Information Technology Impact on Business: Marks and Spencer Report

This report delves into the multifaceted role of Information Technology (IT) within the business context, using Marks and Spencer as a case study. It begins with an introduction defining IT and its significance in managing data and driving business objectives, followed by a literature review exploring th...Read More

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................1
Role of IT in the growth of the business......................................................................................1
Social and ethical issues within the business...............................................................................2
Identify and explain different types of network technologies.....................................................4
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION...................................................................................................5
Importance of Internet and Intranet within the business..............................................................6
The stages of system development..............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Information technology define as managing and expanding the high range of software
& hardware compound that helps to collect the usable sources of data within the business. This
information provides the usable solution to the business so while using the advance technology
in the business, firm can able to interpreted and forecast the data that helps firm to achieved the
future objectives (McCullough, Parente and Town, 2016). Henceforth, new technological is
create important role in the new current trends. It is advance future programme that elaborate the
technology-based sources and also increase the performance of enterprises to compete with
competition. Thus, IT is provide the new version of services and product that helps to enhance
revenue. Furthermore, IT provides the different advantages like times saving and cost saving
advantages. Thus, this advantages helps to firm that it can enhance the income and profitability
of organization.
The present report is discussed information technology of Mark and Spencer. It is major
British multinational retailer which provides high quality clothing, home products and food
products and there headquartered in Westminster.
Henceforth, report will cover the various role of information technology within the
business such as - social and ethical issues that pertain an organization, differentiate between
different types of networking technologies, Significance of Intranet and Internet for the firm.
Lastly, report will discuss various stage of System development life cycle.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Role of IT in the growth of the business.
As per the view of Andrade and Doolin (2016), since its establishing in 1884, ages of
Brits have depended on retailer Marks and Spencer for sustenance top choices like tea and
hotdog moves, just as general product including attire. In spite of the fact that the organization
opened as a solitary slow down in an outside market, today Marks and Spencer is a worldwide,
multichannel retailer with 800 physical stores and a yearly turnover of £10.3 billion.
Developing the website — the main role of IT in business is development of website. It has
provided a platform for companies to develop their own website. For this there are different
types of programming languages used. Moreover, there are many software as well which are
used to develop website. So, it has highly benefited business to sell products and services online.
Alongside, there are many web developer available which helps in developing website.
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The use of technology has made it easy to develop website. It has enabled small business
as well to use technology for this purpose. Through this, they are able to offer products to more
customers in wide area.
The outer change was truly noticeable to Marks and Spencer's unwavering client
following (Reinventing a Classic: Marks & Spencer Wins in the Digital Age, 2015). The
organization patched up its site, making it all the more spotless, vivid and article—including
highlights like an online magazine, Style and Living, centred at catching the eye of occupied
customers.
The sensational outer change at Marks and Spencer was encouraged by a similarly great,
however less unmistakable, change in the organization's innovation frameworks and foundation.
The site patch up implied leaving a more seasoned web based business stage and moving to
another stage that offered more prominent speed, adaptability, versatility and responsiveness.
Their new site was likewise coordinated with existing innovation frameworks for consistent
request the executives and extraordinarily improved client administration, guaranteeing
proceeding with customer reliability. The organization likewise utilized cutting edge innovation
to assault one of the biggest single cost focuses in retail: item returns. Not exclusively did this
fundamentally diminish distribution centre work and taking care of expenses, yet it guaranteed
that product was promptly accessible for re-buy, decreasing the probability of markdowns.
Social and ethical issues within the business.
According to Theis and Wong (2017), Mark and Spencer have understood the benefits of
mirroring a moral sense in business tasks. The hierarchical condition assumes a noteworthy job
in the sort of moral sense the representatives have and they are attempting to guarantee that their
representatives carry on morally. Despite the fact that there are numerous laws affecting the
business condition of the retailer, there are a lot more perspectives that go under the domain of
morals. These angles unease the product acquiring and selling rehearses in organization. Mark
and Spencer likewise should be socially aware and environmental concern. They carry out those
activities that are advantageous to the universal and are measuring the resources in the
parameters of decreasing in wastage amount and recycling the materials for re-use purpose. The
ethical and social issues are caused due to the improper ethical practices towards their
consumers, shareholders and employees.
