Integrated Professional Skills in the Digital Age

This report discusses the positive and negative aspects of online and offline selling, effective tools for managing online account passwords, and a comparison of government-developed track and trace apps. It explores the benefits and challenges of e-commerce, the importance of password security, and the features and suitability of government track and trace apps.

Integrated Professional
Skills in the Digital
Age

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Compare and contrast the positive and negative aspects of service and products being sold
online and offline....................................................................................................................1
2. Define the effective tools to manage the password of online accounts..............................5
3. Compare the features, applications and suitability of track and trace app developed by the
government.............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
The term information technology, is defined as the application of technology in a
dynamic environment (Gretter and Yadav, 2016). Fit helps in solving business and organisational
problems and challenges on a broader platform . Information technology plays crucial role in
establishing effective communication and collaboration between people, provide security and
risk control tools, helps in providing better solutions. It also creates electronic storage system to
protect business records, provides safety and security from hacking, enable remote access to
organisation's electronic network this helps in work from home or on road. Information
technology provides a platform for organisations such as e-commerce where they can efficiently
make communication and collaborate with customers to meet their needs, through online
applications (Goldie, 2016).
In this report, a demonstration is made on positive and negative aspects of online and
offline selling of products services are introduced. Further, tools for effective management of
online account's username and password are suggested. In addition functions and comparison
between features, applications & suitability of track apps developed by government are
mentioned in context of their value to society.
MAIN BODY
1. Compare and contrast the positive and negative aspects of service and products being sold
online and offline.
Information technology plays crucial role in getting, manipulating, creating and
distributing of information. It helps business organisations to overcome the challenges and
problems occurs in firm. Traditionally all the activities of exchanging goods are performed
manually, but now m-commerce or e-commerce make changed the entire process. It make it very
easy to sale and purchase goods and services electronically which saves the time, cost and energy
of both company as well as customer.
Basis Online Offline
Positive  Online selling apps are almost
never close. They are open for
24 hours to provide products
 Offline selling provides
the opportunity for
business organisations to
1

and services to customers
(Becker and Eube, 2018). This
helps the consumers to get
things anytime anywhere as per
the requirements. It is the
positive aspect of online
platform with respect to its
customers. This saves the time
and energy of customers
wasted in visiting shopping
stores and saving the energy
from unnecessary crowd and
parking hassle. It made it very
easy to place the order even in
midnights without waiting for
next day.
 Another positive aspect of
products and services being
sold online is saving cost and
money with respect to business
entities, Online platform saves
the entire cost included in the
establishment and opening of
physical stores to sell their
products (Rogers, 2016).
Online selling makes it very
easy for companies to sale their
products and services on a
broader scale. For instance,
Amazon provides a platform
for selling products and
connect directly with its
customers (Bradshaw,
2017). This creates the
brand image of seller in
front of customers.. Some
customers are like to
purchase the products and
services of particular
sellers after trying and
experiencing of the
products of them. This is
possible through building
the brand loyalty. Thus,
one of the major positive
aspect of offline selling is
developing brand image
and loyalty that helps in
increasing the sales and
profit of the business.
 Another important
positive aspect of offline
selling in respect of
customer's point of view is
physical experience of
products before buying.
Offline selling allows
customers to feel and
touch the colour, quality,
fabric, material of the
products. So that it is easy
to jump on the decision of
2

services online. This saves and
money of business.
purchase without having
confusion in mind. For
instance, offline stores
provide the trial facility to
check the fit and comfort
with the product. This
helps in removing the
confusions in the minds of
customers and pulling
them to buy the products.
Negative  On the other hand, lack of
physical touch stands for
negative aspect of online
selling of products and
services. In online shopping it
is difficult for customers to feel
and touch the product. It is not
possible to check the exact
colour, fabric, quality,
durability and comfort of the
product by just seeing the
picture. Thus, lack of close
examine of the products may
result in bad experience of
purchase. For instance, quality
of clothing products and auto-
mobile ones seems not to be
much easy to examine the
features, comfort and other
features, by image only
 Delay in delivery is major
 On the other hand,
Dynamic perspective of
customers shows the
negative impact of offline
selling. Today's customers
is internet savvy and
aware about the trends &
fashion that's why
theydemands different
products. For seller, it is
difficult to meet the
expectations of each and
every customer (Li and et.
al., 2016).. High flexibility
in the demands of
customers may consume
the time and energy of
seller. Thus, customer's
dynamic perspective
creates the negative aspect
for business entities.
3

