Information Technology's Role in Barclays Bank's Success and Failure

This report examines the crucial role of Information Technology (IT) in business, using Barclays Bank as a case study. It explores how IT functions contribute to both the success and potential failures of a business, highlighting the importance of digital marketing, customer satisfaction, resource management, and decision-making. The report also addresses ethical and social issues related to business operations, such as sexual harassment, health and safety, environmental responsibility, discrimination, and labor unions. Furthermore, it differentiates between various networking technologies, including LAN, MAN, and WAN, as well as point-to-point and multi-point networks. The significance of social media in business is discussed, emphasizing its role in search engine optimization, brand awareness, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty. Finally, the report outlines the stages of the software development life cycle, encompassing planning, requirement definition, design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance. The case study of Barclays Bank illustrates how companies are effectively using IT to enhance their profitability and customer engagement.

Introduction to
Information
Technology
Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Functions of IT in the success and failure of a business........................................................1
Discuss ethical and social issues related with functioning of businesses...............................2
Differentiate between different forms of networking technologies.......................................3
Explain the importance of social media in a business............................................................4
Discuss various stages of software development life cycle ...................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
This report is initiated to understand the importance of information technology in the
business. Information technology is defines as use of computer system to carry out business
activities and solve various business problems. It is the process of storing and transferring of
information and data as per the requirement also studying, developing and managing the
computer based information system. In this report the Barclays bank is take as the base
organisation. The Barclays bank is one of the top bank in the UK, it was founded in 1960 by
John Freame and Thomas Gould who were known as goldsmiths of London city. Barclays
mainly works in the businesses like personal banking, corporate banking, wealth management
and investment management. In context to the chosen organisation the importance of IT in their
success and failure also the ethical and social issues related with functioning of business is
highlighted in this report. In addition to this the various types of networking technologies and
importance of social media in a business is also explained. Further more various stages of
software development like cycle is also highlighted in this report.
TASK
Functions of IT in the success and failure of a business
The information technology has changed the functioning of business entities, various
technological changes that has happened are online shopping, use of social media marketing,
cloud computing and so on. The success and failure of any business depends on the right use of
technology by the business and careful analysis of marketplace where the technology is used
(Ahson and Ilyas, 2017).
The role of IT in the success of the business is highlighted below:
 The digital marketing helps business entities to promote their business entities as well as
their product and services through various online platforms, no business can success
without the use of digital marketing or presence on the internet. In context to the Barclays
bank, it is using its own social media platform that is its app to interact with their
customers and provide them their online services(Beirne and Ramsay, 2018).
 Another key to success for the business is satisfying their customers, business needs to
carefully analyse needs and wants of their customers and accordingly fulfil them, one of
they best way to understand their need, demand is through communication. Technology
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helps business entities to communicate wide range of customers using various tools like
social media, email, webinars, messaging and so on. In context to the chosen industry, to
satisfy its customers across the city and across the globe it is providing online services
like day to day banking, store documents with cloud it and keep tracking with the text
alert system on their application (Chuang and Huang, 2018).
 Proper managing of resources helps business to move towards their success, in case of
top management it becomes very difficult to manage all the resources by themselves.
Technology plays a very vital role here, technology enables business to store and manage
or monitor their resources from anywhere at any time using technologies like cloud based
enterprise resource planning. In respect to Barclays, this role of IT helps in enhancing
profitability and productivity of the company.
 Technologies also helps business in making right decision at the right time which is very
important for the growth of the business, technologies helps business to get actual time
response from their targeted customers from around the world. In context to the Barclays,
company is effectively using their online technologies to get accurate response from their
customers across globe (Cui, 2017).
Factors which can lead to the failure of the businesses
 One of the major concern for the business is security of its customer, using technology
involves various risk factors like safety, security also increasing cyber crimes on the
internet, these factors can lead to the failure of the business. In context to chosen
industry, company can use various security factors like antivirus, making their platform
solid strong to minimise risk of increasing various internet threats.
 Another factor can be not having access of internet, business won't be able to reach the
customers not having access to the internet.In context to the Barclays company can make
their use of technology reach to all the uncovered areas.
