Introduction to Information Technology: A Comprehensive Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of information technology, focusing on its ethical and social implications, various networking technologies, and its crucial role in business management. The report delves into ethical issues like privacy, security, and communication, highlighting their significance in the context of service sector industries such as hotels. It then explores different types of networks, including PAN, LAN, WAN, and SAN, explaining their functionalities and applications. Finally, the report examines the role of information technology in management, discussing its impact on inventory management, data management, customer relationship management, and business performance management. The report emphasizes how IT systems enhance operational efficiency, customer service, and overall business success. The report draws examples from the hotel industry to illustrate the concepts discussed.

INTRODUCTION TO
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................1
LO2..................................................................................................................................................1
Social And Ethical Issues Related With Technology.................................................................1
LO3..................................................................................................................................................3
Different Types Of Networks......................................................................................................3
LO4..................................................................................................................................................4
LO5..................................................................................................................................................5
Information Technology Role In Management...........................................................................5
LO6..................................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Information technology is simply use of any software, system or computer to retrieve,
transmit, store,sending information, manipulate information or data in the organizations or
enterprise. This information technology can be used in business organizations in improving
customer care, manufacturing, human resource management, transportation, business
communication and in many more ways to improve their business and gain competitive
advantage. This assignment will focus on all the social and ethical issues that pertain business
from running associated with technology, different types of networking technologies and at last
role of information technology in management for success and failure of an organization( Kolk.,
2016). All these task will be explained with service sector industry like hotel as an example.
LO1
Enclosed in ppt
LO2
Social And Ethical Issues Related With Technology
Ethics are the fundamentals on of a business. It is basically moral philosophy of an
individual or an organization to know what is right and what is wrong. Every organization has
some ethics and code of conducts that should be followed by everyone. There are many ethical
issues faced by an individual or an organization such as:
 Privacy: Individual or customers privacy has always been an area for unethical behaviour
in business, especially hotel industry where they can track usage of internet, their
personal information or buying habits of all the customers or potential clients of their
hotel. However, government has given individual some control over their personal
information i.e. what amount of data organizations can collect. Most of the hotel
organizations check their customers internet habits. Ethical behaviour of hotel
organizations must follow appropriate behaviour.
 Security: In the name of security business organizations specially hotel organizations
collect extra information from their customers, employees or any visitors. Ethical issue
arises when organization starts tracking their staff members activities and start recording
them in security cameras. Employee surveillance is nothing bad but till a certain level
after that it becomes a question of ethical behaviour. They must set a level to monitor
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their employees which can be justified. But surveillance of customers, visitors should be
at an even lower level so that it is ethically accepted(Russell., 2018).
 Communication: Many organizations monitors employees digital text based
communications like e-mails without their knowledge. They track and monitor all the text
which are send to their employees which also an ethical issue in industry.
 Social media: Nowadays every one is on social media where everyone is free to share
there point of view. But any service sector industries like hotel industry keep a track on
their employees social media accounts and if they express anything about their
organization then they take strict against them which is completely unethical. This ethical
issue has become a common practice for organizations.
Social issues are problems which can influence any individual or any organization within
the society. Social issues are also a point of concern in the organizations. Every organizations
main goal is to gain profit and for that many organizations compromise with their social
responsibilities. They sometimes ignore their social responsibilities and start focusing on their
profit goals. Social issues like favouritism, discriminations are also very common in many
organizations. There are many social issues faced by an individual or by an organization such as:
 Cyber crime is a major social issue which has become a major threat in organizations
especially in hotel industry where all of their customer data has been stored(Dimond.,
2015). As technology has increased the threat of hacking which is a major social issue
through which personal details of clients can be hacked. Every organization needs to
work on this social issue.
 Many companies focus on use of technologies which are not suitable for climates and
forget their corporate social responsibilities practices and policies. They should work on
these issue for example hotels should install solar panels for electricity etc. to reduce
carbon footprint.
