IT Impact on Business: British Airways Case Study Analysis

This report delves into the critical role of Information Technology (IT) in the success of British Airways, examining various aspects such as the impact of IT on business operations, networking technologies (WAN, LAN, MAN, CAN), and the importance of the internet and intranet. It explores ethical and social issues related to IT, including data privacy and security. The report also analyzes IT's role in financial, operational, marketing, and production management within the airline. Furthermore, it covers the system development life cycle and the effect of the internet on business management, providing a comprehensive overview of IT's significance in a modern business context. The report concludes with references to supporting literature and highlights the benefits and challenges associated with IT implementation within British Airways.

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY (IT)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................1
Role of IT in success of business................................................................................................1
Ethical as well social issues........................................................................................................2
Different types of networking technologies................................................................................3
Importance of internet as well intranet........................................................................................4
Information and communication Technologies, internet and its effect over the business..........5
Role of IT in management...........................................................................................................5
Different stages of development of system.................................................................................6
ANALYSIS AND REVIEW............................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERANCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
British Airways was founded in the year 1974 which is having Parent company names as
International Airlines Group. The company is having its headquarter in Waterside,
Harmondsworth, UK. The key people of the company are Alex Cruz as a Chairman and also the
CEO. The revenue of the organization is around 13 thousand million in ponds. The net income of
the company is around 2000 million pounds (Hu and Kapucu, 2016). The airline is the second
largest airline which is situated in UK. Here in the study the role of Information technologies
will be described in detail. What are issues which are social as well ethical are also mentioned in
detail. There are various types of networking technologies which are also hilighted in detail in
the study. The importance of the internet as well intranet is expressed in the study. System
development life cycle which is used to develop a software along with the role of internet on the
business management is also studied in detail.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study is to find out the importance of IT in business which is
discussed in detail in the below topics. It is found that without IT a company is nothing. IT needs
continuous up gradation and continuous innovation by which the process can become much
faster and the customers can be served better (Rogers, Chong and Preece, 2015). The negative
points of the IT must be considered and backup for the same must be made in order to solve the
issues. As per the investigation it is also found that IT helps in giving competitive advantage to
the company.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Role of IT in success of business.
IT plays a major role in the success of 21st century business, or it can be said that if there
is no IT then the chances of success of any business which may be of any kind is pretty less. In
British Airways the role can be explained in following manner:
IT save time.
IT helps in saving a lot of time, IT helps in doing the work in much faster way in which
the departments of British Airways which are production department, manufacturing department
and customer representative department etc. can maintain coordination among them (Dutta,
Geiger and Lanvin, 2015). For example, if there is any query from the customer about the
product then using online feedback form can directly contact to the customer representative
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team. Using the Information technology in the system the team will contact to the production
department and then the product will be improved. All this will take very much less time in the
process and that will result in customer satisfaction.
IT helps in increasing profits
Due to the fast process by Information Technology, it increases the profitability of British
Airways by reducing the cost such as paper work, eliminating the unnecessary work, shifting
cost from fixed to variable etc. (Marchewka, 2016). For example, if the customer has to book a
flight then the same can booked directly without any mediator this will help in saving time as
well reducing cost of the company by which the company can increase its profitability.
IT helps to improve communication.
IT helps in improving the communication in the business by using various mediums such
as messaging, audio calling and video conferencing etc (Senft, Gallegos and Davis, 2016). If
British Airways wants to convey the same message to all the employees, then the same can be
done using IT. The IT will help the company by fastly delivering of the message.
Ethical as well social issues
There are various ethical as well social issues which hinders the role and benefits of IT.
Ethical issues
Ethical issues are the issues which are related to the breach of moral principles of IT. The
various ethical issues are:
Digital ownership of data
Over the internet the things are easily copied and then pasted. There is always a risk that
the data may get manipulated, even the copyrights can not control this issue as each nation is
having its own rules and regulation and to cooperate with each law it is very difficult.
Data gathering
There is always a risk for the British Airways that if any transaction is under process by
the customer and the same customer has opened various other sites as well (Vaishnavi and
Kuechler, 2015). This may lead to transferring of amount to the one who is intended to receive
the amount in their account. The information which is feed in the system which can be personal
information of the employees of British Airways can easily be gathered by the hackers.
Social issues
The issues which are affecting the society badly are social issues. The social issues are:
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Data privacy
The data which is entered by British Airways always system have the chance for hacking.
The data can be any business secrets, personal as well as professional information of the
employees etc (Schnoll, 2015). Professional hackers can hack the website of the company and
used the data for their personal benefits.
Public safety
In IT there is a chance that the hacker can be terrorist. The terrorist can reach the person
and damage the person by any means. There are also chances using the information technology
the hackers can high jack the plane by knowing what is the technical code of the British Airlines.