Discuss ethical and social issues related with functioning of businesses
The various ethical issues related with functioning of the business are highlighted below:
Sexual harassment: One of the growing issue related with functioning of the business is
sexual harassment at the work place. This issue should be carefully monitored by the each and
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every organisation, needed actions should be taken(6 Ethical Issues in Business and What to Do
About Them,2020).
Health and safety issues: Another ethical issue related with the functioning of the
business is health and safety issues, safety of employees should be carefully monitored by the
business.
Environmental responsibility: Every business has responsibility towards the
environmental issues which should be fulfilled effectively.
Social issues related with functioning of the business are as follow:
Discrimination among employees: One of the major social issued related with
functioning of the business is discriminating employees on the basis of gender, colour, age and
so on.
Labour unions: The major issue business faces is from labour union, business needs to
work with union in order to smoothly carry out their activities
In context to the Barclays, both ethical and social issues need to be carefully monitored in
order to enhance their productivity and profitability.
Differentiate between different forms of networking technologies
Network technologies is defined as the technologies used to transfer and exchange the
data between small and big information, networking allows user to send message or email as per
the requirements (Hao and Song, 2016).
Network technologies on the basis of scale
The network technologies based on the scale are LAN(Local area network), MAN
(metropolitan area network) and WAN ( wide area network), the differentiation between these
network is highlighted below:
LAN MAN WAN
 LAN is an acronym for
local area network
 The control of the local
area network is private.
 The communication
speed of local area
 MAN is an acronym
for metropolitan area
network.
 The control of
metropolitan area
network can be with
 WAN is an acronym
for wide area network
 whereas the control of
wide area network is
with only one business
entities(Heeks, 2017).
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network is mainly very
high as it covers LAN
only.
 The design and
maintenance is easy in
case of local area
network (Hills, 2018).
both private or public .
 The communication
speed of metropolitan
area network is
normally average.
 The design and
maintenance is not so
easy in case of MAN.
 In case of WAN the
communication speed
is very low as it is
covering wide area of
network.
 Whereas in case of
WAN the design and
maintenance is hard as
compared to LAN and
MAN.
Network technology on the basis of transmission
The network technologies on the basis of transmission are highlighted below:
Point to point: Under this network the transmitter and receiver are directly connected
with each other, information send is also transferred directly using the direct medium sources
under point to point network.
Multi-point: In case of multi point network, various nodes are connected with each other
directly with the support of a average medium in a lineal method.
Explain the importance of social media in a business
Some of the reasons to understand why social media is important are explained below:
Makes search engine optimization stronger: Social media makes businesses to be easily
found by the customers, if businesses are optimizing their social profile regularly with creative
content makes them create a strong presence on the social media.
Increase brand awareness: Social media is one of the important tool used by the
marketer to make consumer aware of their brand. Targeting audience on the social media helps
business to makes their brand visible and enhance their productivity (Huda, 2019).
Increasing customer satisfaction: one of the most important task of any business is
satisfying its target customers, social media helps businesses to connect and interact with their
customers directly. Social media also help business in providing personalised services to their
customers in order to satisfy their needs. Satisfying customers using social media can be done
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through offering various offers, various important announcements using social media and
offering customer services can help in increasing customer services.
Maintains brand loyalty: Having strong social media strategies and sharing solid
valuable contents helps business in maintaining their loyal customers and also increasing their
customer base. In order to maintain the brand loyalty businesses needs to maintain their
consistency and interaction with your customers.
In context to the Barclay bank, it was the first bank to which allowed the social media
users to make payments using their application called Pingit app, the bank is actively engaged in
the social media by allowing their customers to directly interact with them using their app, this
app also allow their customers to send money by just using mobile numbers. In addition to this,
company is using various social media platforms like twitter, Instagram to interact with their
customers make their customers aware of their brand (Langer, 2017).
