Tesco and IT: Analyzing the Role of IT in Business Success/Failure

This report investigates the crucial role of Information Technology (IT) in the success or failure of Tesco, a multinational retail company. It explores how IT influences decision-making, marketing, and overall business growth. The report differentiates between various networking technologies such as PAN, LAN, MAN, and WAN, highlighting the importance of the internet and intranet for Tesco's operations. It examines ethical and social issues, including employee relations, product liability, and data privacy. Furthermore, the report analyzes the stages of the system development life cycle and their impact on Tesco. The literature review draws on various sources to support the analysis, providing a comprehensive overview of IT's significance in Tesco's business strategy, ethical considerations, and technological infrastructure.

INDIVIDUAL REPORT

ABSTRACT
This report identifies the need of IT in the success or failure of an organisation. The organisation
selected here is TESCO. TESCO is a multinational retail company of groceries. It is based on
UK. Information technology is defined as storing and sharing of the data or the information using
computers or the other physical device and it also includes maintenance, expansion and upkeep
of the computers for storing, recovering, operating, and transmitting the data or the information.

INTRODUCTION
The basic meaning of Information Technology is the use of sources like computers,
laptop, storage devices etc. to process, create and store data. This term is widely used by many
organisation and companies nowadays and there are many companies which cannot run without
information technology. TESCO is a multi-national company founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen as
a market stall. Now it has reached to a level which it is known to be a large retail grocery outle.t
Since 1990, it has expanded worldwide and flourished in the entire world. It is present in seven
countries. It is very diversified and is there in most of the countries. It has now entered into a
wide number of sectors including electronics, toys, furniture, petrol, telecom and internet
services. According to the recent studies, the company has shown a massive growth in every
sector. Coming on the internet services, TESCO has proven itself to be one of the largest internet
service provider. It has widened its customer base in the world of telecom and internet industry.
This report shows the role of IT in the organisation, differentiate between forms of networking
technologies,. The report also shows all the ethical and social issues faced by an organisation. It
also sees the different networking technologies which are there in the market and all the
networks which are used by TESCO. There are different stages of system development life cycle
discussed in the report and all the stage are important for an organisation. The discussion and
analysis of the report is given which says that how all the topics mentioned in the report affect
the TESCO.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Role of IT in success and failure of organisation:
According to Hanelt, Hildebrandt and Polier, (2015), IT plays a very important role in the
success of organisation. It helps a company in decision making process. Speed and accuracy are
very important to make a right decision in a business. It goes through a detailed market research
to take a successful decision. Research can be done in various ways by online surveys,
discussions in world wide web, blogs etc. There are various tools to extract useful data like
Google Analytics, Big data and more. These tools provide quick information from live audience
with minimum errors. Marketing and Business Growth can also be experienced by the help of IT
in the company. The centre of success of business lies in marketing as it identifies the target
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customers and observe their trends and needs. The marketing covers advertising, promotion and
sales which affect the business growth. Tool which can be used today to market the products and
services is digital marketing. Digital Marketing is growing at a rapid speed and is a good way to
advertise good and services online. IT is also helpful for business in various other fields like
Resource management, Globalisation, Customer satisfaction and more.
As per the view of Mueller and Stegmaier, (2015), IT can also lead to the failure of the
organisation. Poor communication between the employees can lead to the failure of the
organisation. Enterprise projects are huge and they require continuous communication between
the employees. This is Impossible if there are hundreds of people working on a same project..
Lack of Leadership in IT can also lead to failure of business. IT leaders requires excellence in
three main areas ,that is, Technology, People and Business. If anything is missing then the
organisation will incur loss. Poor planning by IT department in project is also a reason for the
loss of the organisation. Many IT companies without proper planning jump into the project and
face loss.
The role of IT is majorly profitable to the firm. It all depends upon the business of the
company and the need of IT in it. Many companies depend on marketing for all its business and
IT plays an important role in the business of TESCO.
Ethical and social issues that pertain to business:
According to Davies, (2016), there are various ethical and social issues that pertain in
running business. Some Ethical issues and social issues in an organisation are health and safety
of employees,liability of product etc. In the working environment there are some employees who
use their powers to harass others. Liability of product means when an employee by mistake break
a product in the organisation and he has to pay the amount of break. No person should be
discriminated on the basis of gender, caste or any social difference as it is against the law.
Playing Favourite is also an ethical issue. It is normal for a manager to hire people from his
network just because he knows them without seeing much of their qualification and experience.
