Analyzing ICT Tools, Cloud Computing, and Business Strategies

This report delves into the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools within the business landscape, particularly focusing on their significance in the digital age. It examines various communication and collaboration tools such as Asana, Scoro, Microsoft 365, and Teamwork, highlighting their functionalities and benefits for businesses, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also analyzes the advantages, disadvantages, suitability, and applications of cloud storage and cloud computing, emphasizing aspects like cost-effectiveness, accessibility, and scalability. Furthermore, it evaluates the positive and negative aspects of both online and offline products and services, providing a comprehensive overview of how ICT impacts business operations, strategies, and overall success. The report concludes with a synthesis of the key findings and their implications for businesses navigating the evolving digital environment.

Integrated professional skills
in the digital age

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Different types of communication and collaboration tool and how they help to businesses......1
Advantage, disadvantage, suitability and application of cloud storage and cloud computing....4
Positive and negative aspects of online and offline products and services.................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Information and communication technology is an extensive form of information technology.
ICT refers to use of all communication technology with the use of internet, software, computer
etc and other application that helps user to access, store etc. any information in the digital form.
ICT can also be termed as coverage of technology for media such as telephone networks and the
audio visuals that are connected with unified system or link system. It is a combination of
internet and communication technology to share information with the use of internet. It has
become extremely important and useful in recent time and especially in this current situation of
Covid-19 pandemic (What is ICT? What is the Meaning or Definition of ICT?, 2021). With the
use of ICT technology many companies during this pandemic situation are running their business
in smooth and efficient manner. ICT is done with widespread use of smart phones, web
conferencing, internet etc.
Now concepts of ICT are taught as a core subject in many universities. Information and
communication technology is used on the daily basis with many peoples. ICT is used in broader
sense that represent in a more comprehensive list related to digital technology and computer in
IT. It is a simplest form of electronic media to create, store, send and receive information with
the use of digital technology. In this report will discussed about different communication and
collaboration tools used by businesses and help them to survive in pandemic, advantages and
disadvantages, suitability and application of cloud storage and cloud computing and analysed
positive and negative aspects of products and services that are sold online and offline.
MAIN BODY
Different types of communication and collaboration tool and how they help to businesses.
The communication and collaboration tools are used by the companies to run their business
in long run especially during the pandemic. With the use ICT helps many of business to run
effectively as well during the time of pandemic. Information and communication technology is
build within a short period of time and become the necessity for modern society.
These tolls are-
Asana
It is one of the most effective tool for collaboration in organisation. Asana is a web and
mobile application used to organise team in company, manage and track the working of
employees of organisation. It helps in increasing efficiency of working in with team (Puška, and
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et.al., 2020). During current Covid-19 pandemic, this tool has been most effective tool in terms
of management of work within the team of company. Asana helps company to improve team
collaboration and work management. During the time of pandemic where business are totally
done with use of digital technology Asana helps in collaborating with team members and
manages their work by regular monitoring and manages their work. Regular task are break into
manageable pieces for the team members so that each member will understand their way to
perform work and have clear understanding of their work (Mercurio, 2018). The tasks that are
performed have assigned clear role, so everyone know who is responsible for which task.
Communication can done directly on task, to clarify roles and connect with team members so
everyone will connect.
During the pandemic it help businesses to connect with the team members and clearly
assign them task that members are aware of their tasks and roles and perform their work
effectively with the use of Asana and digital technology. It helps business to not decreases in
their productivity and communicates effectively with the team members by clarify roles to them.
With the use of Asana the work of members are to be managed and monitored on regular basis so
that it doesn’t affect to company’s productivity and growth.
Scoro
Scoro is service software for the professional services. This is software of one in all
business management services by combining the management of projects within time, sales,
billing, team management etc. It is a useful software that helps an organization in management of
almost every aspects of business. It is a collaborative tool of software- as - a- service (SaaS) that
helps users to manages and track on the company projects, tracking on finances, manages client
and compile and get reports of enterprise on regular basis. During the pandemic where times
came that may of businesses are going to be shut down as there is no way to start their work,
Scoro is one of the effective collaborative tool for the companies. As it help companies to
manages their work on the regular basis, assign the clear task to employees, keep record on
finances, build the relations with customers, access to the important data of company easily with
Scoro. Scoro centralize all workflow and decline to double data entry in record of one system.
