Integrated Professional Skills in the Digital Age - (pdf)

INTEGRATED
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
IN THE DIGITAL AGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1 Negative as well as positive applications of internet upon society and business.....................3
2 Threats confronted by organizations as well as society by usage of internet...........................7
3. Comparing and contrasting two unified communication providers.........................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Internet forms an important part of business and societies of the world and has become
important to carry out the business operations. As scope of internet has grown for the businesses
and society there are various threats which has also increased over a period of time. In this report
TESCO is taken as an organisation, which UK's popular multinational retailing company. This
report discusses about the positive and negative use of internet for businesses and society. Also,
it includes the type of threats which are faced by businesses and society while using internet and
also includes the measure to be taken in order to minimise the threats. Present report also
compares and contrasts two unified-communication providers and their features, applications and
suitability for business.
MAIN BODY
1 Negative as well as positive applications of internet upon society and business
Business Society
Positive usage of internet upon business
Since the advent of globalization, digital
technology and internet has been the most
remarkable tool which has overshadowed the
future with wide range beneficial aspects. In
this world of cut-throat competition,
conducting any kind of business or exchange
without the utilization of internet has nearly
become impossible (Rashid and Asghar, 2016).
Whether production or marketing, digital
technology has influenced numerous
traditional methods used in operations and thus
has become the indivisible part of any
business. As it is considered as the primary
factor of innovation and creativity, this internet
has flourished each and every business aspect
as well as has interlinked the broad
Positive usage of internet upon society
Along with business, internet also has
restructured the life of whole society as well as
has instilled them with numerous positive
impacts. Internet has simplified the life of
community and has helped them to overcome
the issues and challenges.

geographies with consumers. There are wide
range of applications of internet in business
namely
Marketing
An innumerable number of companies and
businesses usually uses internet to advertise
their product which is their sole purpose. The
Advanced use of internet has fostered them
with numerous tools of marketing via which
they can interact with consumers. Websites,
search engines, e-mails are some favourable
channels through which the businesses
becomes capable enough to market their goods
and services.
Enhanced knowledge base
As there are bulk of useful informations are
available on internet, individual as well as
entire community can now access these
informations which eventually helps them in
managing their daily work. Advancement in
internet has countermanded the wide
traditional libraries and provides with tons of
data and information which increases their
knowledge along saving the valuable time.
Apart from this, researching on any subject by
approaching information on internet.
Business automation
It is the method via which daily business tasks
as well as management are being maintained
and programmed in apps to perform the
business functions instantly. Artificial
intelligence is generally the crucial key within
business automation process which ultimately
support them in decreasing the human
interaction with extreme risks tasks. The
internet in vie of this has allowed the
enterprises to alleviate manual work as well as
perform the activities with significant accuracy
instead of relying on different traditional ways
of organizing the work.
Communication
Internet has transformed the entire
community's personal life by enabling them to
remain in touch with each other. Through
internet, people are able to communicate with
one another on real time platform either by
emailing or messaging each other despite the
long distance (Jenaro and et.al., 2018). People
need not to depend on conventional methods
for contacting one another as internet has
allowed them to interact through video calling.
Employee online development programmes Convenience

