A Research Project on the Impact of Digital Technology on Primark, UK

This research report explores the multifaceted impact of digital technology on Primark's business operations in the UK, examining areas such as digital marketing, cloud technology, social media, mobile technology, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things. The study highlights how these technologies have revolutionized business processes, reduced operating costs, improved communication, and enhanced productivity. It also addresses the limitations and potential risks associated with over-reliance on digital platforms, including security vulnerabilities and human resource challenges. Ultimately, the research assesses the effectiveness of Primark's current digital infrastructure and identifies areas for further improvement, emphasizing the importance of balancing technological advancements with human oversight and robust security measures. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments for students.

Impact of Digital Technology
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Table of Contents
Research proposal............................................................................................................................3
1.2 Objectives- The objective of the study is to address the followings-........................................4
2. Literature Review........................................................................................................................4
2.1 introductions..............................................................................................................................4
LO2..................................................................................................................................................9
Primary Data Collection and Secondary Method (P3)....................................................................9
LO3................................................................................................................................................28
P5 Communicate the outcomes of a research project to identified stakeholders. Now that you
have completed your research project, communicate the research outcomes in an appropriate
manner for the intended medium...................................................................................................28
P6 Reflect on the effectiveness of research methods applied for meeting objectives of the
business research project...............................................................................................................29
P7 Consider alternative research methodologies and lessons learnt in view of the outcomes......30
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LO1. [P1, P2]
Research proposal
1. Introduction
Digital technology has revolutionized business and business processes. Starting from data
management, to formulate strategies, to marketing plans, employee management and customer
care; the impact is seen in every sphere of business. It has helped smaller business organizations
to compete with larger business organizations Digital technology has helped to reduce business
cost It has helped to improve the communication process; both within the organization and with
the customers. Different business software helped to improve the productivity by improved
monitoringemployee performance, address need gaps and manage employee appraisal.
Technology allows business organization to outsource different functions nationally and
international reducing labor cost. It allows small businesses to reach new markets. Basic
enterprise software enables a firm to automate back office functions, such as record keeping,
accounting and others. The technological improvements and development has provided both
tangible and elusive opportunities for the businesses thereby helping organizations makeprofits.
Ontheother way it can be stated that profitability is directly related to technology.
The importance of managing a successful business with the help of digital technology this
assignment will discuss the different research tasks and data analysis have been done to interpret
the “Impact of Digital Technology” on the business operations so that the organisations manages
their business successfully. The given research project is done in accordance with Primark, UK.
1.1 Aim
The Aim of this project is the research analysis on “Impact of Digital Technology”on the
different types of business operations of Primark, UK.
Primark, UK is an Irish company selling clothing and accessories.From children's clothing,
women's wear, men's wear, home ware, accessories, footwear, beauty products and confectionery
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to child care products; Primark has a vast range of products. It has more than 68,000 employees
working in over 325 stores worldwide. The company has generated £5,949million revenue.
1.2 Objectives- The objective of the study is to address the followings-
 To understand the Concept of Digital Marketing
 To study the Impact of Cloud technology on business administration of Primark
 To Discuss the impact of Social Media and Mobile technology on the business
 Use of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics to improve productivity
 The use of “Internet of Things” to improve the storage and distribution process.
 To understand the limitations of digital technology
 Find out areas for further research.
2. Literature Review
2.1 introductions
Organizations have either adopted the existing technologies or mademodifications, or they have
acquired new technologies to enhance business. The business shifted from labour based to
technology based. This reduced the operating cost administrative cost, increased productivity. It
also improved connectivity with internal and external customers. Reduction in operating cost
leads the organizations to focus on customer and employee benefit.
2.2 Review
Concept of Digital Marketing
Digital technology uses information in the form of numeric codes. Electronic equipment and
applications which uses this method of information are all considered part of Digital
Technology.A binary code system is used as its operation method.All personal computers,
calculators, automobiles, traffic light controllers, compact disc players, cellular telephones,
communications satellites, and high-definition television , mobile forms part of digital
technology.
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Impact of Cloud technology on business administration of Primark
Cloud computing is the term used to state the delivery of information hosted services through the
internet. Cloud computing helps companies to access remote virtual machine storage or an
application and get information or share information. As computing needs increase, companies
can upgrade and scale down when requirement is not needed. Thus company can avoid any
massive investments required in local infrastructure, and reduce its dependency on local
infrastructure.This also eliminates the traditional method of working through IT administrators.