All the good task is given to the person who is favourite of the manager and all technical work is
given to the other person. If a company is not protecting his client's privacy then it is also an
ethical issue. Most breach in confidential data is done because of the negligence of the company
only(Schwalbe, 2015. )
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Heald, (2018), stated that there are various social issues also that pertain in business like
the responsibility towards shareholders. There is always chance of leaking of shareholders
personal information in the hands of the wrong people. This can lead to a theft in shareholder's
funds. There are some social issues related to the employees also as the company depends upon
the working of the employees in it. If the employee are happy then they will remain loyal and
will not leak the information. Some social responsibility of the company towards the employee is
opening schools for the employees children, giving proper medical treatment, removing
illiteracy, banning child labour and more. The company should follow proper corporate social
responsibility like giving proper working conditions, removing corruption from the organisation
and more.
Different types of networking technologies:
Boesen, Bragi, (2017), described PAN(Personal Area Network) can be defined as the
interconnected network. By this company can reach out number of people at one point of time.
This has various devices like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and many more.
Zhao, and Dong, Huawei Device Shenzhen Co Ltd, (2015), described LAN(Local Area
Network) as the most common type of network used in the company. It is the most basic and
simplest network which connects group of computers, low-voltage devices at short distances.
They are used to share information and resources between them and are mostly used in
companies. Using routers then can be connected to wide area network to transfer data rapidly and
safely.
Jia , Cao and Liang, (2015), said that MAN(Metropolitan Area Network) are those
network which can be used to cover a whole city or town and can also be used to connect a
campus. They are larger than Local Area Network but smaller than Wide Area Network. They
are maintained either by a single person or a company. They are generally used in metro cities to
connect various houses with one network. LAN was basically used long time back when there
was no WAN and all other networking technology.
As per the view of Raza, Kulkarni and Sooriyabandara, (2017), WAN(Wide Area
Network) are more complex then LAN. They connect computers across long distances. They
allow computers and low-voltage devices to share data and information from one place to a place
that is mile apart with the help of one huge network. Internet is the most common example of
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WAN which connects all the computers around the world. This is maintained by multiple people
or public because of its vast reach.
Importance of Intranet and Internet in the organisation:
Internet is very much important in a company nowadays. It has made the field of
communication more easier for the people. With the advancement in the communication, it has
connected the people residing miles away through internet . Today where the people has access
to all the information, Tesco has played a major role in the world of internet and intranet as well
as taught their importance. It came out with the new vision for the area of internet and has used it
on the large scale.
Intranet is a type of private network which only the employees of the organization can
access. It is restricted within the organization and no one is allowed to operate it outside the
company. On the other hand, internet unlike intranet is a global server or network which
provides the whole time connectivity from beginning to the end and connects the people world
wide.
Each and every person on the earth has the access to the internet. It connect every user and allow
them to share and grab the wide range of information(Stark, 2015.)
Company has given the new direction to the ship of internet and intranet. The importance
of internet and intranet are End to End information to the company. Intranet allows the
management and the employees to disseminate and have access to all kind of information
regarding the company. Employees are connected to each other through intranet. It creates a
common platform for discussion and promotes two way communication. It stimulates teamwork.
Intranet creates a sense of collaboration and teamwork within the employees. Various blogs,
messages, comment section help the employees to understand the work culture and work
together. It Encourages healthy competition. Intranet allows the companies to post different
exciting news, latest information and various happening in the company which encourage them
to look through the competition positively. Rewarding the innovative ideas, teams and work
create a flow of competition within them.
Some importance of internet are Easy Communication. Internet from past few years has
made the communication process much easier. It connects the people far away from each other
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and creates a real time platform. It provides security and secrecy in data. Internet provides a high
level security to its users and maintains the confidentiality of the personal information. It protects
a large amount of data from the hackers. It is a powerful tool for business. Internet has been
proved to be the most vital tool in development of the business. Through internet, it is easy for
the companies to connect through their clients and customers. It also help them to market their
products and make money. Apart from this, it also upgrade them with the latest information and
brings the recent market trends(Dutta, Geiger and Lanvin, 2015.)
Different stage of system development life cycle:
The system development life cycle also referred to as the application development life
cycle is used in system engineering, information system and various places. It is used to describe
planning, creating, testing and deploying an information system. It applies to various software
and hardware configurations. There are usually 7 stages of system development life cycle which
are: Planning means to find out the scope of problems and finding out the solution of various
problem. Resources, time, benefits and all the other items should be considered here. System
analysis and requirement is second stage. This stage defines the functional requirement of the
project. It also finds the need of the customers and ensuring that the new system can meet their
expectation. System Design is the third stage of system development life cycle. This stage
describes in detail the necessary specifications, features and operations that will fulfil the
functional requirements of the proposed system or new system. Development is the fourth stage.
This is the main starting of the process as initial section has ended. This stage signifies the
starting of production activity. This stage is also known as the stage of installation and change.