 Organizations nowadays use advertisements and social media to influence their
customers and forget their social responsibilities towards their customers and does misuse
of this power of advertisement and social media(Wu and et.al., 2015).
 Increasing use of technology has led to increase corruption in organizations, these
increasing use of technology has led these companies to tax evasion, exchange controls
etc.
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LO3
Different Types Of Networks
Network is a mode of communication through which an information can be transferred
from one device to another. It is basically a medium connection between different devices or
computers. A network consist of servers, computer systems, networking device which is used for
connecting two resources together. These connections can be either wireless or through cable
media. There are many types of network such as:
 Personal Area Network: The most basic and smallest type of network is PAN ( personal
area network ). It is made of computer, modem,printer, phones or tablets etc. and
revolves around an individual in a building. These type of networks are basically found at
home, office or an organization managed by a single device and a single individual(
Partanen., Chetty and Rajala., 2014).
 Local Area Network: LAN is the most common, simple and frequently used network.
LAN connects many networking devices or group of computers to share information or
resources connected in an office, home, schools, hospitals or colleges or in a small
geographical area. All the devices connected in the network are connected to a central
device called a hub or switch. LAN can be installed by both wireless technology and
using cables. It provides high internet speed with more fault tolerance power and it is
easy to design.
 Wireless Local Area Network: WLAN function similarly like local area network but
uses wireless technology like Wi-Fi. It is normally connected in similar devices as LAN.
These type of network does not need any cable or physical devices to rely on.
 Campus Area Network: CAN is a larger network then LAN but it is smaller than MAN.
These type of network is normally installed in universities, district schools or small
business. They can provide connectivity across several buildings but are fairly close to
each other so that users can transfer information with each other(Bairamzadeh, Saidi-
Mehrabad and Pishvaee., 2018).
 Metropolitan Area Network: MAN is a larger network than LAN but smaller than
WAN but incorporates elements from both the types of network. MAN covers an entire
geographical area like a city or town. Ownership of these network can be both public or
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private but design and maintenance of this network is difficult. This network provides
relatively moderate speed and less fault tolerance power compared to LAN.
 Wide Area Network: WAN is slightly more complex network as compared to LAN. It
connects computers across large localities probably countries so that each device or
computer in the network can communicate with each other weather they are miles apart
or nearby. WAN basically connects LAN all across the world. Maintenance of this
network is difficult with low speed and less fault tolerance power.
 Storage Area Network: SAN is a dedicated high speed network which do not relay on
LAN or WAN networks. In fact this kind of network move their resources storage far
away from the network to be placed into their own network with high performance. This
kind of network can be connected in the same way as a device is connected to the server.
 System area Network: this network is also known as SAN in short and is a fairly new
type of network in last two decades. This network is designed to connect networks in a
cluster, storage area network and provide them with high speed. Devices connected to the
network are operated as a single device with high speed internet connection( Al Romaithi
and et.al., 2015).
 Passive optical local area network: POLAN is an alternative of traditional ethernet
LAN's (switch based).
 Enterprise private network: these type of network are owned and build by
organizations who want secured connection and connect all of their locations to share
information and computer resources.
 Virtual private network: VPN is a network made from extending private network across
internet, it let its users receive or send data to devices as if they are connected to each
other in a private network even if they are not connected.
LO4
Enclosed in ppt
LO5
Information Technology Role In Management
Information technology has become a major part of every business weather it is for
managing database, mainframe system or anything else. Information technology plays a very
vital role in management as:
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 Inventory management: Inventory management is important in organizations especially
in retail organization and hospitality organizations where stock maintenance of products
according to the demand is important without investing more( Shao and Lin., 2016).
Inventory management system tracks the available quantity of stock, required stock, tiger
additional quantity required if less stock is available and also predicts the amount. If
these inventory management systems are connected to the POS system (point of sales)
then they can work at there best i.e. whenever an item is sold then that item is removed
from the inventory list.
