Introduction to Information Technology and its Role in Managing Business

This report discusses the different types of software, ethical and social issues, the role of IT in managing business, and the impact of internet and intranet on businesses. It also includes a case study of Tesco.

Introduction to
Information
Technology

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Different types of software..........................................................................................................3
Ethical and Social Issues.............................................................................................................5
Role of IT in managing the business...........................................................................................6
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) makes a business more efficient and
effective in responding to customer needs. Discuss the impact of Internet and Intranet on
businesses....................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
Books and Journals:..................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Information Technology can be understood as the business sector that deals with
technology, covering, software, hardware, telecommunication and mostly anything covered in
the transmittal of information, together with systems that provides communication. IT is a broad
sector involves many thing. By taking an example of IT department in an organization. There are
several people with many employment and different responsibilities. These accountabilities
range from keeping systems and information protect to keeping networking and working. There
are employees who handles databases, who input data and employee who do programming. IT
also covers the management of information, whether it is in the form of text, image, voice, video
or any form. It can also cover information related to the internet. Hence, IT has become a part of
day to day lives and continues to grow into new field (Basuony, Mohamed and Samaha, 2018).
Tesco Company is taken into consideration to make this report. This organisation is identified as
a global retail organisation, headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. It is known as the
market leading organisation in UK. It retails products such as clothings, books, furniture, internet
and financial services and much more. The following report will discuss a range of software that
could be utilised by business entity. It will also include ethical and social issues which plays a
vital role in the digital world. Also, it will outlines the significance in the context of businesses.
As the ICT makes business organisation more effective and efficient, it will also expresses the
impact of internet and intranet on enterprises. Lastly, the role of IT will also be discussed in this
report.
TASK
Different types of software.
As per the viewpoint of , software can be understood as a set of instructions or guidelines,
programs or data exploited to operate computer systems and execute certain tasks. It is dissimilar
to hardware which shows the physical aspects of the computer systems. Software exploited to
refer the scripts, application and programmes that run on a device (Brennen, Howard and
Nielsen,2021). In addition to Tesco, following is the discussion on various software that could be
used in the business:
 System software: This is the type of software which helps in making interaction between
use and hardware so that they can function with each other. It is the software used to

manage hardware behaviour of the computer so as to offer basic functionalities that are
needed by the user. Generally, this related with the middle layer between user and
hardware. When an individual turns on the computer system, it is the system software
that gets loaded in the system memory. It runs in the background and not exploited by
end users (Demirbas, Wilkinson and Bennett, 2018). This is the cause it is known as
“low-level software”. Some common examples; Operating system is the common
example of system software. It is an aggregation of software that manages resources and
offers common services for the other applications that function over them. Although each
operating system is antithetic, most of them offer a graphical user interface to handle
folders and files while perform other activities. Every device, covering mobile phone,
laptop or desktop needs an operating system. Some general examples are iOS, MS
Windows, Ubuntu and much more.
 Application software: It is known as end user programmes that assists in completing
tasks such as jotting down notes, doing online research, setting an alarm, keeping an
account log and so forth. They are exploited by end users and are certain in their tasks or
functionality and perform the job that they are configured to do. For instance, a browser
can be related as the application created particularly for browsing the internet or MS
PowerPoint is the application exploited to develop presentations. There are various types
of application software such as database software is meant to create and handle a
database (Flew, 2019). They support with the business of data. MS Access, FoxPro,
dBase and much more. Multimedia software is the application software aims to create,
play and record images, video or audio files. They are exploited for video editing, image
editing, animation and much more, Media Monkey, Picasa, VLC Media player are some
common examples of multimedia software.
In Tesco's business, the following are the discussion of business software:
 Communication software: With a purpose to adequately sharing the information,
organisation require to make sure that communication throughout all areas and locations
is streamlined. MS Office, web-based email are commonly used in the business so that
information can be shared internally and externally.
 Accounting software: It supports financial experts monitor business performance by
tracking actual expenses, bottom line as well as revenue. With accurate information,

