Holmes Institute HC1041: IT Impact on Business Report, T1 2019

This report examines the significant impact of Information Technology (IT) on business operations, using the British Airways data breach as a key case study. It explores the benefits of IT, such as improved data processing, customer relationship management, and cost optimization within the airline industry. The report details the data breach suffered by British Airways, highlighting vulnerabilities in their website and mobile application, leading to customer data exposure and financial repercussions. It analyzes the role of cybersecurity and data privacy management, emphasizing the importance of frameworks like COBIT and ISO/IEC 27001. Recommendations are provided for British Airways, including improved cybersecurity measures, employee training, and the implementation of IT governance frameworks. The report concludes by emphasizing the necessity of cybersecurity standards to protect information assets and maintain a positive business reputation. The assignment is a comprehensive analysis that aligns with the Holmes Institute's HC1041 unit, focusing on evaluating IT in a business context and providing practical solutions to IT-related issues.

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IT in Business
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IT in Business 1
Introduction
Information Technology (IT) is good for most of the successful businesses and it is highly
used in every business because of its benefits in long terms and short terms. IT makes a huge
impact on the business operated by an organization (Bharadwaj, El Sawy, Pavlou, &
Venkatraman, 2013). According to (Benjamins, 2006), artificial intelligence provides many
benefits in the business, such as data processing, data analysis, and reporting based on the
data collected from different business processes of the company.
This report will describe the uses of IT in the business and its bad impact on the business with
the example of British Airways data breach. It will provide the role of IT in business and data
privacy management in business using cybersecurity.
Resource utilization
Information systems provide many services to manage data of different business processes of
the company. There are few security and privacy issues in the information systems, which
make a high impact on the business of the company (Hron, 2018). British Airways have a
good image in the whole world because of their services to customers. The company uses
many resources to manage their business in the market. They have an information system to
manage different functions in which the company has stored data about the daily processes
and customer’s personal data (Leskin, 2018).
In the year 2018, hacker affects its website and mobile app through malicious code. It was
first discovered on September 6, 2018. It happened between August 21, 20 18 to September
5, 2018. The company disclosed this incident in public on September 7, 2018 (Katz, 2019).
In that data breach, personal data of customers have accessed by a known hacking group.
The company takes different types of information from customers, such as names, addresses,
email addresses, and credit cards details. According to (Katz, 2019), British Airways has
affected that cyber-attack and losses 380,000 users’ data. It is a huge issue in front of the
company, as it affects their reputation and financial losses.
The company has much vulnerability on its website. Therefore, hackers are access to their
database and infected them with malware. The incident could become the first major test case
of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, and the UK has
aligned laws (Scroxton, 2018).

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Source: (Katz, 2019)
In addition, British airways require a website and mobile application for booking and
transitions. It provides many benefits to them, as compared to offline bookings. Most people
are having smartphones in the present era. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a website
and mobile application for booking and other works, such as flight timings, availability, and
many more (Scroxton, 2018).
Moreover, airlines are having the latest software and computer systems to manage their
processes. Aircraft uses for transportation because it provides better facilities and saves the
time of peoples, as compared to other transportation options. IT is necessary to manage
different processes in airlines, such as booking, aircraft management, customer relationship
management, human resource management, financial management, and many others.
Airlines business has many cost-effective processes and IT is used to optimize those cost,
such as payment services, passenger management, and many others. In addition, IT is
helpful in planning as well. It provides data analysis reports of the whole system and based on
that reports top management can take decisions.
Beside it, IT is having a huge role in designing aircraft and strategies of their business.
Business intelligence is highly used in British Airways as well. In addition, aircraft are having
much equipment, which requires computer systems to manage all the things properly in an
aircraft. Special computer software and system are designed for aircraft (Chen, Chiang, &
Storey, 2012).
Pilots and crewmembers require training for the management of aircraft using IT. Employees
use information technology for customer management through the website and mobile
application. Airlines are based on IT, as most of the processes are based on the software.
Furthermore, British Airways are having many benefits from information technology to
manage their business. Online booking is making a huge impact on the revenue of the airline