The viability of any business relies on skills of
team and manager thus every enterprise needs
skilled employees to accomplish market
demands. Internet has came to be a significant
solution for solving this problem wherein
employees are inculcated with various online
courses along with skill enhancement
programmes. Besides this, organizations can
create their self learning material via internet.
People can now process the transaction online
and manage their information through internet
in an astonishing way. They can send or accept
any type of payment through money
applications which has ultimately made it
convenient for them to deal with big amount.
Moreover, individual have broad access to pay
the wide range of utility bills like electricity,
water bills etc.
Negative usage of internet in business
Although this advanced technology has been
beneficial to business in variety of ways but
somehow it also has bought considerable
negative impact with it. This has meanwhile
hampered the productivity of large and small
organizations.
Negative usage of internet in society
Addiction
However internet has helped a lot in saving the
crucial time of people and simplified their life
but on the other side of spectrum, It addictions
somehow has made the people isolated from
whole community. People including children
have now become habitual to numerous
internet tools such as online gaming which has
somewhere impacted their health. According to
a report, people tend to spend their much time
in browsing and other online activities which
results in eye strain as well as back problems.
Restricted one to one communication
The major drawback of applying the
applications of technology at workplace
encompasses limited one to one interaction of
personnels with each other and top
management (Singh, Fox and Brown, 2016).
The increasing engagement in internet has
mitigated personal association with customers
Privacy
The primary limitation which society is
currently facing due to internet is limited
privacy. People comes across the issue wherein
their informations which they post on online
sources are no longer secure and thus threat of
leakage remains present.

and has resulted in difficulty in establishing
rapport with consumers. The high involvement
of employees in browsing the websites and
searching on internet at workplace has
somehow made them isolated from entire
management.
Unhealthy competition
Due to immense competition from large as
well as online shops, local businesses and
small businesses have been rushed out from the
market as they lack the essential resources to
manage the competition. Moreover, Businesses
whose functions mainly depends on internet
generally faces economical cost of operations
thus they sell products at much lower price in
comparison to conventional ones who that are
prone to increased expenses which has forced
customers to buy products from online source.
Malware and other security threats
A large number of threats infects the computer
system where their sole purpose remains data
hacking as well as malfunctioning of entire
system. Thus, society are prone to various
threats which ultimately leads to disturbance in
their personal and professional life (Billon,
Crespo and Lera-López, 2018). These malware
comes from transferring the data through
internet thus internet is the prime source for the
entrance of these threats in computers.
Positive use of internet which is common in business and society
Its positive use which influences both society as well as organizations is collection of
information. Internet becomes the predominant factor through which organizations gather tons of
information regarding their consumers, market fluctuations, competitors etc which support the
use of marketing mix in advertising their goods and services. In contrary to this, internet helps
the people of society to gather large volume of information regarding products, country trends
etc.
Negative use of internet similar to organization as well as society
The similar Internet's unfavourable use which has impacted both organization as well as
society is limited security. Hackers together with criminals are likely to sneak the confidential
data about companies via applications and different software along with stealing the customer's
personal data which ultimately results in their bad image (Dorsemaine and et.al., 2016). Contrary

to this, the general public using social websites such as Facebook, Instagram are likely exposed
to dangerous steps of hackers where they access their confidential information by raising virus in
their computers.
2 Threats confronted by organizations as well as society by usage of internet
An enterprise usually encounters wide variety of threats while employing the internet
tools as well as using online landscape for different operations ranging from production to
marketing their products within marketplace. These generally involves the following:
Malicious software
This software is extremely remarkable when it comes to violation of security. Attackers
and hackers utilizes various software such as Trojans, spyware and many more to hinder the
security measures. Every malware software comprises its own means for security breaching and
thus constitute the various ways via which they enter business network. This can become a
serious for E-commerce businesses like TESCO that handle sensitive information of consumers
for instance credit card. TESCO addressing the wide customer base can be exposed to this threat
which can damage the reliability of their software and thus can hamper the user's confidential
information.
Spyware
Spyware is referred as a kind of malware which secretly collects the information about
the organisation and then this data or information is relayed to another party. This can be a major
threat for TESCO faced through the internet. Also, in some cases there may be the marketing
data firms or the advertising firms which may be involved in it and for this reason spyware is
also called “adware”. Spyware can be any software which can get installed in the organisation's
computer device and then starts covertly monitoring company's online behaviour without
TESCO's permission and knowledge (Tweneboah-Koduah, Skouby and Tadayoni, 2017). This
type of threat gets installed in the system without user's consent through different methods like
drive-by download which is a trojan that is included with a legitimate program.
Phishing
It is the another threat which can be faced by TESCO as it is a kind of an engineering
attack which is often used for stealing the data which may include the login credentials and to
gather sensitive information of the company. One of the major attack which can be faced by the