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 Moral practice towards shoppers — M&S must charge reasonable cost for the items
offered to them. The customers reserve the privilege to get right and exact information
about the items offered to them in regard of guarantee, surety, value, use, fixings and so
forth. Morals is fundamental for the long kept running of the business and moral business
is fundamental in the present aggressive and dynamic condition.
 Moral practice towards financial specialists/investors — The investors are the
proprietors of the business. Investors must be given reasonable profits for their venture at
normal interims. The investors ought to be revealed with right data about the monetary
status of the business association. The business association must act in light of a
legitimate concern for the investors.
 Moral practices towards workers — Moral practices must implemented in the way so
that workers can do it. Mark and Spencer have a lot of skilled and unskilled employees
and systems is confined for the workers with respect to advancement, enlistment,
preparing, welfare and choice etc. Issues related to business work spot can enhance loss
of notoriety. Also, it leads to immediate poor staff confidence, low efficiency, and high
work turnover. To stay away from these negativities, the retail director must pursue code
of conduct which comes under the moral practices towards representatives.
Their social variables are most powerful for their business achievement. Inside the
organization, social variables' can differ according to the different areas, for example, rich clients
who visit rural shopping centres versus the individuals who stroll by down-town customer facing
facades. Indeed, even their website developer might be impacted by social elements, as they
endeavour to pull in and claim to the market fragment that speaks to their optimal customer base.
 Age distribution — The age scope of purchasers enables M&S to figure out what sorts
of items and administrations they should offer. In view of the time of purchasers, they
can choose and control what kind and how much stock they request for their outlets. This
will likewise enable them to decide how to advertise, advance and show their items in
manners that are most engaging their intended interest group and considering what each
age range purchases will keep retailers on the forefront.
 Consumer Income — Purchaser pay can drive M&S business significantly, just as the
UK economy. The more salary buyers have, the better they feel about the economy, the
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more cash they spend. Purchaser pay will affect how much capacity the M&S needs to
flourish in the present focused market.
Identify and explain different types of network technologies.
As per the view of Sittig and Singh (2015), the network is consists of two or more
connect devices which is used for the purpose of communicating and sharing resources. It can be
either wireless or wired with the use of cables, satellites etc.
 LAN or Local Area Network — These connections link to devices so that computers
and laptop can share data, files, informations and projects. LAN covers a littler geological
region and are exclusive. One can utilize it within the area of business, home, medical
clinic, schools etc. It is difficult to implement and maintain. It covers a short separation,
thus the mistake of transfer the information are limited. LAN can be designed in the ring,
transport and star topology. The ring topology is predominant in the Token Ring LANs of
IBM and transport is far-reaching in Token Bus and Ethernet LANs. It is a communicated
system where the message is sent to all the associated has as all the host share a similar
transmission medium. Broadcasting should be possible in two different ways statically
and progressively. In the static strategy, the hosts are furnished with an unmistakable
time cut for transmitting the data. While in the dynamic technique, the hosts can
adaptably send the casing at a specific time.
 Metropolitan Area Network — MAN or Metropolitan Area Network covers a bigger
area as compared to coverage of area done by LAN and cover a little zone in contrasted
with WAN. It creates link between at least two Computers that are separated in area but
existed within the equivalent urban areas. It spreads till the huge topographical territory.
It's difficult to plan and keep up a Metropolitan Area Network (Difference Between LAN,
MAN and WAN, 2019). Example of MAN is exorbitant and might be possessed by a
solitary association and the information move rate of MAN is moderate.