negative impact for business
entities of selling products and
services through online
process. Business organisations
sometimes faces the problem of
late delivery or delay in deliver
due to lack of proper inventory
management. The duration of
selecting, buying and
proceeding payment from
customer may not take more
than 10-15 minutes. Thus,
delay in delivery frustrates the
customers and they cancel the
order in case of cash payment
at the time of delivery. This
affects the image of seller by
negative reviews posted by the
customer due to dissatisfaction
from the service of the seller.
 As per the customer's
point of view lack of
availability of varieties
and brands, lack of
comparison in the
products and services
stands for the negative
aspect of offline selling.
Unlike online selling there
are no facility of
comparison between
different brands in offline
selling. There is a lack of
availability of different
brands in offline selling
may leads to
dissatisfaction for
customers towards
particular seller. IT creates
a barrier for offline seller
in terms of satisfying
needs of consumers with
limited stock. This
increases the cost of
company for allocating
different brands for
satisfying specific needs
of different customers. .
2. Define the effective tools to manage the password of online accounts.
E-commerce is the use of technology in business sector for buying and selling of goods
and services online. It is important because of its convenient, saving unnecessary cost and
4

expenses of business. Risk of leaking personal data of customers, increasing cyber crime are
major drawbacks of e-commerce that creates challenges for companies to maintain proper
security for customers.
Effective management of the password for online accounts is a major challenge for any
industry. Generating or creating a strong and unique password helps in securing the important
passwords of the online accounts of users (Van Laar and et. al., 2017). There are several tools
and techniques that plays crucial role in protect and secure the passwords of online accounts.
Some of them are discussed below :
Use a password manager :- The safest way to secure and protect the password is use of a
password manager. It is a computer program that permit users to create, store and manage the
personal passwords for their online accounts of services. In this method, user is granted to
generate a master password for all the accounts to unlock or access any stored information in the
system (Rogers, 2016). A good password manager generates the unique and strong password for
all accounts. For instance, Last-pass or 1Password. Password manager is a digital vault that store
the password login information when one can use to access the accounts on mobile or website. It
helps the user to set a master password or supreme password for all the accounts. This facilitate
that remembering master key is important to access the accounts. This helps in ensuring if one
site is hacked then it can't be used for other sites. A good password manager enables to create a
strong, specific password and also to ensure not using the same password for different places
(Chege, Wang and Suntu, 2020). Thus, the best way to protect and secure password is use a
password manager. Following are the benefits of this technique :
 One of the important benefit of this method is to set a master password for all
accounts which makes it easy to access the required information.
 This helps in creating unique and strong password which secured the password
from theft and hacked.
 This tool minimising the risk of losing password from theft.
 Give information to the user if password is used by the hacker or theft, so it can
be easy for the user to prevent other accounts.
 It Provides a digital vault for storing login information.
 Master password can be easy and simple. There is no need to make complicated
passwords.
5

