(PDF) Integrated Professional Skills in the Digital Age

INTEGRATED
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Positive and negative impact of internet on Business and Society..............................................3
Threats of internet for business & society and measures for security and privacy......................5
Two different unified communication providers.........................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Digital age is also referred as information age which can be defined as period that started
when personal computers where introduced and in 21st century there has been a rapid shift with
the information age which has provided various opportunities as well challenges for businesses.
For this it is important to have an ability to develop new skills, knowledge, critical thinking,
creativity and problem solving skills to make effective use of digital techniques available for the
businesses (Varlejs 2017). Present report discusses about the positive and negative use of internet
for society and business, it also includes what are the threats which are faced by organisation's
and society while using internet. Also, current report identifies the measures of privacy and
security which should be taken by businesses while internet services. This report also compares
and contrasts two different type of unified communication providers as well as their suitability
for business.
Positive and negative impact of internet on Business and Society
Positive impact of internet on Business: For conducting a business internet is very import.
At every stage in business like in marketing, finance, human resources, selling and purchasing
internet is required. There are some positive impacts of internet on business: Marketing Opportunities: Various business use internet facility specially for marketing
and selling their goods & services. For this business use different search engines like
websites, blog, email, social media for promoting their products and services on internet.
This is known in market as a Digital Marketing. Internet helps all types of business to
communicate their selling information and brand values with people who are using
internet channels at low cost (Impact of internet on business, 2019).
 Online business opportunities: Internet helps those people who want to start and operate
their business at online. Anyone can use internet to promote their business at different
level. Different internet sources like E-commerce, web and app development, blogging
and designing etc. provides great opportunities for business. By using the internet
business can promote at national and international level, also in different market and
having attention of consumer, that all sources helps business to earn big profit in short
time duration (Beriswill and et.al., 2016).
 Cloud storage for business: Business have to carry and secure different and important
data like employees data, customers information, selling and purchasing data etc. at daily

bases. But just because of cloud-based application business can easily store their data and
also provide security to the confidential data.. Business can store this data for long
duration.
Negative impact of internet on Business: In today era almost all the businesses are conducted
through internet. But in some specific field or conditions, internet has negative impact on
business. Low Productivity: Company productivity is going down just because workers using
internet at work-place. Employees would like to spend their time on internet. They
connect their computer and mobile phones to Wi-Fi and continuously use it. This may
impact the company productivity and organisation productivity goes down because no
one focus on their work and performance. Security: Every business spent million dollars’ money for the protection of company
data. This is important because without protection and security customers feel insecure
and not much comfortable with business services. Beyond daily transactions, leading
safety threats likes hackers, e-crimes and viruses for security online business add
additional expenditure in business (Boggs and et.al., 2019).
 New Competitors: Internet also bring new competitors for business from the different
markets. For existing business and company’s new internet marketing become challenges
and also bring risk to drive their business. Also, internet removes all types of restrictions
of geography.
Positive impact of internet on Society: Development in information technology specially in
internet has bring positive impact on society i.e.: Easier way for Research: Before internet, students, researchers and public has to pay to
libraries and books shops for gathering and collecting data. But now a days it will take
few time and person can go online with different search engines like chrome, browser,
googles and get detail information about their queries. Person can also enjoy movie,
songs, article, news, jokes and many more thing at internet. It is simplest way of getting
information about all the minor things in world (Brown and et.al., 2018). Interactions with family, friends and relatives is faster: With the help of internet person
can be easily in touch with their close one. Internet services like Skype, video
conferencing, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook are the best way to connect with family

and friends. Internet is now common for kids at college, they can communicate with their
parents and friends every day if they are far away.
 Great possibility to earn while working from home: With the help of internet people can
earn money from home. Writing, filling up forms, or clicking on advertisement provides
chances to earn money from the internet. After the economic crash, most of people
started their own home business on internet. It provides great opportunities and also
employees can perform their jobs and duties from the home.
Negative impact of internet on Society: Internet not only bring positive impact bust also have
negative impact which may affect society i.e.:
 Children's and adults get addicted to games online: Online games are addicted for the
children adults. They spent their whole day on online games and waste time which they
can use in some other productive work. They don't want to play outside and spent day on
mobile and computers which may also affect their health (Dede and et.al., 2016).
 Pornography is rampant: Anyone can upload pornography material just for fun or for
getting popular on social media. This is one of the huge negative impact of internet on
society. Many people marriages are also facing problems just because of pornography
addiction, meeting new peoples and also hooking up with them.
Threats of internet for business & society and measures for security and privacy
Threats of internet for business and society: Every business and society face various types
of internet threats which are dangerous. This types of forces gives influences on various types of
internet crimes i.e.: Phishing scams: Phishing and spear phishing scams are most common threats for
business or society. With using this method of cybercrime hacker can get information
about individual and business like username, account details, bank account details,
passwords, debit and credit card details. Unaware staff members of business and local
public are the biggest threat for business and society. So it very important to have strict
privacy in place and also educate public and staff about cybercrimes. Malicious software: Malicious software is the best method for cybercrimes. Hackers use
numbers of software like worms, trojans, viruses, ransomware, spyware etc. to hack
public and business data. This software has unique way of breaking security or privacy
and various ways by which they can easily enter business and public data (Gaur and

