Integrated Professional Skills in the Digital Age Report - CCCU

This report explores the integrated professional skills necessary in the digital age, focusing on the role of information and communication technology in business growth. It identifies collaboration tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, discussing their advantages and disadvantages in facilitating virtual meetings and teamwork. The report also examines cloud storage and cloud computing, highlighting their benefits such as cost reduction and data backup, as well as drawbacks like reliance on internet connectivity. Furthermore, it addresses privacy and security challenges, emphasizing the importance of strong passwords and cybersecurity measures in the face of increased cyberattacks. Finally, the report touches on the significance of cryptocurrency for businesses and their potential adoption for commerce, providing a comprehensive overview of key digital skills and considerations for modern organizations. Desklib offers similar past papers and solved assignments for students.

INTEGRATED
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Identifying collaborating tools:....................................................................................................3
Discussing advantage, disadvantage and suitability of cloud storage and cloud computing in
digitalization:...............................................................................................................................5
Privacy and security measures along with possible measures that could be taken.....................6
Importance of crypto currency for businesses and opinion about their adoption for commerce 9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
In the current scenario, it has been evaluated that information and communication
technology plays a vital role in the growth and expansion of companies overall performances. In
the communication sector, the web conferencing is a kind of practices that is being widely
utilised. There are numerous professional skills that are required in this digital age such as basic
and most significant communication skills along with the enhancement into their social media
communication abilities (Yu and et.al., 2018). An employee or the whole organization must have
an ability to learn new and advanced technologies along with new methods with the help of new
equipments. Although, it requires trust level which has been build with the help of ethics and
responsibilities that are extremely required and necessary in order to complete their tasks in most
effectual manner.
This report will illustrate the concepts of collaborative tools by identifying two of them,
discussion over the ways in which they helps businesses to survive, advantages and
disadvantages of along with sustainability and applications of cloud computing, cloud storage
and ecommerce to improve digitalization. Apart from this, the study will also discuss about the
privacy and security challenges, possible measures as well as importance of crypto currency for
businesses.
MAIN BODY
Identifying collaborating tools:
Zoom: Zoom is one of the most successful collaborating platform or tool that connect people all
around the world, this tool is mainly used in video conferencing and live virtual meetings of
friends, family and staff member. Zoom have various purpose but mainly to bring easiness while
in tough time of pandemic, this tool is used by almost every student, worker and employee
during work from home session (Archibald and et.al., 2019). It is very clear that COVID-19
impact was so powerful that every business have to sent their employee back to home and allow
them to work via using personal computer and laptops, every company have pushed their
employee to use Zoom for virtual meeting.
During this pandemic use of technology can be seen in every area of economy or
business, technology have bring so much easiness in work, Zoom can be best example why
human need to be innovative and technologically ready to meet the demand of any such tough

situation that has arise during COVID-19. Zoom helped employee to be safe from any kind of
danger of COVID-19 which means they no longer have to come office and take risk of COVID-
19. Zoom allow employee to perform virtual calls which means employee can clearly understand
their mentor or leaders which provide training or explain work to employees. There are certain
benefit and limitation of Zoom tools for collaboration in the workplace, these are:
Support large audience: Zoom is one of the most powerful and successful collaboration tool
which allow employee to virtually collaborate with each other, the biggest benefit of Zoom is
this platform allow as many employees as possible which means there is no limit of adding
people in general workplace business meeting because involvement of each and every employee
is very important.
Subscription and add-ons: Zoom may be one of the best tool used by every business and by
every employee in the workplace for virtual communication but this platform is subscription
based which means employee can not use Zoom for free, this weakness or limitation of Zoom
shift their audience to their competitors like Google meet.
Microsoft teams: Microsoft team is another successful collaboration tool which allow company
perform various task all together, this tool is mainly used by employee during work from home
session which means after COVID-19, this tool help employee to connect with their subordinates
and management of the company (Martin and Tapp, 2019). Microsoft teams is same as Zoom but
have extra feature and video quality is also every good as compared to Zoom but because of
popularity, Zoom have captured great market share and become most successful collaborating
tool in the world.
It is very clear that Microsoft is very successful in terms of providing IT solution and E
support, this company have various other tools which is being used by employee, these are
Microsoft office, word, PowerPoint and notes which allow company to manage their work at
home. Due to pandemic many companies preferred Microsoft teams to collaborate with
employee because sometimes these company do not trust any new platform. Many company
avoid using Zoom because of privacy issue, there are certain benefit and limitation of Microsoft
teams, these are:
Powerful team productivity: Microsoft teams allow employee to build an virtual team which
perform to achieve organizational goal virtually, this tool have many feature such as team