company is phishing scams where scammers can target the organisational data in order to
support its competitors or other opposition groups.
Session Hijacking
It is also referred as cookie hijacking which is a type of web attack which is based on the
principles of computer sessions. This type of attack on TESCO can take advantage of their active
sessions which is a time period, that involves the communication of two parts of single system or
two computer systems. This type of attack on TESCO, compromises the session token by
stealing the valid session token in order to gain unauthorized access to the company's web server.
So, this attackers can attack TESCO which can pose major threat for the company (Weber and
Studer, 2016). TESCO can face this type of attack when there is huge amount of transactions
taking place with customers and attackers can attack the company and collect the required
information.
Threats of using internet on society
It is not only businesses which have to face the treats of internet, even society is not
speared form it. Society also faces major threats from the internet and some of them are
mentioned below:
Security and Privacy
With the advancement in techniques and internet, it has raised the concerns of security
and privacy of people. In current scenarios various societies are facing the threat of their private
information to stolen, stolen identities, hijacking of their gadgets and app connected cars. As
more things get digitally connected more there is a risk of security. Also, majority of people in
the societies does not follow the strong protocols which leads there systems vulnerable to
attacks.
Social media attacks
It is the major threat which are faced by different societies across the world, as majority
of social media attackers make of various social media platforms in order to attack the people
they hate or due to jealousy (Jansen and et.al., 2016). Mostly social media attackers breach user's
account by stealing personal credentials of login and the attacker do anything with the hijacked
account. It is mainly due to the fact that attacker wants to take stronghold on the user's
information and manipulate the user. Many lives have been effected by social attacks and it
needs to be stopped.

In order to minimise threats from the internet on the business and the society there are
some measures which needs to be followed which are mentioned below:
Firewalls: It is a network security system which monitors as well as controls outgoing and
incoming traffic which is based on the predetermined security rules. It is typically designed for
preventing the unauthorized access from or to private network. This is one way by which
organisation and societies can protect themselves from the threat of internet. Societies and
TESCO can implement firewall in their hardware or software or it can be combination of both. It
can also prevent the unauthorised access of internet users, particularly intranets. It also helps in
blocking of messages and linking to unwanted contents. It also makes the online surfing much
safer and also increases the security of the user. So, TESCO should use firewall in order to
protect their systems from online threats.
Antivirus: It is a software which is designed to detect as well as remove and prevent the
malware infections within the network or device. There are various antivirus available which can
also provide against spyware and some other malicious software (Baumann and Volkow, 2016).
By using the antivirus programs it can scan the file for the company to identify the malicious
software and will also allow the users to schedule the automatic scans which can be beneficial
for the company and for the people.
Encryption: It is the best tool which can protect information form getting scrambled and also
reducing the financial loss of the company as it prevents company or personal data from stealing.
It is also considered as a crucial element of cybersecurity as it prevents the company from the
data breaches.
3. Comparing and contrasting two unified communication providers
There number of unified communication providers in UK which can improve the process
of sharing and gathering information and out of them the two famous communication providers
are 3CX and Counter path. Both these unified communication providers can be compared and
contrasted below:
CounterPath 3CX
It is one of the UK's top leading unified
communication provider for organisations and
enterprises.
It is also UK's top rated unified
communication providers which help the
companies to improve their collaboration and
provides the solution for boosting their