et.al., 2017). This software is especially harmful for those websites who are dealing in
lots of sensitive contents like credit and debit card details, bank account detail,
passwords, user data and may more. DDoS attack: Denial of services and distributed denial of services are used by hackers to
flooding a machine, it is technique where source or node transmit packets through all
outward link. This attack is done by the attacker just because of their revenge with
business or individual. With the help of this system hackers attack on single system. Than
complete system of company and society is handle by the attackers.
 Session Hijacking: In today's, online interactions and transactions happen each and every
seconds. Customers are interacting with businesses from various servers in the world.
Hackers take advantages of these situation and they listen all the conversations of
customers and individual for steal sensitive data with the help of man-in-the-middle
attacks, SQL injections etc. (Huda and et.al., 2017).
By using this methods of cybercrime hackers can easily hack business and public data and
then also misuse these data for self-benefit.
Measures for security and privacy of business & society: There are some cyber security
system which protect business and society from the online crimes i.e.: Install reliable antivirus software: For protecting organization data and individual data
antivirus software is essential. They protect company and society data from unwanted
cyber-attacks. This system work upon the identifying virus and malicious software for
removing them to the business and individual data. They also scan harmful and
dangerous email and downloads. With the help of this antivirus system business can
protect their sensitive data from the range of hackers. Using complex passwords: For login in every computers and web devises always a key or
password require. As per the security point of view of business and individual data
password is very important, always create complex passwords that hackers cannot crack.
Business can protect their data by using space before and after key password is very good
idea. Individual can use upper and lower case password for the privacy of their data. Protect with Firewall: Company and society also use firewall to protect their data from
the cybercrimes. Firewall protect business and individual network traffic – inbound and
outbound. This technique also stops attackers to theft business and society data by

blocking particular websites. With the help of this system company sending information
and mails are also secure from the hackers (Novakovich and et.al., 2017). Installing Encryption Software: This software helps business and society for protecting
the data. If an organisation or person regularly deals with data like credit cards, security
numbers, bank accounts details, then it is necessary to install encryption software (10
Cyber Security Measures That Every Small Business Must Take, 2019). This software
mould data into unreadable codes that hackers cannot understand. If in any case data is
stolen by the attackers than they could not be able to decode this information. Ignore Suspicious Emails: For this it is very important that business staff and society
people make a habit to never open and reply those mails who seems suspicious. Or in
case they open the mails never click on links or downloads attachments who looks
suspicious. This types of mails come from reputed organisation, institutional, banks etc.
and from this attackers and hacker grab all the information about business which are
beneficial for them. This information can be financial details, account details etc. Limit access to Critical Data: Business can also protect their confidential and sensitive
data by limited access. Company can give right to few peoples who can access company
data like HOD, CEO, Manger and those peoples who are trustable. And also create a plan
for using this data for increasing business accountability. With the help of this method
organisation can easily protect their data from the reach of hackers (Iordache and et.al.,
2017). Take Regular Back-up: Company and individual also plan automatic backups to check
that data is stored risk-free. With the help of regular backup company can also maintain a
track record about their data on daily bases which provides them detail information.
Devices like hard drives and clouds not only store data but also protect from the hackers. Secure Wi-Fi Network: Hackers can also access business data and personal data through
the Wi-Fi. To the protecting and securing organisation and personal data, management
and individual can change names of Wi-Fi access point or router. Company can also use
complex shared key for extra security purpose (Jacobs and et.al., 2017).
 Secure Laptops and Smartphones: Just because laptops and smartphones are easy to carry
it holds lots of important data. So, they are always on danger of getting stolen or missing
at some place. Company and individual have to protect these devices by installing