During this pandemic time it has helped organizations by managing the working in the
company from managing projects, finance, and monitor risk areas assign task effectively
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(Marche, and et.al., 2019). This helps the business to grow during the time of pandemic as well.
This software is used for overall integration of work of business.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is formerly known as office 365 which provides subscription services and
these services are offered by Microsoft. It adds and includes Microsoft product line. Microsoft
365 serves the cloud- based Software services products for the businesses (Bavendiek, and et.al.,
2018). Its plans need automation updates with their respective software. It helps the company in
providing the real time authoring by collaborating online and see the changes happen with
coauthoring, communicate with the coworkers and share the screens and also did video and
audio conferences for meeting and share information, use of power map in excel by turning data
into maps.
All these aspects help the company to work effectively during by sharing the screen and
working together on same projects so that the work can be done on time with the proper
communication and meetings with the help of audio and video conferencing. This helps
businesses to grow and increases their efficiency.
Teamwork:
It is one of the major and important collaboration tool by which employees will be able to
co-ordinately work together and enable the actual accomplishment of the task. This technique
also enables the company to face they current pandemic situation of Covid. As it is a fact that
when work will be performed in team then it will lead to raise chances of its success and as a
result worst situation can be faced easily. As per the concept of teamwork efforts and initiatives
of individual will be collected together to mould it as team efforts which further assist the
company to have accomplishment of its objective (Driskell, Salas and Driskell, 2018). It is to be
noted that when digital concept and touch will be enforced within the teamwork then the
efficiency and performance of team efforts will be raised and as a result it become easy for the
company to face the situation of covid pandemic easily.
As due to covid pandemic business of almost every company reaches at the stage of shut
down and when in such situation an inculcation of team efforts and work will boost up
company’s efforts and moves and as a result it can easily co-operate with the pandemic along
with achievement of success. it is also to be noted that covid pandemic is such worst situation
that it impacts the entire industry and in order to deal with its impact there is no other option
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apart from team work and collaboration. Hence, by teamwork as collaborating tool company can
face the challenge along with winning it.
Advantage, disadvantage, suitability and application of cloud storage and cloud computing.
Cloud storage
It is model used for the storage do data with the use of computer where digital data is
stored. It is important for the business to store wide data in the one pool of cloud. It is important
for business to exchange the data immediately with vendors and other members in organization,
and also creates backup of files and important data, protect the large data in a single platform and
access to the data easily.
Advantages
Cost
Purchasing of physical stores is expensive (Khalil, and Ebner, 2017). Operating cost
annually is reduces with the use of cloud storage and the cost of business is save. The cloud
storage is cheaper has compare to the other external drives.
Accessibility
With the use cloud storage gives access to files from anywhere and at any time just
having the internet connection. This helps the business by working from anywhere and gets
access to files for working.
Recovery
As with the failure of hard drive and the malfunction of hardware it acts as backup
solution and can get the access to files on the cloud. Files are to be safe with cloud storage even
after the failure of hard drives.
Security
There are many people whose uses the cloud storage to save files. For that cloud storage
provide extra layer of security to the services they provide. Cloud storage security will make sure
that the files of people can’t be get accessed by someone else.
Disadvantage
Internet connection
To get the access on cloud storage it needs the internet connection. The good internet
connection is required to get the access easily for storage (Khan, and et.al., 2021). If the internet
connection is slow than individual faces issues for storage in cloud.
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Hard drives
Some of the cloud storage of business needs the physical hard drives as well. Even the
cloud storage is known to eliminate the dependency on hard drive.
Cost
Additional cost is charged with the uploading and downloading of files from the cloud
storage (Fan, and et.al., 2019). This cost is quickly added with the access of lots of files.