Different types of networking technologies.
There are various types of networking technologies which is used by different companies
for their own purpose. Some of them are as follows:
WAN
Wide Area Network is a network which extends to a large area. WAN uses multiple
LANs Local Area Network for the purpose of connecting various devices (Hills, J., 2018). WAN
is generally used by big companies having its operation spread across all over the world.
LAN
Local Area Network is a network which is used by small and medium size company. It
covers small area which can be a building, school or a room. One LAN can be connected with
the other LAN using the cable. LAN improves the communication and makes fast
communication.
MAN
Metropolitan Network is used for connecting the devices which are used in the
metropolitan cities. The network covers large area (Saunders and Brynjolfsson, 2016). MAN
covers larger area then LAN but smaller area then WAN. MAN connects the local networks
bridges them to a large network.
CAN
Campus Area Network is a network which is used for the connectivity of
microcontrollers. CAN help in doing communication without host computer. The network is
designed for the electronic wiring which is multiple on the auto mobiles in order to save copper.
Difference
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LAN vs WAN
 LAN is used for the small area and WAN is used for the large area.
 WAN is used by connecting various LANs whereas LAN is a small network.
 LAN is much faster than WAN having speed of 1000 Mbps.
CAN vs MAN
 MAN covers much large area as compare to CAN (Melián-González and Bulchand-
Gidumal, 2016).
 CAN is having much faster speed than MAN, this is because of the much smaller area.
 MAN is owned by single organization whereas CAN is owned by multiple organization.
 Example of MAN are television and examples of CAN are school network, building
network etc.
The network which is used by the British Airways is the WAN because of its large area
and quick connectivity.
Importance of internet as well intranet.
Internet is used as a network which is used to provide various information as well
communication facilities using networks which are interconnected and communication protocols
which are standard. Internet is very important for British Airways by following ways:
Multiple tasks
Internet is used for doing multiple task which can be providing different information at
the same destination, providing multiple solution, Distance education, feedback issues etc. All
these task can be resolved using internet.
Communication effectiveness
Internet is very useful for effective communication in which the employees of the British
Airways can easily communicate using emails, mobile phones, messages etc. The quality of
communication is also very good and cost effective.
Training and development
Internet is very useful for the training and development of the employees using which
international trainers can provide the quality education to the employees and the best skills can
be developed by this which will help the employees increase productivity in the work.
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Intranet is a network which is restricted for communication and which is a private
network and the same is created using the world wide web software (Tarafdar and et.al., 2015).
The importance of intranet are as follows:
Better internal communication
Intranet is used for better communication between the staff and the employees of the
organization. Internal communication makes easy for the employees to access centralized
information of the company.
Corporate system which is of front end
Intranet provides common interface to the database of the corporate and also information
to the system.
Management of the documents
Internet helps in managing documents in which various documents can be managed like
spreadsheets and also database. The intranet helps the company to manage printing, viewing, etc
on the single platform.
For British Airways both internet and intranet are the most important medium by which
the company can increase productivity and profitability by properly using these mediums.
Information and communication Technologies, internet and its effect over the business.
Information and communication technologies is helping British Airways to improve
decision-making, increasing effectiveness and efficiency in operation of the business and helping
in making the company more competitive. ICT have improved the performance of British
Airways because earlier the process was very time-consuming but ITC have changed the way
people conduct meeting and communicate as well.
Internet also effected the British Airways in which there is support for the real time is
available for the customers. Internet has given rise to the business in which the business can do
online advertisements to the targeted audiences (Passey and Samways, 2016). The internet have
changed the view of the business and how the business thinks. There is bulk of information
available over internet about many companies using which British Airways can determine what
are the loopholes of the specific area of the company and the company which is best at the
fulfilment of the loopholes can be selected in order to fulfill the loopholes.
Role of IT in management
IT plays a major role in the management of British Airways in the following ways:
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IT in financial management
IT is very useful to manage finance of the company in which the software used by the
British Airways is SAP FI CO in which customised solution is provided in cost effective way
and also analysis of data and reporting of the same is done in much effective way.
IT in operation management
IT is useful for the operational efficiency in which the operations of the company are
effectively managed. IT helps in delivering the stable and consistent services. The software
which is used in operation is the IT operation management (ITOM) which has helped British
Airways by achieve high growth rate due to its quick response to the users.
IT in Marketing management
IT has also helped marketing in which various tools such as SEO and SEM have helped
the website of the company rank number one by organic and paid advertisements (Larson and
Malone, 2015). Marketing have become much cost effective and much easier by using digital
marketing.