Integrating and testing is the fifth stage of development in life cycle. This stage involve the
integration of system and testing of the new technology or programs. It is carried out by quality
assurance person to find that the design meet the initial stage requirement. Implementation is the
sixth stage of development. This is the stage when the majority of code is written and when the
project is into production and changing of old project with the new project. The seventh and last
stage of system development is operation and maintenance stage. This is the last stage when
customers can use the product and find all the problems if they are facing any and proper steps
are taken to correct them. (System Development Life Cycle, 2017)
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ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The role of Information Technology in TESCO is very important. TESCO is one of the
world's largest supermarket retailers. The benefit to TESCO is that managers use essential
information technology in various departments to increase their efficiency, management and
assessment. Other benefit is that it uses the help of IT to find the total stocks in the company,
total expenses of the company for the use of managers. TESCO use technology to find the total
working hours of the employees. Managers use the help of IT to find the demand of the
customers and what things or products are in deficiency. TESCO with the help of IT installed
G.O.L.D system in 1998 to manage the physical stock of goods in the warehouses. The system
helps the managers to find the quantity of stock, the location of stock and the functions of
warehouse. TESCO has also used internet for its advantage since 2000 and has earned good
profits from selling products online to its customers.
There are some drawbacks of IT also on TESCO. The sale of TESCO was affected twice
when a technical error form IT department had shown and all the customers were left with no
food. This drawback affected the image of TESCO in the market and many customers have left
TESCO. Internet has both negative as well as positive affect on company. The sale of company
from the supermarket have decreased as people started to order groceries from the internet from
other companies.
There are various other drawbacks and issues arising out of TESCO as it is not working
according to ethics and social responsibility. Business ethics are very important and need to be
followed by every business. Various small retailers and business have been shut due to the
takeovers by TESCO. It needs to stop all its takeovers so that other business can also survive.It
should use the help of IT to bring innovation. TESCO promised to provide employment to
people in small cities by giving them jobs in the outlets. The jobs can be in IT and other sectors.
TESCO is paying less to its retailers and due to this, they are not able to work properly. IT
increase the profits of the company and it should see that right amount should be paid to its
suppliers. Some managers of TESCO have been discriminating employees on the basis of
gender, religion and values. No discrimination should be made in employees on the basis of any
social background as this is ethically wrong. IT should spread the awarenesses in employees so
that they can fight against any discrimination in the company.
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TESCO has been affected to social issues also. Male and Female are both employed in
TESCO in IT sector. It is the responsibility of TESCO to work according to the rules and
regulations. The company should not perform any action that affects the image of the company
socially. Social welfare should be done by the company to broaden its image in the market in IT
sector.
TESCO uses different networking technology in its retail stores. It depends upon the location
and situation according to which it chooses the network technology. IT in small towns uses
SAN(Storage Area Network) so that it cannot be used by other people. The benefit of IT uses
WAN(Wide Area Network) as it can connect more than 2 computers working at different
locations. The data can be transferred from one computer to another easily. The main benefit of
IT is the chances of hacking are less compared to other network technology. TESCO needs good
network to communicate from one store to other. It needs good communication so that it can
know the location of each and every product and this can be done by IT sector. TESCO has
proper record of all the products in the stores and to get this continuous information it need good
networking technology. It also uses WLAN(Wire-Less area network) which does not have any
wiring. Example of wire less networking is the cell phones that we use today. Cell phones are the
most common communication device used today. All the work of TESCO is also done on cell
phone which uses WLAN. It has made communication very easy and handy. IT sector benefits
the organisation very much.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it is summarised that Information technology is controlling
marketing data and information and maintaining the competitive position of the organisation.
Tesco company is using WAN, WLAN, and SAN for networking and they are taking advantage
of both the internet and the intranet for their work. System development life cycle stages are also
included in the technological working of the firm. From the above study, it has been recognised
that company should not rely completely on the IT system, otherwise it will harm the working
and the competitive position of the company in the future.
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REFERENCES
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Boesen, P.V., Bragi GmbH, 2017. Personal Area Network Devices System and Method. U.S.
Patent Application 15/290,459.
Davies, P.W., 2016.Current issues in business ethics. Routledge.
Dutta, S., Geiger, T. and Lanvin, B., 2015. The global information technology report 2015. In
World Economic Forum(Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. P80-85).
Hanelt, A., Hildebrandt, B. and Polier, J., 2015. Uncovering the Role of Is in Business Model
Innovation-a Taxonomy-Driven Approach To Structure the Field.
Heald, M., 2018.The social responsibilities of business: Company and community, 1900-1960.
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Jia, M., Cao, J. and Liang, W., 2015. Optimal cloudlet placement and user to cloudlet allocation
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