building feature and project management feature which allow employee not only to collaborate
with each other but this allow help them become team to achieve goals.
File structure: Microsoft team have complex file or project management structure which means
employee sometimes face challenges in managing their files and arranging them properly, there
are many cases where this tool become problem for employee as this tool stopped middle of the
process (Wiederhold, 2020). Some company have chosen Zoom over Microsoft teams because
this issue slow down speed of employee in performing their work.
Discussing advantage, disadvantage and suitability of cloud storage and cloud computing in
digitalization:
Cloud storage: cloud storage is one of the most used platform to store data and information,
almost every business organization use cloud storage to store their important and confidential
information (Chang and Wills, 2016). In today’s digitalized world, importance of storage can be
seen in, many multinational companies like Microsoft and Amazon store their data on these
platform. Cloud storage store those data and information which is being analysed by cloud
computing, internet play vital role in collect, arranging and storing data.
Many multinational company carry those data and information which is highly
confidential, these data and information are; privacy or personal information of customer like
location, phone number and address, all these data and information need to be stored at some
trustable site or storage platform. Many companies like Amazon have their own cloud storage
system allowing them to store data and information of customer, there are certain advantage and
disadvantage of cloud storage, these are:
Cost reduction: it is very clear that if company need to purchase storage devise or physical
storage place to store their data and information, purchasing storage can be very costly for
company. Cloud storage help company to reduce cost of purchasing expensive storage system
and devises, this platform provide unlimited storage to company allowing them to store as many
files, project, data and information as possible. There are many cloud storage provider who do
not charge any fees at first trail allowing company to store data and information free of cost for
several months.
Internet connection: the biggest drawback of cloud storage is internet connection which means
company only can access these storage if internet is connected, there are many business
organization who avoid using could storage just because of this disadvantage. Cloud storage is

very beneficial but without internet, these all benefits are useless, sometime, company lose those
data and information just because of power cut or no internet collection in workplace.
Cloud computing: cloud computing simply means delivering various services with the help of
internet, these services are related to computer, this is wide term which include different service
that allow company to become more reliable in digital world. It is very clear that today’s world is
completely digitalized which means almost everything can be process through internet, use of
cloud services are very common (Marinescu, 2017). A cloud can be both, private as well as
public, private cloud provide more data security as compared to public cloud because private
cloud have advance digital feature. There are different types of cloud computing service, these
are; IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and development model. There are certain advantage and disadvantage of
cloud computing, these are:
Back-up and restore data: cloud computing is one of the most effective platform that provide
high level of security, security is major concern in cloud computing so many cloud server
provide back up feature to company. Back up allow company to restore their lost data,
sometimes there are many situation in which company loss all their data resulting in major issue
like lawsuit from customer, these companies even have to face government and its action. Cloud
computing have back up feature which help company to restore lost data.
Interest connection: internet is one of the most important thing in digital world as without
internet, company cannot access any server provided by cloud computing, this is one of the
biggest disadvantage in cloud computing (Tadapaneni, 2018). Sometimes company have to wait
for internet in the times of emergency which means totally depending upon cloud computing is
very risky for every business organization. Internet is very important in cloud computing.
Privacy and security measures along with possible measures that could be taken
With the introduction of Covid-19 situation, it has been identified that pandemic poses the
risks of increased cyber attackers. Hackers are basically targeting people those are highly
dependent upon the digital tools and do their work solely with the help of gadgets. Thus, the
people have to make such kind strategies in order to maintain cyber security that includes
maintenance of good cyber hygiene, verifying sources and staying up to date over official
updates (Bond and et.al., 2018). With the continuous disruption from the situations of corona
pandemic in context of disturbing the global health, economic, social and political system,