economy and productivity.
Company provides unified communication
solutions to small and medium small scale
businesses.
3CX provides its communication to all types
of organisations big or small.
CounterPath provides various service in
relation to communications such as video
calling and voice calling services to the
companies which can help the companies to
increase their scope of business (CounterPath,
2019).
3CX provide the instant access to the users for
the various communication tools like chat and
talk, web conferencing and also provides the
services of instant messaging 3CX. Your
Unified Communications Solution Made Easy,
2019. There are various other services which is
provided by the company to its clients which
can help in making the communication
effective.
FEATURES
It offers its customers or clients the most
effective as well as collaborative way and even
the secure way to communicate at any time.
3CX's unified communication functionality is
inbuilt as well as included on the standards of
premises and also provides all in one user
friendly platform for the users.
It also allows the IT managers of the company
a much more secure access and also helps in
settling the inconvenience faced by the client.
It also provides various safety features for the
user like eliminates unnecessary voice mails
and also avoids the unnecessary transfer of
phone calls which can irritate the customers.
It also provides the customised features to the
users based on their demand so, that company
can achieve the goal of high quality experience
as well as the functionality which they require.
It also provide different unique features like
phone number detection, automation of
workflow process, makes an outbound calls in
a single click.
Both unified communication providers can be applied within the business that TESCO is
involved also both of them can be suitable for the company. 3CX can improve the

communication process of the company through video conferencing, instant messaging and
makes its workflow automatic. As, TESCO has very large customer base it can help the company
to make an effective collaboration with them and help in addressing their issues.
On the other hand CounterPath can also be suitable and applicable for the TESCO's
business as it will make the information system of the company much secure and make their
communication more effective. One of the feature which they provide is customisation, where a
company can customise their services as per their need.
CONCLUSION
Present report concludes that for every business and society internet has got both positive
and negative advantages. So, this means that internet can provide some benefits the society or
business but there are also some negative aspects attached to usage of internet which can
negative effect the business and society. Also, it can be concluded that both organisations and
societies are facing threats by using internet and which is really important to minimise these
threats. In order to minimise threats both company and society should take appropriate measures
while using online services. Also, organisation in order to improve their process of
communication it can take help of various communication providers but they should be
applicable and suitable for the business that a company is in.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baumann, M. H. and Volkow, N. D., 2016. Abuse of new psychoactive substances: threats and
solutions.Neuropsychopharmacology. 41(3). p.663.
Billon, M., Crespo, J. and Lera-López, F., 2018. Educational inequalities: Do they affect the
relationship between Internet use and economic growth?. Information Development.
34(5). pp.447-459.
Dorsemaine, B and et.al., 2016, July. A new approach to investigate IoT threats based on a four
layer model. In 2016 13th International Conference on New Technologies for
Distributed Systems (NOTERE). (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Jansen, J and et.al., 2016. Guarding against online threats: Why entrepreneurs take protective
measures. Behaviour & Information Technology. 35(5). pp.368-379.
Jenaro, C and et.al., 2018. Internet and cell phone usage patterns among young adults with
intellectual disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. 31(2).
pp.259-272.
Rashid, T. and Asghar, H. M., 2016. Technology use, self-directed learning, student engagement
and academic performance: Examining the interrelations. Computers in Human
Behavior. 63. pp.604-612.

Singh, K., Fox, J. R. and Brown, R. J., 2016. Health anxiety and Internet use: A thematic
analysis. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 10(2).
Tweneboah-Koduah, S., Skouby, K. E. and Tadayoni, R., 2017. Cyber security threats to IoT
applications and service domains. Wireless Personal Communications. 95(1). pp.169-
185.
Weber, R. H. and Studer, E., 2016. Cybersecurity in the Internet of Things: Legal
aspects. Computer Law & Security Review. 32(5). pp.715-728.
Wittes, B. and Liu, J. C., 2015. The privacy paradox: The privacy benefits of privacy
threats. Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. pp.1-21.
Online
3CX. Your Unified Communications Solution Made Easy. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.3cx.com/phone-system/unified-communications/?
src=ucenads&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx47E-
cKC5QIVRI6PCh350QFiEAAYASAAEgIj6fD_BwE>.
CounterPath. 2019. [Online]. Available Through: <https://www.counterpath.com/enterprise-
solutions/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx47E-
cKC5QIVRI6PCh350QFiEAAYAiAAEgL9fvD_BwE>.