Technology in Business Organizations: Role and Application Report

This report examines the critical role of technology in modern business operations. It delves into the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on internal business systems, including intranets, extranets, human resource management, and customer relationship management. The report also explores the significance of e-commerce, covering B2B and B2C models, and the influence of market forces on the flexibility/cost trade-off in process technologies. Furthermore, it discusses the latest trends in process technology, emphasizing scalability, analytical content, and connectivity features. The report also addresses the challenges organizations face when adopting new technologies, such as the need for proper training and management of employees. In conclusion, the report highlights the transformative power of technology in driving business success, emphasizing the need for strategic implementation and ongoing adaptation.

TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS 1
Role and Application of Technologies in Business Organizations
[Author’s Name]
[Student ID]
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TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS 2
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Discussion...................................................................................................................................................4
Internal business systems.........................................................................................................................5
E-commerce............................................................................................................................................6
Market forces on flexibility/cost trade-off...............................................................................................7
Latest trends in Process Technology........................................................................................................8
Challenges in adopting new technologies in business organizations.......................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS 3
Executive Summary
The importance and role of technology and Information Technology in particular, in the sphere
of Business Operations has ever increased. Every organization that strives to remain profitable
must acknowledge the impact that technology has on business. There can be two key ways in
which business organizations can use technology to its advantage viz. Internal Business Systems
and E-commerce. A major factor which makes an impact on the business process technologies is
scalability. The market forces that have come under challenging and demanding forces are scale,
integration and automation. A considerable amount of investment on technology may put a big
impact on shareholder confidence and analysts trust and may reduce the share price. Creating
scalability, analytical content and connectivity features have allowed process technologies to
develop flexibility. The major challenges that a business organization has to face when
implementing technology are the lack of training and improper management of employees.

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Introduction
Business operations in a company refer to all activities that take place inside it to keep it going
and remain profitable. A business plan in a business organization is a policy which is focused on
operations in such a manner that all functions such as systems, equipment, processes and
personnel are aligned together.
Business operations differ on business types, size, industry, net worth, competitors etc.
Operations for a cement manufacturing business would be different from that of an online
retailer. The former would require a point-point terminal sales strategy whereas the latter would
need efficient e-commerce software that can manage online orders for products. Most businesses
actually take into consideration four most important elements of business which are: Process;
Staffing; Location; Technology or equipment (Greasley, 2013). The last business element i.e.
Technology is of utmost importance in today’s business environment and a topic of study in our
report. In the highly competitive industry in modern times, it is almost inevitable to utilize
technology/equipment that is up-to-date and in proper working order (Introduction to operations
management, 2007).
Discussion
A major area of concern when it comes to utilizing technology in business operations is the
proper grasp and implementation of Information and communications technologies (ICT).
Information and communications technologies (ICT), is a useful tool to upkeep a range of
businesses activities; from inner business systems to business communications and e-commerce.
It is true that any business organization which has to make an assessment of all its resources, e-
business can still improve the efficiency in the distant future by saving considerable time and
streamline its processes. E-business can also open new options for collaboration and exchange of
facts and figures, all of which may lead to an increase in revenues. There can be two ways in
which this technology can be utilized to an organization’s advantage. These are:-
 Internal business systems; and
 Electronic commerce or e-commerce

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Internal business systems
Internal business systems is that component of business operations that helps utilize different
tools to manage an organizations’ human resources, customer relationships, documents and other
internal processes (Slack and Lewis, 2009). The three main components of an Internal Business
Systems and the role of each of these is as below:
1. Intranet and extranet –
Intranet is just like a local internet in a business environment. It is basically a computer network
which makes it available to share privately information, operational systems and system
resources within a business environment. The intranet connects employees of different
departments at different locations enabling them to communicate and collaborate in an efficient
manner. It also helps managers to streamline main operations and minimizing the need for
physical meetings and propelling the rate of development and reliability of information (The
evidence centre for skills and health, 2011). Extranet is an extension of intranet which an
organization makes available to outside people like partners, vendors, suppliers and those in
other organizations.
2. Human resources management - ICT can and does improve the human resource
management at both operational and strategic levels. Giving to the organization an added
value is vital for any business, not just adding new technologies. However, even in
human resource management technology helps to improve efficiency in different types of
assessments such as personnel records, benefits, compensation, training and skills
development and schedules. There are some other tasks where technology applications
can be used to enhance the HR such as recruiting, long-term personnel planning,
knowledge management, employee development, succession planning and retention
strategies (Lusch and Vargo, 2015).
3. Customer relationship management – By utilizing an efficient and up-to-date customer
relationship management or CRM techniques, an organization can properly interact with
future and current customers. CRM technologies have now become more cost-effective
and accessible and some of these even do not require any software. These enables an
organization to keep track of figures related to sales, trends, promotions and offering an
enhanced overall experience to their customers (Operations Management).