financial experts can make sure the accounts books contains relevant information and the
business remains lucrative.
 Service management solution: It is based on improving the interaction between a
consumer and business such as customer service and transactions (Lloyd, 2020). An
effective solution not only improves the customer experience to save time of clients and
adequately resolve the issues as well.
Benefits of using software:
 Time-savings: By automating repetitive procedures, software helps workers to
concentrate on manual labour on more crucial activities, limiting time as well as human
mistakes.
 Optimized operational efficiency: With restricted time, costs of labour, and efforts
required to finish the standard procedures, operational efficiency is vitally increased.
Drawbacks of business software:
 Costs to pay: Technology requires costs for adoption and upgradation, there is a
necessity to invest on timely basis. To keep moving with the speed of market,
organisation must keep upgrading the technology. It is not possible to invest in
technology as a one-and-done process.
Ethical and Social Issues.
Ethical issues: Organisations now a days faced many ethical challenges and issues which
is critical to address. In respect of Tesco, some key ethical issues are identified in order to use
advanced or modern technology.
 Misuse or personal information: One of the key ethical challenges in the digital world
is the misuse of personal data. As the people browning internet sites, or make digital
purchases, engage with various businesses online, enter the information on websites, and
participate in social media (Matsudo, 2019). Organisations use the information of their
customers to offer better and personalised services so that customers can get better
experiences with the business. But some any way, these information of customers are
leaked by the frauds and use by other competitors may ruin the company reputation while
resulting in lose of customers as well. Hence, it is important to protect the customers data
so that they feel safe in dealing with the business.

 Misinformation and deep fakes: It is one of the major ethical challenges in which
customers used to believe that information or video told a story was based on facts and
truth. But deepfake technology, now allows such as polished manipulation of digital
imaginary that representatives appear to be saying and doing things that never occurred.
For example, simple ad of beauty creams that challenges three to four days guaranteed
fairness challenge which is impossible in real life (Oloke, 2021).
Social issues in the digital world:
 Authenticating information: Whether a person is doing a regular research, following a
new's story or conveying interesting things on digital media, the technology or internet is
a ongoing source of information. But a viewer can know the information is true, relevant
or unbiased. Hence, this is one of the social issues that are faced by the organisation and
its customers as well. In respect of Tesco, organisation use several digital media
platforms such as Twitter or Facebook in which they regularly posts on current offerings,
new launches and much more. In those platforms, there are various pages found which
seems similar to the authentic page of company which may posts irrelevant content or
false information which may lead to damage the name of chosen organisation.
 Cyberbullying: Another issue that can be linked with the rise of the digital age is
cyberbullying. It relates with the learning and teaching with technology, when the
internet, mobile phones or any devices is exploited to post or send images and texts
aimed to target and hurt the sentiments of another person. As customer's account is
created with several information whether it is personal or financial, digital technology
involves major risks to threaten the privacy.
Role of IT in managing the business
As the technology is emerging rapidly in every business industry and it becomes an essential
component that makes the work faster and efficient. There are various benefits of having latest
technology as it helps in taking effective decisions. There are various software that enables the
manager in taking the critical decisions (Powell, Hart and Jacks, 2020). Following are the
benefits of IT.
 Increases productivity – Every business unit wants to maximise its profitability and wants
to minimise its overall cost so that it could enjoy higher profits. It helps in assessing the
performance that helps in measuring the performance of employees and can take

corrective measure to improve their performance. Employees are the assets of the
company and it is needed to have peak potential so that they could contribute towards the
attainment of organisational objectives. Thus, IT helps in increasing the productivity of
both employees and organisation.
 Helps in decision making – The manager sometimes faces critical situation and it is
needed to be solve in a structured and effective way so that it does not negatively impact
on the company’s functioning. There are various alternatives available for the manager
and thus becomes complex to choose the best alternatives among many. Thus,
applications of Information Technology enable the mange in taking effective decision
that can helps in attaining the goals in an optimal way (Rodriguez, 2020). It minimises
the human error as it is normal that an individual may take wrong decision but IT reduces
the risk of error.
 Management of Inventory – It is very important for the company to have adequate
quantity of inventory so that it would not face shortage at the time of high demand. There
are several software that indicates whenever the company is having low inventory and
automatically places order so that it does not face shortage. It helps in maintaining the
level of inventory and automatically replenish the order level.
 Makes work faster – The application of software enables the manager in making the work
faster and easier. It helps in reducing the time as compare to human efforts. Hours of
work can be done in minutes and that’s why many companies are opting this technology.
The work done through software are much accurate and faster as they calculate the
millions of calculations.
 Helps in keeping record – The application of IT helps in recording the financial
transactions and by that manager can ascertain profit or loss. It helps in finding that the
company is in profit or loss situation. Once the company have find that it is in loss, then it
becomes easy for the manager to take corrective measures so that they can earn profit and
drive towards the attainment of goals. At the time of audit, it becomes easier to retrieve
the documents from the cloud space (Shibani, 2020). The traditional method of keeping
the record is hectic and manager feel burdensome but thanks to technology as it makes it
convenient.