 Data management: Data management has become faster because of information
technology. As data can be saved in digital form and are saved in databases or any other
storage device and can be accessed from any geographical location by anyone. All
organizations nowadays are storing their current and historical data economically which
has benefited both employees and organizations as data is easily available with
immediate access to the document. Further these data can be analysed and required
information can be extracted from them.
 Customer relationship management: IT is improving the design and management of
customer relationship in the companies. CRM systems manages information about all the
customers and capture interaction of the organization and the customers so that better
experience can be given to customers( Shkurkin and et.al., 2015). If any customer
contacts customer care for an issue then customer relationship managers will be able to
see the details of the customers, their purchases and issues they are facing so that
effective response can be given to the customers. The CRM systems also stores the entire
conversation so that if the customers call again then they can be helped efficiently to
resolve their issues.
 Management Information System: data storage is fruitful only if that data can be used in
the future. MIS systems helps organizations to track all the expenses, sales data,and
productivity level. This information can be used to track their revenues, profitability in
different times, maximum investment return and can also be used to identify areas which
need improvement. Through MIS system sales can be tracked on the daily basis so
accordingly decisions can be made i.e. weather to reduce or increase cost of the product
or boost employee efficiency.
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 Business performance management: This system helps businesses to increase their
business performance by analysing their processes using applications like OLAP (Online
Analytical processing), OLTP(Online transactional processing), EIS ( Executive
information system).
 Enterprise collaboration system: This system helps an organization to help employees to
work together efficiently by communicating ideas, sharing resources, coordinating and
managing their work according to their team and their efficiency( Baranov and et.al.,
2015). This system can be used in organizations to enhance their creativity and
productivity of teams to achieve final objective.
LO6
Enclosed in ppt
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarized that there are many ethical issues related
with technology in an organization like security, privacy, social media, communication and
social issues like cyber crime, corruption etc. there are many types of networks like PAN, LAN,
WAN ,MAN,CAN, SAN and many more which can be used in organizations and at last different
roles of information technology had been explained like inventory management, data
management, customer relationship management, management information system,business
performance management, enterprise collaboration system and many more had been explained.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al Romaithi and et.al., 2015, May. Automation of fiber to the home network design with
different types of network elements. In Information and Communication Technology
Research (ICTRC), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 128-131). IEEE.
Bairamzadeh, S., Saidi-Mehrabad, M. and Pishvaee, M.S., 2018. Modelling different types of
uncertainty in biofuel supply network design and planning: a robust optimization
approach. Renewable Energy. 116. pp.500-517.
Baranov and et.al., 2015. Dynamics of interregional differentiation in Russian regions based on
the level of development of information and communication
technologies. Mediterranean journal of social sciences. 6(6 S2). p.384.
Dimond, R., 2015. Social and ethical issues in mitochondrial donation. British Medical
Bulletin. 115(1). p.173.
Kolk, A., 2016. The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the
environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business. 51(1).
pp.23-34.
Partanen, J., Chetty, S.K. and Rajala, A., 2014. Innovation types and network
relationships. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. 38(5). pp.1027-1055.
Russell, L.T.M., 2018. Ethical Issues of Small Business Owners: A Regional Perspective and a
Conceptual Framework. KnE Social Sciences. 3(10). pp.93-99.
Shao, B.B. and Lin, W.T., 2016. Assessing output performance of information technology
service industries: Productivity, innovation and catch-up. International Journal of
Production Economics. 172. pp.43-53.
Shkurkin and et.al., 2015. Investigation of the scope of intellectual services in the aspect of
virtualization and information economy of modern Russia. Mediterranean Journal of
Social Sciences. 6(5 S3). p.217.
Wu and et.al., 2015. CEO ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility: A moderated
mediation model. Journal of Business Ethics. 130(4). pp.819-831.
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