End users can access remote resources for almost any type of workload whenever required. Since
such resources are measured at a “granular level”, it requires paying only for the resources and
workloads they use (Khanagha,et al, 2015). Hybrid cloud builds a unified, automated,
measurable environment that combines all data from the public cloud infrastructure, yet keeps
the control on the relevant data.
Discuss the impact of Social Media and Mobile technology on the business
Social media, and social networking, have altered the way of doing business.It has profound
impact on those companies that have adopted them and for those who have not. People spend
12% of time on sites like Face book, twitter and others. On an average people spend more than
4.5 hours on internet. Social networking accounts for 15.6 percent of online time spent by
individuals aged 15 years and older. Face book, alone has 600,000 regular users across the world
and its members include companies, organizations, besides people .and brands to utilize its
platform to connect with their audience.( Li, et al, 2015) Social media is that platform which
allowsusers to share links, images, and personal experiences in both written and video form.
Use of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics to improve productivity and security
AI (artificial intelligence) is the amalgamation of human intelligence processes and computer
systems.It sensory expert system has a capability to deduce multiple aspects and the visual
systems analyze the visual inputs such as face recognition, gesture recognition, and object
recognition. It has the ability to use the human aspects of reasoning. It enables learning,
reasoningand self-correction all through machine. Some AI includes expert systems for voice
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and speech recognition .Robotics is one such AI which enables mobilization of goods beyond
human capacity(Castelluccio, M., 2017) However, it needs intelligence to manage tasks like
“object manipulation” and “navigation”, along with problems of localization, motion planning
and mapping and others.AI has the capability of processing andanalyzing large amounts of data
quickly andoffer faster resolution to problems.An effective communication system integrates the
data between the nodes. Gong, Chorus, and Jog are some of the tools that assist inrecording
andtranscribing the calls or discussions that a sales representative had with customer. It helps
company to compare the strategies employed by the sales executive to every other salesperson
within the company.
Digital technology helps to analyze a variety of components like choice of word, theamount of
time spent in actual message giving versus listening. There are certain tools, which help to
analyze performance and coach sales executives, just like a human supervisor would do. It
provides an organization with a list of best customers, filtering the vast information that has been
collected(Tkáč, et al, 2016).This information includes customer email, phone number, and
address, date of birth, purchase pattern and other related data.Based on data, system generates
proper advertisement. AI solutions, like Tangowork and Rocketbot, gives employees access to
HR information anytime of the day and throughout the year. Tools like Keatext and
Monkeylearn, provides entrepreneurs with direct customer feedback, and helps to get clear and
categorized customer feelings and thoughts in return.Entrepreneurs can pinpoint customers who
are most attracted to their value proposition (Loebbecke, et al, 2015). Thus, a business
organization can identify their targeted customer and design more customer-centric
advertisement. AI also gives entrepreneurs deep market insights and help to develop new
products or make necessary modifications in services and products.
AI enables to do multiple works simultaneously and differently.AI has memorization,
transactions, prediction as well as collaborative power, which generates pinpointed data as per
the requirement of a particular function (Cha, et al, 2018). Big Data Analytics is one such
technology thathelps to process the high-volume and complex data that cannot be otherwise
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handled by normal or regular data processing software. Big Data has the cost saving benefit, time
reduction benefits and helps to have a control over the online reputation of the organization.
The use of “Internet of Things” to improve the storage and distribution process
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of devices, vehicles, home appliances and other
items, which has electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity . It enables to connect and
exchange data providing more opportunities for direct integration of the physical world into
computer-based systems. This improves efficiency and offers immense economic benefits with
reduced human labor. One such,platform is Smart Home, which is more popular to household
areas than Industrial areas .prominentorganizations who are already using this platform are Nest
or AlertMe as well as a number of multinational corporations like Philips, Haier, or
Belkin."Enterprise IoT”, used in business and corporate world (Wortmann, et al, 2016).
Industrial internet as the Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept with the highest potential; its use
has not yet reached the masses like “Smart home” and “wearable”. This helps in tracking goods
while they are on transit, or help during supply or exchange of inventory related information.
The “connected car” is another IoT which most large automakers are planning to launch.
The limitations of digital technology
There are many advantages of Digital technology however many occasions business has been
lost also.
Security issues –Data saved in platforms like Cloud are fed by much security information and
core data which when hacked can prove detrimental to the organization. Financial data, security
related files and legal matters all are atstake. Therefore organization needs to keep back up
storage system also.