Setting long password :- Another important method of securing the password of online
accounts is to set the long password. Length of the password matters more than the complexity
created by use of lower and upper case letters or using special characters like @,*,# etc. (Burnett,
2016). Setting password by using of 15-20 characters makes it very difficult for hackers to guess
the password. In respect to set long password it is suggested not to use the personal information
such as- name, date of birth, address, phone number etc. this is an effective tool for managing the
password for online accounts. For example if a password is set of 15 characters, a keyboard
considering of 52 letters plus 10 special characters and 10 numbers. Thus, it makes hard to find
the exact password. Benefits of this tool of password management are considered below :
 Due to use of letters from 52 letters and 10 numbers and 10 special characters it is
not easy to access the password easily.
 Preventing the password with the use of lower and upper case letters.
 Better than using of special characters.
Although above discussion both tools are important to protect and secure the password
from theft and hacking. It is suggested that use of password manager is better and successful tool
for effective password control for user's online account. Long password technique is important to
secure password but not working when password is hacked or leaked. So that the good password
manager is more accurate and powerful tool for securing password as it uses the common
password for several accounts called as supreme password. A good password manager helps in
getting information if one site is hacked which suggesting not to use the similar password for
other accounts. It provides a secured vault for storing password login information to access user's
online account. As this tool preventing the loss of theft and damage by use of single computer,
facilitating creation of master password for different accounts, providing digital vault for storing
information about log in and accessing of accounts. It is the best approach for effectual
management of passwords.
3. Compare the features, applications and suitability of track and trace app developed by the
government.
Covid symptom study app is developed to measure and record daily health conditions of
people and record if system of Covid-19 founds. This helped the Govt. for tracking and tracing
records of Covid-19 suspects.
6

NHS Covid-19 app is launched by UK government to track and trace Covid-19 suspects
without sharing personal information and locations of users to protect their entity from digital
harms.
Features :
Covid symptoms study NHS Covid-19 app
It was launched on March 24 2020 (Covid-19
symptom-tracking app, 2020). Government of
UK developed the COVID-19 symptoms study
app to trace the daily records of health of
people (Lecheler and Kruikemeier, 2016).
This app allows the people to record daily of
feeling healthy or record any symptom.
Addressing the personal characteristics such
as- sex, smoking status, BMI, and commodity
interactions with known and covid-19 suspects
are asking in the app. Self reporting for
symptoms was the essential feature of the app.
Addressing physical health of user is also a
important feature of the app. The app allows to
collect large- scale data which helps in creating
broad scientific understanding of SARS-CoV-2
and track the symptoms of covid-19 and
knowing the risk factor related to infection.
Covid-19 symptom study app helps the
government in tracking and tracing the suspects
of covid-19 in the pandemic situation to
overcome the impacts of the pandemic.
On the other hand, The Government of UK
also developed a tracking and tracing app
known as NHS Coved-19 app (NHS COVID-
19 App, 2020). NHS app was built to collect
centralised data after the privacy concern
issues founded from other tracking devices
(Berry and Fagerjord, 2017). This app works
through Bluetooth to detect near by
smartphones without even using the personal
data and location. Features of NHS app
considering allowing users to scan QR codes
to register for hospitality venue visits, check
and record the symptoms, booking testing, get
test results and check risks at local levels. This
app is more accurate and effective app in terms
of tracing and protecting the personal
information and location of users. Use of this
app helps the government in maintaining the
social values of the people by made provision
for the safety and security of general people
from been hacked.
Applications:
Covid-19 symptoms study NHS Covid-19 app
7