another unseen threat arises in the digital space. The unseen threat comes in front in a ways of
risk of cyber attackers that prey over enhanced reliance over digital tools along with the
uncertainty of crisis situations. There are various challenges that have been faced by the firm as
well as employees in context of data security and privacy challenges such as data tampering
which states that privacy at the time of communication is crucial to make sure that the data can
never be modified or reviewed in transit. Data theft is related to storing data and transmitted
them securely so that the important information such as credit card numbers cannot be stolen.
Hackers steal the data through packet sniffers that is specially designed in order to find and steal
the user names and passwords of the users. Falsification of user identities is also most crucial
challenge through which the cyber attackers gain access to important and sensitive information’s
of the users. Non repudiation is also a kind of issue which illustrates the challenges of digital
signatures that should requires high amount of security. Password related threats states that
users must remember multiple passwords for the diversified applications and services that are
being used by them. It is because of adoption of easy to guess passwords create huge security
measures by stolen of data or information. Lack of accountability is also one of the major
challenges as it refers that if system administrator is unable to track user activities, then users
cannot be held responsible for their actions (Mourlam and et.al., 2019). They must adopt some
reliable way to monitor the performances over the operation of the data.
Thus, employees have their primary duty or responsibility to keep their data into safe mode
and this should be their foremost priority while working for any establishment. Hence, the best
privacy and security measures are discussed below:
 Establishment of strong passwords: The person who utilises the digital tools and save
the information into their gadgets must have a skill and ability to protect their data with
the help of strong and fruitful passwords which helps them appropriately to secure their
data or information in complete manner. The passwords must be a combination of all
the characteristics such as capital letters, low case characters, numbers and symbols in
order to create a strong password. The more characters put by an individual, the more
they are able to avoid any kind of breaches of the data. Meanwhile, it has been advised
by certain experts to avoid date of birth, name or any other personal information while
making passwords for the security purpose.

 Setting up of firewall: In order to protect the network settings in complete manner,
firewalls play an important role by initiating to consider the situations in effectual ways.
This is a must have tool for each and every organization, as it has an ability to control
the internet traffic that are coming and leaving from the businesses.
 Thinking about antivirus protection: Anti malware and antivirus both are
indispensable to protect the data that is the requirement of security or passwords
because it consists of secret and detailed information’s about the company. They are the
ones who designed in a way which prevents, search for, detect and remove viruses from
the digital tool.
 Updation is greatly significant: The computer is extremely and properly updated in
order to run all kind of applications by adoption of current and accurate security
measures. They allow the data to become recently updated and more secured.
 Secure all the gadgets in proper manner: Laptops and mobile phone are high on risks
as they both are portable tools and easily become stolen by anybody. Thus, as a
consequence, it is important to take more security measures to protect all such kind of
gadgets. Strong passwords are always a better option to secure them and the information
as well to become stolen (Jefferson, 2020).
 Schedule backups: the backups should be scheduled into the external hard drives or in
the cloud to keep the data stored and secure in complete manner. The correct frequency
of getting the backups are weekly but it has been incremented in every few days as well.
Wimi is an application that helps to centralize the documents and also can able to share
the documents with the team members, clients as well as partners.
 Steady monitoring of the data and information: Software, data, technologies and
everything is moving in so fast manner. Keeping track over them and keep in touch with
news to see what is new to the market.
 Utilisation of smart emails and web surfing: Downloading unnecessary applications
or files, clicking over non required links, opening emails, etc. have the capacity to infect
the computer as well as the whole network. The employees have to become careful with
the sources that they find through online mode and received in similar manner (Gjelaj
and et.al., 2020). They have been advised to take each and every warning in most
serious manner.

 Keep educate the employees about data security: In order to prevent data from any
kind of unethical practices, they must have detailed and appropriate knowledge about
the security measures and keep their data safe in highly considerable manner
(Reyna, Hanham and Meier, 2018). Thus, these kinds of practices will help them to
become more attentive while utilising the digital gadgets for the storage of their data
and important information.
Importance of crypto currency for businesses and opinion about their adoption for commerce
Crypto currency is the most secured alternative way to the physical currency that has been
currently used by most of the people. By utilising crypto currency as a payment method makes
sure that the business deals with the employees as well as consumers are directly and with the
help of absence of middle man means that the transaction cost will be much lower. The
requirement of more digital in their operations is more evident to businesses, considering the
Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath (Wiljer and et.al., 2019). The one of the best way to
achieve the goals and become ahead of the pack is to adopt crypto currency along with block
chain technology. The crypto currency is truly significant for any establishment as it creates
more accessible network for money to flow into digitalised manner with the help of internet.
While other payment methods such as credit cards do not able to provide better qualities. This
also reduces transaction costs and increase reachability of business as it is a ideal adoption for
small businesses that are very sensitive to minor differences in terms of costs. It also assists in
maintaining anonymity and protects customer’s privacy which is the key quality of crypto
currencies to ensure the privacy of users (Valencia-Forrester, 2020).
It also make cross border transaction much easier as through this, the people from
diversified locations are able to do businesses in most efficient manner. With the help of crypto
currencies, people make international transactions. It also assists in preventing chargeback frauds
and makes the business immune and reverses all payments automatically over the block chain.
Thus, Bitcoin is the kind of decentralized digital currency that helps every business to enabling
their transactions without having any hustle (Lawrence and Tar, 2018). Transactions are
completed more easily by using internet of money and break down barriers. This helps in
changing the ways in which people execute business transactions. With the adoption of Bitcoin
business avoid dealing with complexities of traditional financial transactions over the internet