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E-commerce
There are several business processes related to e-commerce, that are enabled by e-commerce
which include creation of online storefront, supply chain management and marketing of products
(Vacca, 2013). Such processes fall into three categories that are:
 Business to business (B2B)
 Internet marketing
 Business to customer (B2C)
In B2B transactions, the internet holds the key potential for many small businesses (Vacca,
2013). There can be two different aspects to the B2B model that make it distinct from the
business-to-customer (B2C) model which are as mentioned below.
1. Price flexibility – There should be variations between pricing of products between
purchasers.
2. Cooperation of business systems – The businesses that are involved in B2B e-commerce
make their internal systems to work in unison and share interactions and information
which results in lesser human work.
An organization that adopts and implements a B2B e-commerce process is benefitted in these
ways:
 Buying supplies not directly linked to business - There are some purchases made by a
business organization which are not directly linked to its operations such as office
furniture, pens and paper and these are similar to catalogue-based websites.
 Buying direct materials – Some organizations like to establish associations with
suppliers to e-procure direct materials with the aim to minimize costs (Greasley, 2013).
 Sell products to new vendors – This involves selling products and services across
different platforms in an e-marketplace and expanding the market base.
 Leveraging the organizations’ web occurrence – An organization must improve
business-to-customer (B2C) e-commerce website. The business could be more
sophisticated to target more corporate clientele (Greasley, 2013).
 Investing in e-procurement methods – Businesses should assess their purchasing
process and look out for various options to automate the procurement process. By

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carefully investing in the e-procurement procedures, organizations could get
considerable increase in revenues.
Scalability is a very significant issue in all process technologies and has a deep association with
capacity strategy. The overall capacity of any operations processes is greatly related on how each
individual units of process technology actually go about making them (Greasley, 2013).
Some of the major factors that may make an impact on the scalability of process technology are:
 Assessment of capital cost of technology – The capital cost of any unit of technology is
directly dependent on the size of the unit of technology. It means that if the size of the
unit is large then its capital cost may be more, but its capital cost per unit of capacity
would be less. The costs of supporting and installing the technology would also be
lower per unit of output. Moreover, the operating costs per unit are also highly likely to
be lower on large machines due to the fixed costs of operating them being relatively
distributed over a higher volume (Greasley, 2013).
 Process technology must match demand over time – Traditionally, there has been a
trade-off between big increments of capacity using economies of scale and resultantly a
mismatch between capacity and demand. This mismatch also does exist in smaller
growths of capacity but with a closer match between capacity and demand, however
with lesser economies of scale.
Market forces on flexibility/cost trade-off
The traditional cost/flexibility trade-off that is evident in the scale, integration and automation
dimensions of process technology has now come under the market’s much challenging and
demanding forces. In fact, increased market division and the demand for increased customization
do reduce outright volumes/quantities of any particular type of products or services. At the same
time any limitation in product/service life cycle may mean sporadic step changes in the
requirements put on an operation and associated process technology (Vacca, 2013). Such
instances may mean a huge reduction in the potential for implementing large-scale and
somewhat inflexible but conventionally low-cost technologies. On the other hand, there exist a
severe pressure to be cost-effective which is making ongoing reductions take place in direct labor
and putting a big emphasis on automation (Genpact, 2014).

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For many traditionally labor-intensive departments such as the banking sector, a significant
amount of technological investment puts a major impact on shareholder and analysts’ confidence
and consequently on the share price. Thus, it is important to note that these two types of
pressures are putting the traditional process technologies under strain. However, many of the
modern operations have totally embraced the process technology even though in IT-rich
methods. Thus, it has clearly now been observed that the over-emphasis of IT in organizations
these days can’t be ruled out (Kidd, 2009).
Latest trends in Process Technology
The current markets almost every time these days demand increased flexibility and lesser costs at
the same time from process technology. Nowadays, recent developments in Information
Technologies and their impact on shifting traditional balances and trade-offs should also be
included. Developing scalability, analytical content and connectivity features have enabled
process technologies to improve their flexibility, although retaining realistic efficiency and vice
versa (Leonard-Barton and Kraus, 1985).
The three main dimensions of process technology that are automation, scalability, and coupling
have significant relation with the volume/variety features of the market (Process Improvement).
In conventional process technologies especially with less IT element, large auto-mated and
closely linked technologies were able to process at low costs but with fairly less flexibility. This
makes them very apt for high-volume and less variable processes. The process technology is
very much likely to be consisting of smaller detached units with little automation if the process
requirements were for high variety but low volume (Performance Management Practitioner
Series, 1997).
Challenges in adopting new technologies in business organizations
Business Organizations nowadays, must be skillful enough in fetching in new technologies and
managing the challenges which come along whilst applying the change. Changes of this
characteristic may provide noteworthy benefits to business organizations but may also bring
about many challenges which need to be controlled to produce a desirable result. However,
problems do arise in business organizations attempting to acquire a new technology without
appropriate training and management of their employees’ (Delaney and D’Augostino, 2015).

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As organizations strive for the improvement of the market position, more creative and efficient
methods are needed to contribute in improving their processes. Improving processes frequently
means altering them or creating new ones altogether. Technology does have a role to play in
bringing about these improvements. Business Organizations thus have to continue to do
improvements in such a manner of analysis, improvements and monitoring the changes.
Technological changes may also impact the characteristics and philosophy of any business
organization (Massy and Zemsky, 1995).
Conclusion
Technological changes have the likelihood of impacting an employee’s work duties which may
build feelings of uncertainty. The ambiguity of what new technology brings for employees’ may
activate more conflict to their receiving it. When an organization has chosen and approved a new
technology tool, it must be applied and introduced to all concerned employees. Business
Organizations that fail to implement their planned changes successfully may pay a dear price that
could lead to missing market position, decreased staff morale, credibility of stakeholders and
loosing key employees.

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