Human resource issues- Technical knowledge to employees is important to feed in data and
operate such technical platform. The human touch of compassion is missing in case of customer
service where consumers prefer to speak to a human and not a machine. Regular training to
employees is necessary to keep them updated regarding technological changes. This might
hamper productivity and increase complexity of operation.
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Over dependency of technology – Overdependence on Technology is harmful for the business.
Functionsoperating through digital platform might come to standstill in case of technical
glitches, leading to reduced productivity, loss of data and rework. Server problems have been
seen to hold productions in many occasions.
2.3 Summary
The above literature shows that evolution of digital technology really influences multiple aspect
of business. Starting from the use of Cloud to assimilate and share data across the globe to AI to
control security; digital technology has remarkable effects. In old days, all data used to be
collected physically which was time-consuming. However, with the help of digital technology,
raw data from customer can be feed into the system, which enables the organization the market
need and help to formulate strategies incurring les expenses. In industrial sector the employment
of robots in the department has led to faster movement of good in much larger quantiy.AI also
helps assist quality analysis and performance analysis from the vast data that are feed in and
require fast processing. However, digital technology is not capable of doing work alone and
requires human to control them. Sometimes complicated system design makes simple functions
more complex. Hackers pose a new threat to business organizations, as all data are stored in
software .Too much dependence of digital technology also hampers productivity without
enhancing it at the time of technical glitches. Therefore this research will aim at functionality of
the digital technology , its impacts in day to day life of employees of Primarkto access the
effectiveness of the current system and if there are any areas of improvement. This project
started with sample collection from employees of Primark, UK,
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Methodology
Research methodologyis procedures used to identify, select, process, and analyze
information about a topic. It allows to critically evaluatethe validity and reliability of
the study .Two important component of research methodology is Data collection and Data
analysis. After the data is collected it needs to be analyzed systematically.
Primary data analysis is of two types
 Qualitative analysis -non-numeric analysis
 Quantitative analysis.- numerical analysis
LO2
Primary Data Collection and Secondary Method (P3)
Primary data was collected by means of “survey” method.100 employees, working in different
departments of Primark, UK, have been selected for the survey. The questionnaire that was
designed included 10 easy questions to answer
How satisfied are you with the overall quality of the service?( Tick the most appropriate)
Very Satisfied-
Somewhat Satisfied-
Unsatisfied-
Is you issue usually resolved after the first time you contact the tech-support? ?( Tick the most
appropriate)
Yes
No
Did you use the online support portal for the issue? ?( Tick the most appropriate)
Yes
No
Do you prefer technology based learning or classroom training?
Do you get all data related to your performance in HR portal?
Yes
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No
Are you allowed to share your feedbacks through company portal?
Yes
No
Do you connect to your customers through social media?
Yes
No
How long does it take the IT team to resolve your issue?
1 day
2 days
More than the above
How do you initiate any HR issues?
Mail
Phone
HR portal
Does your system help you to evaluate your own productivity?
Yes
No
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The survey data and the feedback as collected from employees of Primark, UK is as follows-
1) How satisfied are you with the overall quality of the service?
Options Percentage of
respondents
Total number of
Respondents
Total number of
Respondents
Very Satisfied 60 60 100
Somewhat Satisfied 6 6 100
Unsatisfied 34 34 100
Very Satisfied
Somewhat Satisfied
Unsatisfied
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
60
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34
Percentage of respondents
The above data shows that 60% of the employees are verysatisfied with the overall quality of
service provided by the technological tools used within at Primarks, U.K. however 34% of
employees are unsatisfied therefore in-depth research and feedback is needed.
2) Is you issue usually resolved after the first time you contact the tech-support?
Options Percentage of
respondents
Total number of
Respondents
Total number of
Respondents
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Yes 60 60 100
Neutral 6 6 100
No 34 34 100
As per the data above, it can be said that most of the employees get first resolution; however
there are some 34% who feel that their problems are not solved at first go so they have to make
multiple follow-ups.
Yes
Neutral
No
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
60
6
34
Percentage of respondents
3) How frequently do you use the online support portal for the issue? (Tick the most appropriate)
Options Percentage of
respondents
Total number of
Respondents
Total number of
Respondents
Very Frequently 30 30 100
Frequently 50 50 100
Rarely 10 10 100
Very rarely 10 10 100
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