Support
Support from the cloud storage is not best if the free version of it is uses by individual.
Cloud computing
Cloud competing is a computer system resource for the storage and computing power
with the use of internet. From the cloud competing helps employees to work more collaborative
and coordinate in the organisation. the importance of cloud competing to business is it is
inexpensive, flexible and increases the demand of resources of company and store large data
effectively and software are updated on regular basis that help business to manage the
maintenance of software.
Advantages
Backup and restore
The data is stored in cloud computing than it is easier to get access to the file or data and
restore and back up of data. From cloud computing it is easy to get the stored data backup.
Improved collaboration
Cloud computing applications improve collaboration by easily sharing information with
use of shared storage to the group of people. The information is shared quickly and easily
between groups of people.
Flexibility to growth
Many companies are scalable on cloud competing and can add and subtract to resources
based on their needs. As the companies grow their cloud competing will also grow.
Storage capacity
Cloud computing offers wide amount of capacity for storage of important documents,
files etc at one place.
Disadvantages
Vendor lock-in
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It is one of the biggest disadvantage of cloud computing (Sehgal, and Bhatt, 2018).
Company face the problem in providing services to one vendor to another as different vendor use
different platforms of cloud and found difficulty to provide information from different clouds.
Limited control
The cloud infrastructure is totally controlled and managed by the cloud service provider
and users have less control on execution of services and functioning on cloud competing.
Limited features
All the cloud competing provided mostly the same features. Some of the competing
provider offer limited features and offers only popular features.
Suitability of cloud computing and cloud storage
Cost
The cost for storage of data in the cloud is low as compare to the hardware storage
(Ramachandra, Iftikhar, and Khan, 2017). Cost for storage of data in the cloud is low
comparatively to different sources for the storage of data of company.
Time
From cloud storage and cloud competing the data is stored and the information is shared
easily and effectively, it is accessible easily in less time and can access to any stored files fast
from cloud storage.
Storage capacity
In cloud data large data, image, videos, files etc is stored in the one platform. All
necessary data of the company is stored in one platform of cloud and company can access easily
to data or files.
Applications for cloud storage and cloud computing
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an application for publishing emails. It provides various features like design
send and save the emails. It is basically an email platform that is used by the companies.
Paypal
It is most simple platform for the online payments by effective internet connections. It
accepts payments through debit card, credit card and from account holder of Paypal.
Box.com
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It is an online platform for secure management of content, collaboration and workflow
(Hwang, 2017). It also allows to stores different files like excel, word etc on the cloud.
Mozy
Mozy is a platform used for online backup of personal or organization data. In Mozy an
automatic backup is set for each day at particular time.
GoToMeeting
It provides services like video conferencing and online meeting in the business. With the
use of GoToMeeting the meetings and conferencing can held anywhere at any time with use of
mobiles, laptops etc.
Evernote
This application allows to save the recorded notes, type notes etc in a convenient place
that helps in future to further information (Yang, and et.al., 2020). It is available in both the
version in free as well as paid.
LinkedIn
It is a social media platform that interacts social networks to students, professionals and
fresher’s for the job and other information related to professional life.
Positive and negative aspects of online and offline products and services.
Online products and services
Advantages
Convince
With online products and services can shop at anytime, as it is available to all the
customers 24*7. It also rewards to shopping with no pollution as the products and services are
available online and shop from home as well. Downloaded material purchased online can reduce
the need of physical material and it helps the environment.
More variety
Online products and services have more variety as compare to offline products and
services. Customers can find wide variety of brands, size and colour for the particular product
and choose them as per their convenience.
Easy price comparison
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Comparisons of prices in products and services are to be done easily from online
shopping (Sharma, and et.al., 2019). Consumer can review and compare the products and
services of all the options in the online market and link to best prices.
Saves time
It saves the time of consumer and the producers as well, as producers have to upload the
pictures and videos of products and services and its descriptions for one time and also save the
time of customers of travelling which is negligible in online products and services.