 WAN or Wide Area Network — It is computers organize that ranges over an enormous
land territory. A WAN could be an association of LAN connecting with another LAN by
the means of wires of telephones and radio waves. A Communication medium utilized for
wide zone system is PSTN or Satellite Link. Because of long separation transmission, the
clamour and mistake will in general be more in WAN. Engendering postponement is one
of the most serious issues confronted here. WAN diagrammatic example unlike LAN,
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WAN uses exchanging that enables various PCs to interface with a few switches as
opposed to associating with one another. It additionally utilizes the store-and-forward
idea to transmit parcels, where bundles are put away in a cradle on a transitory premise at
that point sent to the goal by following the predefined way.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
It can be discussed that the Information technology has transformed the manner in which
people communicate and understand information and things. Advancement of the technology
have made the world modernised and improved the lifestyle of the business along with the easy
and comfortable environment to the customer. Moreover, it has shaped the society into the new
form which is completely depends on the internet (Erasmus, Strydom and Rudansky-Kloppers,
2016) . It can be analysed that internet have converted the real world into the digitised format in
which all the things are now can be performed via internet that leads to IOT (Internet of things)
as well. In this changing world, one thing which have been strongly affected and adopted the
rapid changes are the Business organization.
Advancement of technology have completely eliminated the efforts of the human beings
in meeting the main objectives of the organization. Such technological changes within the
society takes place in a great context and therefore it have been resulted in a various software
which performs all operational functions within a second. As earlier all the tasks and activities
are generally carried out by the human resource of the company which has resulted in inefficient
work as well as it has more chances of human error which restricts the organizations to achieve
higher growth and profitability.
Importance of Internet and Intranet within the business
Intranet is basically used to serve the digital communication needs of the
organization. Also this provides the secure place within the company in order to store, retrieve
and update the digital information and electronic data of the company (Guðlaugsson And et.al.,
2017). However, internet is use worldwide which allows the organization to understand the
marketing trends as well as perspectives of the customers via using the social media and various
similar content. Also, internet provides a quick approach of the corporation towards their
customer and therefore it have highly contributed towards the increased sales and profitability of
the business. So internet and intranet can be hugely beneficial for the organization in many
different forms such as :
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 Internet is important because it helps in development of the business by providing the
powerful communication.
 Internet also allows the business organizations to use marketing tools in order to enhance
the customer approach as well as sustainability of the business.
 It can also be analysed that internet helps the business to grow and successfully meet the
main objectives within this competitive market.
 Internet also allows the business to understand the effective strategy which leads to
improved customer satisfaction and quality of the services.
 As the Intranet is generally for the internal business environment of the organization so it
is basically known as private network which ensures the internal communication.
 Intranet is used for the improving the employee performance and also it helps in
improving the productivity and performance of the business.
 Intranet within the business also allows the organization to enhance the internal
communication within the company which develops a strong relationship of the staff
member (Karlsson, Larsson and Öhrwall Rönnbäck, 2018).
 Intranet is a local network which is designed to improve the internal functions of the
business so it helps focus towards improved communication, greater efficiency and better
resource management within the organization.
The stages of system development life cycle (SDLC)
System development can be referred as a process which involves the defining, designing,
testing and implementation of the new software by application of the particular program. The
programmed software allows the business organization in managing all the work effectively and
efficiently. The SDLC helps the user to convert an innovative project into a practical one. It can
be referred to as a software development life-cycle which involves the process that is involved in
developing a software to its testing and execution. The development of the system have reduced
the efforts of the labour and human resource of the company as these system software performs
all such functions which can earlier be carried out by the top management employees of the
organization. Due to the advancement of the technology, there are various improvements in the
form of development of software for every function within the business (Nguyen, Newby and
Macaulay, 2015). Such software includes the ERP, TPS, MIS and AI etc. These systems are used
for performing all the strategic function within the firm and also helps in improving the effective
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efficient operations within the company. Therefore in order to develop such systems for the
business, there are various different types of stages are involved within The system development
life cycle is usually categorised into six major phases, which can be described below:
Planning
This phase consists of perfect plan which helps the software developer to proceed the
further steps which proved to be effective system. During the planning of the system, weaknesses
and strengths of the project need to be considered so that desired output can be achieved. This
includes the planning for the resources, functionalities, requirements, structure and cost of the
project.
Analysing
This phase mainly focus towards the performance analysis of the system by determining
the efficiency and effective work of the system. It can be considered as one of the important step
as it involves the analysis of the future as well as present requirements in order to develop
effective software system within the business.