firewalls, encryption, strong passwords etc. Because this device are easily hacked and
stolen by the hackers.
 Communicate cyber security policies: Businesses and society can also reduce the
cybercrimes by providing knowledge to people and staff about cyber securities (Smith-
Strøm and et.al., 2016). For business perspectives company can use notice board which
may shows do's and don’ts of internet. Company can also ensure that all the information
is clearly communicated with employees.
Two different unified communication providers
Unified communication can be referred as a marketing and business concept which helps
in describing the integration of organisation's communication services which includes presence
information, instant messaging, mobility features, audio, web conferencing, data sharing etc
(Unified Communications Software. 2018). so, it can be said that unified communication
encompasses all forms of communication which can be exchanged through network that can
include other forms of communication services such as internet, digital signage communications,
etc which has become an important part of network communications. Unified communications
are used to optimise the business processes which can increase their productivity and can make
business process easy (Van Laar and et.al., 2017). There are various unified communication
providers which can be used by the organisations in order to improve their business process. The
most common and popular unified communication providers are Skype and 3CX which can be
compared and contrasted as discusses below:
SKYPE ?????
For business is considered as an instant
messaging enterprise software which can be
used with Skype for businesses service or
Skype for online business (Joe, 2018.). It is
also considered as the most popular unified
communication software across the world
which are used by various businesses as per
their suitability.
3CX is UK bases unified service providing
company which offers communication solution
for the businesses (3CX, 2019). It is providing
high level of communication services to the
businesses which can help in improving the
collaboration, mobility, customer experiences
can increase the productivity etc. for the
businesses. By using 3CX users can have an
instant access to various communication tools
such as instant messaging, fax, voice mails,

web conferencing etc.
Features
There are various features for the businesses
while using Skype for business some of the
feature includes:
 Audio calling
 Video calling
 Instant messaging
There are also some advanced features which
relate with Microsoft Software some of them
are:
 Users can easily retrieve contact list
from the local directory services.
 With the help of Skype company can
keep tack on their expenses
 can stay in touch with their colleagues
in part of the world.
 Also can stay in touch with their
customers and can cut the cost of their
business calls.
3CX has also got various benefits and features
for the businesses which can help in improving
the business operations (Xie, Kim. and et.al.,
2017). Some of the features of 3CX are
mentioned below:
 It can help businesses to avoid the
unnecessary call transfers which can
irritate the customers.
 It also helps in eliminating expensive
voice mail tags in the company.
 Helps in delivering faxes and voice
mails to the company's inbox.
 Provide instant messaging
 Company can call from any browse or
from any CRM
Applications
Skype for businesses is one of the best
communication app which can be used by large
multinational companies which are becoming
common in present global society. Skype for
businesses can be used by all types of
businesses such as large, medium and small
scale businesses. It simply needs an internet
facility which can help the company to reach
3CX is the communication providers which
can be particularly used in Information
technology and call centres which can offer
better services to the companies. It offers the
service of call listing, also saves the dial
records and time of calling. It also stores huge
amount of data for the IT companies and also

out the large audience in order to provide
better services. Skype for businesses is the
enterprise version that is applicable for all
forms of the businesses. So, it can be said that
Skype for businesses offers it communication
services to all forms of businesses which can
get benefited from it(Van Deursen and et.al.,
2018).
provides backup for the information stored.
Suitability for busin3CX. 2019ess
Skype being a social friendly app can be used
in every form of the businesses which normally
requires making contact with the customers
and employees of the organisation. But there
are certain limitations of Skype for businesses
like it does not huge amount of data which can
be required by the clients.
3CX is suitable for various businesses and can
be used all type of business as well. But it
mostly suitable for IT and call centres as it
offers various additional benefits for the such
companies.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded form the report that using internet service can provide various
benefits for the business like it can provide marketing opportunities, offer online business
opportunities for brick and mortar business. Also, companies can store huge amount of data
which can be used and retrieved at any period of time. Also, there are negative impacts of
internet for businesses like it can lead to low productivity for businesses, there can be a security
breach problems. Present report also concludes that internet can also have both positive and
negative impact on the society as well. It can also be concluded that there are various threats
which are faced by the organisations and the societies while using internet facilities such as
phishing scams, malicious software etc. and which requires a proper security and privacy
measure to be taken. Also, there are two different type of unified communications providers
which are different in their feature applications and suitability for the businesses.

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