Discuss various stages of software development life cycle
The software development life cycle is the framework followed to produce quality
software by the development team in order to satisfy the needs and expectations of the targeted
customers. The various stages of software development life cycle are explained below:
(The above graph highlights various stages of software development life cycle)
Planning: The first stage of software development life cycle is planning, this stage
clearly defines the scope and aim of the application, it clearly defines the course and actions
needs to be taken by the team members, it includes project leaders considering the purpose of
project (Libicki, 2016).
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Define requirement: The next step is defining the requirements, it includes all defining
all the resources required in order to build the project successfully. It is also define how
application should function and its various requirements.
Design and prototyping: The design stage ensure that how the project or application will
function using various aspects like user interface, platforms, programming, security and so on.
Prototyping is also part of design stage only, it ensure how the application will work and look
like.
Software development: The another stage of software development life cycle is software
development, under this stage where programmer finally starts writing the program, the small
projects are written by the single programmer whereas the large projects are written by the many
programmers.
Testing: After developing the software the next stage is testing the application , it is one
of the critical stage where the developer needs to test the application before making it accessible
to the users. Various parts of the applications are tested effectively in order to reduce any kind of
bugs that can occur.
Deployment: After the testing is done properly by the developer, the next stage is
deployment under this the application is made available to the user for the use. Under this stage
the companies deploy their application through automation.
Operations and maintenance: The last stage of software development life cycle is
operations and maintenance, under this stages if any kind of bugs are found they are needs to be
maintained properly, it ensure the proper functioning of all the operations (Martin, 2017).
Potential benefits and drawbacks of company investing in information technology
The Barclays is effectively using various modes of social media in order satisfy their
customers and also to provide various online services(Mittal and Mehar, 2016). Industry is
gaining huge advantage from the use of technology their profitability and productivity is
increasing, their customer base across globe is also increasing with the help of their application.
The major drawback of technology for the Barclays can be increasing concern of cyber threat,
which should be monitored carefully (Sinopoli, 2016).
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that the information technology play an
important role in storing and transferring of data and information effectively. In the above report
the importance of IT in the success and failure of a business also various social and ethical issues
related with running a business entity. In addition to this different types of network technologies
are differentiated also the importance of social media in a business is also highlighted.
Furthermore various stages of software development life cycle is also explained in the above
report.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ahson, S.A. and Ilyas, M., 2017. RFID handbook: applications, technology, security, and
privacy. CRC press.
Beirne, M. and Ramsay, H. eds., 2018. Information technology and workplace democracy (Vol.
6). Routledge.
Chuang, S.P. and Huang, S.J., 2018. The effect of environmental corporate social responsibility
on environmental performance and business competitiveness: The mediation of green
information technology capital. Journal of Business Ethics, 150(4). pp.991-1009.
Cui, X., 2017. In-and extra-role knowledge sharing among information technology professionals:
The five-factor model perspective. International Journal of Information
Management, 37(5). pp.380-389.
Hao, S. and Song, M., 2016. Technology-driven strategy and firm performance: Are strategic
capabilities missing links?. Journal of Business Research, 69(2). pp.751-759.
Heeks, R., 2017. Information and communication technology for development (ICT4D).
Routledge.
Hills, J., 2018. Information technology and industrial policy (Vol. 20). Routledge.
Huda, M., 2019. Empowering application strategy in the technology adoption: insights from
professional and ethical engagement. Journal of Science and Technology Policy
Management.
Langer, A.M., 2017. Information Technology and Organizational Learning: Managing
Behavioral Change in the Digital Age. CRC Press.
Libicki, M., 2016. Information technology standards: quest for the common byte. Elsevier.
Martin, W.J., 2017. The global information society. Taylor & Francis.
Mittal, S. and Mehar, M., 2016. Socio-economic factors affecting adoption of modern
information and communication technology by farmers in India: Analysis using
multivariate probit model. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, 22(2).
pp.199-212.
Sinopoli, J., 2016. Advanced technology for smart buildings. Artech House.
Tsoulos, G. ed., 2018. MIMO system technology for wireless communications. CRC press.
Online
6 Ethical Issues in Business and What to Do About Them,2020 [online] available through;
<https://sprigghr.com/blog/hr-professionals/6-ethical-issues-in-business-and-what-to-do-about-
them/>
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