IT in production management
IT is also useful in the production management in which the customization of the product
can be quickly made which is as per the requirement of the customer. IT helps in easily
coordinate with other department as well. For example if production department has to contact to
the sales department then using IT, it can be done quickly and in much more effective way.
Different stages of development of system
System development is a process by which designing, defining and also implementing of
a software which is new can be doen. There are different stages of system development and the
same are mentioned below:
Requirements
Under this stage what are the requirements of the client are collected from the managers,
users and stakeholders (Wu, Straub and Liang, 2015). All the information is taken from the client
on the basis of various parameters.
Design
After taking the requirements of the design of the software is designed on the specified
document. As per the customized requirement which is hardware and software the overall
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architecture of the system is designed. In this phase tester used to create a strategy for testing on
which they confirm what to test and how to test.
Development
This is the phase in which the work is divided in the modules. The coding is done in this
phase and it is the phase which is the most time-consuming and most comprehensive. This phase
is the longest phase in which hard work and dedication is required by the developers.
Testing
It is the phase in which the software is tested as per the exact requirements. The working
of the product is tested in which whether the software is exactly working as per the requirement
is checked. Bugs if any are find out and the same are resolved.
Maintenance
This phase is the most important phase in which problems if any arises are resolved on
continuous basis. The approach used under this phase is the software development process
models.
ANALYSIS AND REVIEW
As per the analysis it is found that IT play a major role in the management of a company
in which IT is used for management of finance, management of operation and all the relevant
fields of IT. There are separate soft wares of management which are used by the professionals.
IT is very important to be applied and keep updated in order to get success in the organization.
There are various issues of information technology such as social issues and ethical
issues which are the negative part of the IT. The social issues are the ethical hacking, spamming
and phishing. The ethical issues are digital ownership and data gathering. There are various types
of networks such as WAN, LAN, MAN etc. But for the British Airways WAN is the best
network. As per the study the role of internet in the business in which various issues such as
information gathering and information sending can be done in much cost effective way (Wu,
Straub and Liang, 2015). Intranet is also a power medium in which the internal information can
be shared effectively and in secured way. There are various benefits of using Intranet such as
management of the documents and management of front end corporate system.
CONCLUSION
As per the study it is concluded that IT has its own positive as well as negative points. If
it is seen overall, then IT is having a wide role in which the management can work effectively
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and efficiently. Information technology can be used for the co-operation as well co-ordination of
various departments of the company. There is various network which can be used as per the
requirements of the business. British Airways must focus on continuous up-gradation of the
software which will help the company to fix the bugs. The system life cycle of software under
which the software has to go for the development must be followed by a developer in order to get
the best result.
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REFERANCES
Books and journals
Dutta, S., Geiger, T. and Lanvin, B., 2015. The global information technology report 2015.
In World Economic Forum(Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. P80-85).
Hills, J., 2018. Information technology and industrial policy. Routledge.
Hu, Q. and Kapucu, N., 2016. Information communication technology utilization for effective
emergency management networks. Public Management Review. 18(3). pp.323-348.
Larson, T.M. and Malone, C.G., Hewlett Packard Development Co LP, 2015. Information
technology (IT) equipment positioning system. U.S. Patent 9,182,480.
Marchewka, J.T., 2016. Information technology project management: Providing measurable
organizational value. John Wiley & Sons.
Melián-González, S. and Bulchand-Gidumal, J., 2016. A model that connects information
technology and hotel performance. Tourism Management. 53, pp.30-37.
Passey, D. and Samways, B. eds., 2016. Information Technology: supporting change through
teacher education. Springer.
Rajaraman, V., 2018. Introduction to information Technology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..
Rogers, J., Chong, H.Y. and Preece, C., 2015. Adoption of building information modelling
technology (BIM) perspectives from Malaysian engineering consulting services
firms. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management. 22(4). pp.424-445.
Saunders, A. and Brynjolfsson, E., 2016. Valuing Information Technology Related Intangible
Assets. Mis Quarterly. 40(1).
Schnoll, H.J., 2015. E-Government: Information, Technology, and Transformation: Information,
Technology, and Transformation. Routledge.
Senft, S., Gallegos, F. and Davis, A., 2016. Information technology control and audit. Auerbach
publications.
Tarafdar and et.al., 2015. The dark side of information technology. MIT Sloan Management
Review. 56(2), p.61.
Vaishnavi, V.K. and Kuechler, W., 2015. Design science research methods and patterns:
innovating information and communication technology. Crc Press.
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Wu, S.P.J., Straub, D.W. and Liang, T.P., 2015. How information technology governance
mechanisms and strategic alignment influence organizational performance: Insights
from a matched survey of business and IT managers. Mis Quarterly. 39(2). pp.497-518.
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