be able to manage the updates, scan the virus related files and examine the error logs so as to prevent loss of data and system outages (Khodakarami and Chan 2014)

The need for higher productivity has been driven with the advances in technology, expectation of the customers and globalization. The different strategies acquired for supporting the practical solutions for specific problems of business are:

1. Web-based technologies would help in improving the business strategy. Various smart systems of inventory control could be helpful in reducing the levels of inventory, increase the profitability rate of the business and thus speed up the average response time for the customers.

The process of E-purchasing is a substitute method, which could be used to acquire the material from suppliers. The technology of online buying of materials is helpful for the user as it enables them to gain competitive pricing. In the recent times, businesses are no longer limited to the local shopkeepers and merchants. With the help of e-purchasing methods, the cost of processing of the transactions is reduced and there are less paper based works.

2. The existing processes of the business should be viewed carefully by a potential investor in the business. There should be an objective and vision for the business model. This should ensure that the business processes should meet the goals, which are set previously (Demirkan and Delen 2013).
3. In order to focus on the benefits of the business, outsourcing could be the most effective way to make gains in the productivity level. Various strategic alliances would help in the growing of an organization without expanding the size and incur costs. The proper alliance would be helpful in improving the process of production. An alliance would be helpful for the company to negotiate the best deals, sharing of costs and taking the advantages of costly technology. With the increase in the productivity of the business, the companies would also strive towards stepping into new markets that would also offer new services and products. This would also extend the reach of the market or accelerate the development and research by sharing resources and costs (Zikmund et al. 2013).

The system of monitoring and evaluation should be properly set during the initial phases of the planning of the project. They could also be set at the beginning of the implementation (Garg and Garg 2014). A system of monitoring is the way to direct and organize the work of monitoring. It would take less time and would be easy to implement. The systems of monitoring can vary from paper based methods to electronic means of recording information. The electronic methods of recording information may include databases and electronic filing systems (Isinkaye, Folajimi and Ojokoh 2015).

Based on the above discussion, it could be concluded that an organized system in the retail sector would ensure that the right data is being collected within the proper time. The data would be helpful in improving the business strategies within the existing system. The use of IT systems within the business processes would help in resolving several issues. They would be able to store and manage large volumes of data and would also help in securing the systems.

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Smith, A.D. and Rupp, W.T., 2013. Data quality and knowledge/information management in service operations management: Regional supermarket case study. International Journal of Knowledge-Based Organizations (IJKBO), 3(3), pp.35-52.

Smith, A.D. and Rupp, W.T., 2013. Data quality and knowledge/information management in service operations management: Regional supermarket case study. International Journal of Knowledge-Based Organizations (IJKBO), 3(3), pp.35-52.

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