It is very easy to download and use of this app
for general public. The app easily available in
the app stores of Apple. This app is worked on
tracking the daily health records of the user in
respect to tacking the symptoms of covid-19.
This application woks via recording the daily
conditions whether the person is healthy or
found any symptom of covid-19 pandemic.
This helps the government to give records of
covid suspects. Earlier the app is found best
but, later some privacy leaked issues are found.
On the other hand NHS tracking and tracing
the health records of user via Bluetooth
without even using the personal details and
location of the user. NHS Covid-19 app is
more authentic in terms of securing the data of
user from hacking (Kahne, Hodgin and
Eidman-Aadahl, 2016). This app is worked by
scanning QR codes, register to visit hospitality
venues, check the symptoms and then record
them, booking tests for covid-19 and then
getting results to measure the risk at local
levels. This app is developed to get more
authentic information about suspects without
compromising of the privacy of the users.
Suitability:
Covid-19 symptoms study NHS Covid-19 app
This app is suitable for people in terms of
storing daily information about their health. It
provided much information to the government
about the suspects of covid-19. Instructions are
given to individuals by the government of UK
to record daily health conditions or symptoms
if any found. The major challenge faced by
mankind during use of this app is privacy
leaked issues. On the other hand, false data
recordings consumed the time and efforts of
medical staffs and Govt. of the country. It is
very easy to use the app by just downloading
on the mobile and then mention physical
It is more suitable app for tracking and tracing
the physical records of human beings. Use of
this app is also very easy by just downloading
from Apple store. This app securing the
personal information and location of the user
(Lloyd, 2020). As it considering the larger-
scale data, this app is more suitable for the
population of UK. It helped the country by
giving authentic data to the Govt. people can
use the app by scanning the QR codes,
registered themselves for tests, getting reports
and evaluating the risk. Thus, it performed the
significant role in the recording of the
8

conditions such as- smoking status, BMI etc. individuals who are expected to be covid-19
suspects or in the contact with any suspected
person.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarised from this report that information technology provides a number
of applications for boosting sales of industries, like important for e-commerce and m-commerce.
It creates faster communication and collaboration, effective safety and security system that
creates a direct link between companies and their customers. Different tools and techniques,
however, are important to effectively manage the password of user's online account.. Through
emerging of technologies, Government of nations become able to gather and control increasing
case of Covid-19, which has created a pandemic attack on most of the countries. In order to get
information about covid-19 suspects the government of UK planned and developed the track and
trace apps. This development of track and trace apps helps the government to take care of society
with preventing their personal informations and locations. This step of UK Govt. added a value
to the society through the wide involvement of the public in recoding and submitting of constant
health details of themselves.
9

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Berry, D. M. and Fagerjord, A., 2017. Digital humanities: knowledge and critique in a digital
age. John Wiley & Sons.
Bradshaw, P., 2017. The online journalism handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the digital
age. Routledge.
Chege, S. M., Wang, D. and Suntu, S.L., 2020. Impact of information technology innovation on
firm performance in Kenya. Information Technology for Development. 26(2). pp.316-
345.
Goldie, J. G. S., 2016. Connectivism: A knowledge learning theory for the digital age?. Medical
teacher. 38(10). pp.1064-1069.
Gretter, S. and Yadav, A., 2016. Computational thinking and media & information literacy: An
integrated approach to teaching twenty-first century skills. TechTrends. 60(5). pp.510-
516.
Kahne, J., Hodgin, E. and Eidman-Aadahl, E., 2016. Redesigning civic education for the digital
age: Participatory politics and the pursuit of democratic engagement. Theory &
Research in Social Education. 44(1). pp.1-35.
Lecheler, S. and Kruikemeier, S., 2016. Re-evaluating journalistic routines in a digital age: A
review of research on the use of online sources. New media & society. 18(1). pp.156-
171.
Li, W and et. al., 2016. e-Leadership through strategic alignment: An empirical study of small-
and medium-sized enterprises in the digital age. Journal of Information
Technology. 31(2). pp.185-206.
Lloyd, I., 2020. Information technology law. Oxford University Press.
Rogers, D.L., 2016. The digital transformation playbook: Rethink your business for the digital
age. Columbia University Press.
Van Laar, E and et. al., 2017. The relation between 21st-century skills and digital skills: A
systematic literature review. Computers in human behavior. 72. pp.577-588.
Becker, B.A. and Eube, C., 2018. Open innovation concept: Integrating universities and business
in digital age. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity. 4(1).
p.12.
Rogers, D.L., 2016. The digital transformation playbook: Rethink your business for the digital
age. Columbia University Press.
Online
Covid-19 symptom-tracking app. 2020. [Online] Available through
<https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52770313>/.NHS COVID-19 App. 2020. [Online]
Available through <https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/covid-19-response/nhs-covid-19-app/>/.
10