and allow international access to the cash exchanges. This is also different from other kind of
transactions and hence makes the firm individual from their competitors. This also assists in
improvements from payment processes.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that in the recent era, modern technology such
as internet is a kind of tool of communication which helps each and every person to connect
together from every corner of the world. There are numerous usages that are optimistically helps
an individual to expand their experiences but requires certain skills that are greatly significant in
order to deal and adopt such kind of changes in fruitful and beneficial manner. Although, the
study had also discussed about the challenges as well that are incurred into the usage of internet
facilities. The report was also illustrated the concepts of cloud computing, cloud storage as well
as ecommerce which helps enough to make the world new normal especially at the time of
pandemic. Apart from all of the above, the study was also described the concepts that are being
related to the crypto currency which are highly beneficial for the betterment of the businesses as
per the conditions that are being considered in the recent arena.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Archibald and et.al., 2019. Using zoom videoconferencing for qualitative data collection:
perceptions and experiences of researchers and participants. International Journal of
Qualitative Methods, 18, p.1609406919874596.
Bond, M., and et.al., 2018. Digital transformation in German higher education: student and
teacher perceptions and usage of digital media. International Journal of Educational
Technology in Higher Education, 15(1), pp.1-20.
Chang, V. and Wills, G., 2016. A model to compare cloud and non-cloud storage of Big
Data. Future Generation Computer Systems, 57, pp.56-76.
Cutri, R.M. and Mena, J., 2020. A critical reconceptualization of faculty readiness for online
teaching. Distance Education, 41(3), pp.361-380.
Gjelaj, M., and et.al., 2020. Digital Technologies in Early Childhood: Attitudes and Practices of
Parents and Teachers in Kosovo. International Journal of Instruction, 13(1), pp.165-184.
Jefferson, B., 2020. Digitize and punish: Racial criminalization in the digital age. U of
Minnesota Press.
Lawrence, J.E. and Tar, U.A., 2018. Factors that influence teachers’ adoption and integration of
ICT in teaching/learning process. Educational Media International, 55(1), pp.79-105.
Marinescu, D.C., 2017. Cloud computing: theory and practice. Morgan Kaufmann.
Martin, L. and Tapp, D., 2019. Teaching with Teams: An introduction to teaching an
undergraduate law module using Microsoft Teams. Innovative Practice in Higher
Education, 3(3).
Mourlam, D.J., and et.al., 2019. Can they do it? A comparison of teacher candidates' beliefs and
preschoolers' actual skills with digital technology and media. Computers &
Education, 129, pp.82-91.
Reyna, J., Hanham, J. and Meier, P., 2018. The Internet explosion, digital media principles and
implications to communicate effectively in the digital space. E-learning and Digital
Media, 15(1), pp.36-52.
Tadapaneni, N.R., 2018. Cloud Computing: Opportunities And Challenges. Available at SSRN
3563342.
1

Valencia-Forrester, F., 2020. Models of work-integrated learning in journalism
education. Journalism Studies, 21(5), pp.697-712.
Wiederhold, B.K., 2020. Connecting through technology during the coronavirus disease 2019
pandemic: Avoiding “Zoom Fatigue”. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social
Networking, 23(7), pp.437-438.
Wiljer, D., and et.al., 2019. Defining compassion in the digital health age: protocol for a scoping
review. BMJ open, 9(2), p.e026338.
Yu, B., and et.al., 2018. E-inclusion or digital divide: an integrated model of digital
inequality. Journal of Documentation.
2