 Cost efficiency – It helps the manager in managing the resources in such a manner that it
reduces the overall cost of the project. The company can enjoy the higher profitability if
the cost of product is reduced. Software compute the overall cost in seconds and allows
the manager to take the decisions so that they can enjoy higher profit. There are various
set of activities that a business undertakes and IT help in assessing the cost incurred in
each department and how they can be minimised to increase profit.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) makes a business more efficient and
effective in responding to customer needs. Discuss the impact of Internet and Intranet on
businesses.
Information and communication technology helps in making the business more effective
and efficient. It allows the manager to analyse the demand of customer and providing with the
feasible solution so that they can satisfy their needs and wants. It is very important for the
companies to opt the technology so that it can achieve its objectives in a time frame period. It
helps the manager in taking effective decisions whenever they face any critical situation. By
using Information and technology, it allows to get the insights of customers buying behaviour
pattern so that they can meet their expectation and enjoy higher profitability. It becomes an
essential part of the company and may be referred as the backbone of the company. Information
and communication technology plays an important role in performing various functions in an
effective and accurate way (Southern and Lee, 2019). In simple words, it may be referred as the
handling of communicational process such as broadcasting media and telecommunication.
Following are the impact of internet and intranet.
Internet – There are various sources that helps the business in communicating with its
customers. Following are the sources.
The technology helps in communicating with the with its customers through digital
channels. There are various social media handles that connects the companies with their
customers. The customer is having the facility to post their review on company's social media
handles and they can post their feedback too that helps the other customers to know about their
product.
The company have the opportunity to expand its operations on online platforms. The
software allows the customer to order their products direct from their mobile phones. The use of

technology is emerging and companies are taking advantage of of this and tries to expand their
business.
Intranet – Intranet also impacts the business operations and that helps the employees in
communicating so that they can enhance their productivity in an organisation.
 It helps the company in increasing its productivity as it provides with various functions
that will benefit the company in elevating its productivity.
 It helps the business in finding the people in an easy way. It helps in finding and
attracting the customers in a easy way (Pearce, 2021). It plays a crucial role in
communicating with the employees and customers.
 It strongly impacts on the organisation in enhancing its productivity of employees and in
addition to that it facilitates in communicating within the workplace in an effective and
efficient way.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been said that information technology is the technology
which involves several tools, software and hardware programmes to deal with the information.
These information can be in the form of text, audio, video or image. Organisation use software
programmes in their business to operate business activities smoothly. These software can be
related with customer service, accountancy and much more. Ethical and social issues are
increasing day by day with the modernization of technology. IT plays an important role in the
business as it offers various benefits such as increasing productivity, better decision-making and
much more.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Basuony, M.A., Mohamed, E.K. and Samaha, K., 2018. Board structure and corporate disclosure
via social media: an empirical study in the UK. Online Information Review.
Brennen, J.S., Howard, P.N. and Nielsen, R.K., 2021. Balancing product reviews, traffic targets,
and industry criticism: UK technology journalism in practice. Journalism
Practice, 15(10), pp.1479-1496.
Demirbas, D., Wilkinson, L. and Bennett, D., 2018. Supplier relations impact within the UK
automotive industry. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Flew, T., 2019. From policy to curriculum: Drivers of the growth in creative industries courses
in the UK and Australia. Creative Industries Journal, 12(2), pp.167-184.
Lloyd, I., 2020. Information technology law. Oxford University Press.
Matsudo, H., 2019. Trends in support for students with special educational needs in uk university
libraries: focusing on support personnel and systems. New Review of Academic
Librarianship, 25(1), pp.28-48.
Oloke, D., 2021. Deployment of building information modelling (BIM) for energy efficiency in
the UK. In Collaboration and Integration in Construction, Engineering, Management
and Technology (pp. 559-564). Springer, Cham.
Pearce, H., 2021. A proposal for a new risk-based licensing approach to disclosing anonymised
data under the (UK) Freedom of Information Act 2000. Information & Communications
Technology Law, 30(2), pp.108-139.
Powell, A., Hart, P. and Jacks, T., 2020. Information Technology Issues in the UK. In The World
IT Project: Global Issues in Information Technology (pp. 463-474).
Rodriguez, R.M., 2020. A Study of Information Technology Professionals in Healthcare and
Higher Education Perceived Quality of Relationship with Their Leaders and Its Effects
on Follower Organizational Commitment during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our Lady of
the Lake University.
Shibani, A., 2020. Exploring the Implementation of Building Information Modelling Level 2 in
the UK Construction Industry: The Case of Small and Medium-Sized
Enterprises. international Journal of Architectural and Environmental Engineering,.
Southern, R. and Lee, B.J., 2019. Politics as usual? Assessing the extent and content of
candidate-level online campaigning at the 2015 UK general election. Journal of
Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 29(2), pp.179-198.