Designing
This phase is concerned with the architecture of the system. Designing phase allows the
users interface in order to interact with the system (Paul and et.al., 2018). This involves the main
design of the system which will be visible to the final user.
Development and Implementation
This stage can be considered as the actual task which is involved in developing the
software as it includes the data recording. Development and implementation can be performed
via programming of the system which instruct the system to carry out the actual functions.
Testing
This stage assesses the errors and bugs which are raised during the software development
and programming of the system.
Maintenance
Once the software passes through all the phases then it undergoes the maintenance
process. As the system requires the maintained and timely up-gradation which can be performed
under this stage.
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CONCLUSION
From the above project report it can be summarized that information technology is the
best technology which helps to firm for achieve the competitive advantages. It helps to provide
the best solution to promote the clothing product within the market successfully. Therefore, it
provides the valuable information to the firm so, business can use different computer software's
in their business to maintain the work through store, transfer, manipulate and retrieve data. Thus,
this process is helps organization to achieve the future growth as well as enhance the business in
globally through online marketing. Thus, To manage the privacy, entity using various processing
systems within the business.
The project report has based on information technology of Marks and Spencer. The report
has explained the various role of information technology in the context of Mark and Spencer
Furthermore, report has explained the Local Area Network, Wide Area Network, Metropolitan
Area Networks it is different types of networking technologies which provide the network
service in particular area. Moreover, report has examined consequence of internet and Intranet.
Lastly, report has also defined the system development life cycle.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Erasmus, B., Strydom, J.W. and Rudansky-Kloppers, S. eds., 2016. Introduction to business
management. Oxford University Press Southern Africa.
Guðlaugsson, T.V. And et.al., 2017. Modelling production system architectures in the early
phases of product development. Concurrent Engineering. 25(2). pp.136-150.
Karlsson, A., Larsson, L. and Öhrwall Rönnbäck, A., 2018. Product-service system innovation
capabilities: linkages between the fuzzy front end and subsequent development
phases. International Journal of Production Research. 56(6). pp.2218-2232.
Nguyen, T.H., Newby, M. and Macaulay, M.J., 2015. Information technology adoption in small
business: Confirmation of a proposed framework. Journal of Small Business
Management. 53(1). pp.207-227.
Paul, P. and et.al., 2018. Business Information Sciences emphasizing Digital Marketing as an
emerging field of Business & IT: A Study of Indian Private Universities. IRA
International Journal of Management & Social Sciences,(ISSN 2455-2267). 10(2). pp.63-
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Andrade, A.D. and Doolin, B., 2016. Information and communication technology and the social
inclusion of refugees. Mis Quarterly. 40(2). pp.405-416.
Sittig, D.F. and Singh, H., 2015. A new socio-technical model for studying health information
technology in complex adaptive healthcare systems. In Cognitive Informatics for
Biomedicine(pp. 59-80). Springer, Cham.
Theis, T.N. and Wong, H.S.P., 2017. The end of moore's law: A new beginning for information
technology. Computing in Science & Engineering. 19(2). p.41.
Roztocki, N. and Weistroffer, H.R., 2015. Information and communication technology in
transition economies: An assessment of research trends. Information Technology for
Development. 21(3). pp.330-364.
Singh, H. and Sittig, D.F., 2016. Measuring and improving patient safety through health
information technology: The Health IT Safety Framework. BMJ Qual Saf. 25(4). pp.226-
232.
McCullough, J.S., Parente, S.T. and Town, R., 2016. Health information technology and patient
outcomes: the role of information and labor coordination. The RAND Journal of
Economics. 47(1). pp.207-236.
Online
Reinventing a Classic: Marks & Spencer Wins in the Digital Age. 2015. [Online]. Available
through :
<https://www.ibm.com/blogs/watson-customer-engagement/2015/09/11/reinventing-a-
classic-marks-spencer-wins-in-the-digital-age/>.
Difference Between LAN, MAN and WAN. 2019. [Online]. Available through :
<https://techdifferences.com/difference-between-lan-man-and-wan.html>.
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