Disadvantage
Shipping problems and delays
Problems occur during the shipping and the delivery of products and services also get
delayed even of the big brands (Sarkar, and Sabyasachi, 2017). Products might get lost, destroy
or damaged during the shipping of products and services.
Environmental impact
The products are purchase and packed in different layers of plastics and cardboards and
this will effects to the environment. Plastics are not good for environment and the recycle of
cardboards creates unnecessary waste with the online products and services shopping.
Risk of fraud
From online products and services there is large risk of frauds in quality, credit card
scams, hacking, bogus websites etc. All this aspects will cheat and fraud to the customers and
customers get into loss and dissatisfied.
Less contact with community
If all business is going to be online and products and services available only through
online platforms no one has to come outside form their hoe. This will create negativity in
community where no one will came outside from their home and less participate in society, cant
breath fresh air and no real human connection is developed.
Offline products and services
Advantages
Check the goods same time
From shop products and services offline customers can check the quality, and check
physically to products at the same time before purchasing to it so that they can’t get disappoint
from product or services.
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Instant use and not to wait
To shop offline to products or services can use them at the same time after purchasing to
them and no wait is to be done as done in online shopping (NGUYEN, and KHOA, 2019). The
services are consumed at same time and products are also used instant that satisfied to customers.
In case of emergency offline products and services are only way to purchase and consume them
immediately.
Personal touch
With the regular shopping offline form same shop builds and maintain good relations
with the owner of shop, and he understand need and preferences of customers shopping and he
sell goods to customers according to his preferences only and to be a regular customer the
shopkeeper can give them discounts.
Replace
If the products that are purchased are not good and have bad quality or customer is not
satisfy with product or services, can get replaced and return to shopkeeper and purchase different
products as per their preferences and not wait to get return and replace get them on same time
(Mercurio, 2018).
Disadvantages
Less choice
To shop offline from stores there is limited variety in products and services. There are
limited choices in products and services and customers have to purchase from limited choices
only. The choices are limited and customers are not satisfied with limited stock.
More expensive
Offline products and services are more expensive than online products and services that
offer discounts and scheme on regular basis. Offline shopping products and services are more
expensive as compare to online shopping and for that offline products are less in demand as
compare to online products and services.
Time consuming
To shop products offline have to go to physical stores and it will be time consuming.
Going to stores and purchasing and even have to wait if there is crowd it waste a lots of time of
customers (Fan, and et.al., 2019). This is not happen in online shopping where mass customers
can shop at the same time and save their time.
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Limited hours
The offline products and services are available for limited period of time when the stores
are open and can’t get access to them according to convenient timings for shop. Have to
purchase offline products and services according to the time of stores open, so that the products
are purchased and available to consumers.
CONCLUSION
From this report in inferred that information and communication technology is effectively
used in this modern world, to communicate and inform important information with the use of
internet. With the help of ICT many businesses are effectively work during the time of lockdown
and don’t get affected on their regular operations. To get success during the pandemic and
sustain in market businesses use different communication and collaboration tools. Asana is a
most effective collaboration tool used by business during the pandemic to manages, maintain and
monitor regular working of team members and assign tem task and clarify by communicating.
Other tools used that helps the businesses for their survival are Scoro, team work and office 365.
Cloud computing and cloud storage are the models used to store large amount of data and
information of companies by using unified platform of cloud that can be easily accessible and
stored with the internet connection.
These are suitable to everyone because of its low cost, high storage capacity and can save
time to get access to any saved data quickly and easily. Different applications are set for cloud
computing and cloud storage so that company can use effectively to the applications for their
operation and increase productivity and growth. Products or services can be sell online and
offline, both have their positive and negative aspects and consumer have to think effectively for
using effective medium for consumption of their particular products. Online products and
services have wide range, low cost and convenient but also have risk of fraud and take time to
get delivered. Offline products and services get easily and have no risk of fraud but it is time
consuming and also more expensive.
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What is ICT? What is the Meaning or Definition of ICT?, 2021. [Online]. Available through <
https://www.michalsons.com/blog/what-is-ict/2525>. [Accessed on 15 June, 2021].
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