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industry. In the present era, most of the passenger books their tickets using the website or
mobile application. In addition, third parties are also helping in increasing their passengers,
such as paytm, yatra.com, makemytrip.com, and many others. It provides more flexibility to
customers and the airline industry in booking and other services. It is not necessary to come
to their office for booking. It can be completed by a mobile application within few minutes
( Ransbotham, Kiron, Gerbert, & Reeves, 2017).
Apart from it, IT creates few risks to the business of the airline industry, such as data breach,
loss of personal information, interrupts in payment services, and many others. In addition,
without proper cybersecurity, information systems are not usable because of security reasons.
In addition, many framework and standards are available for cybersecurity and information
security, such as COBIT framework, ISO/IEC 27001 standard, ITIL, and many others (Brook,
2018). Those frameworks can secure the whole system from cyber-attacks, which secure
systems as well as data and access to information systems (Cecil, 2017).
Moreover, cybersecurity is necessary to use IT in business. It is necessary to follow all the
standards for secure the whole system from cyber-attacks. There are many mitigation
strategies provided by the government to prevent the online system from cyber-attacks. The
company must follow them to secure data and information (White, 2019).
In addition, the company can implement an information security system to secure their internal
processes as well as external processes, such as online booking, payments, and many
others. The company can hire professionals for security and privacy of data and information of
business processes, such as booking details, payment details, personal details of customers,
and many others (Zeng, Li, & Duan, 2012).
IT has many benefits in terms of cost analysis and time management, which are highly
required in the airline industry. It is the fastest transportation and it makes money because of
their quality services. The company can change fair of traveling according to the demand and
supply based on the data and information.
In addition, data breaches make bad impacts on the business of British Airways after that
incident. The company provides a refund to its customers after that data breach. Many
customers are unsatisfied because of that services and it makes a huge impact on their
financial conditions.
Financial condition is based on the reputation of the company and vice-versa. Therefore, it is
necessary to maintain quality in various services to satisfy customers and make a good
reputation in the market, which increases the revenue of the company. In addition, customers
are satisfied with different services and provide opportunities to expand their business at a
high level.

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Source: (irishexaminer.com, 2018)
IAG share price is down after that incident as shown in the above figure.
Recommendations
There are few recommendations for British Airways to maintain and monitor their whole
information system, website, and mobile application. The company should improve its policies
and standards to protect its information system and websites.
 Develop a cybersecurity cell to provide training to all the employees, which can
be helpful incident identification.
 Establish ethical and IT governance framework for information security, such
as ISO/IEC 27001, COBIT, TOGAF, and many others (van Grembergen & de
Haes, 2009).
 Implement firewalls, IDS and IPS systems to secure their network from
malfunctions
 Establish a security team to analyze suspicious activities in the network and
website through penetration testing tools
 Creates new policies and standards to uses information systems and other
hardware
 Identify vulnerabilities of the websites and reduces them to prevent the whole
system from cyber-attacks
 Use artificial intelligence in data analytics to enhance its business in the
international market (Tkáč & Verner, 2016)
 Develop servers and data center to secure information and data of the
business process (Shmueli, Bruce, Yahav, Patel, & Lichtendahl Jr., 2017).
The company to secure them from data breach and other cyber-attacks must follow all those
recommendations.

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Conclusion
In conclusion, British Airways losses its customer’s personal information in that data breach,
which makes many impacts on their business. The reputation of the company has down
because of its poor security on website and mobile application in the market.
Data breach makes the impact of the reputations and financial condition of the company. It
was happened because of vulnerabilities in the website of the company. Therefore, the
company must reimburse the whole amount of passengers.
In addition, IT provides many benefits to the company, but it creates difficult consequences in
front of the company because of less security of the website and mobile app. The company
should focus on cybersecurity and information security systems to secure their data and
information.
Finally, it is concluded that British Airways should adopt cybersecurity standards to secure
their information assets from cyber-attacks. It will provide many benefits to the company in
terms of reputation, financial condition, revenue, performance, profit, and many more.

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References
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