A Comprehensive Analysis of IT's Impact on Business Performance

This report delves into the significant impact of Information Technology (IT) on business operations, focusing on how IT tools like Point-of-Sale (POS) systems and centralized databases can enhance efficiency and competitiveness. The report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a new POS system, highlighting its role in automating transactions, tracking sales data, and streamlining inventory management. It also explores the benefits of a centralized database in managing information across various departments, facilitating data integrity, and supporting informed decision-making. Furthermore, the report examines various telecommunication options for POS systems and addresses the associated risks, such as security breaches, along with measures to protect the business. The analysis includes a case study of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado, illustrating how IT strategies can boost sales and customer satisfaction. The report emphasizes the importance of IT in gaining a competitive edge and making strategic decisions based on real-time sales data and customer preferences, ultimately driving business growth.

Impact of IT on Business

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1) Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system...................................................1
2 Assistance that POS system provides to the gain competitive advantages in any business2
3 Advantages of having a centralised database......................................................................3
4. Assistance provided by POS system to facilitate decision making...................................4
5)Various telecommunication options for this POS system..................................................5
:...............................................................................................................................................5
6 Risks that are associated with POS and measures to protect the business against same....6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Information technology can be defined as a study of system for storing, retrieving and
sending the information. Now a days, to explore any business effectively IT plays a significant
role. Every organisation has several departments .For example: human resource, financial,
marketing etc. It is very essential to manage the information from all these, which can be
possible only by using centralised database system (Pierce and et.al., 2015). In this report , it is
discussed that how Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado has utilised information
technology to maximise its profit. With the help of point-of- sale system,the company is able to
manage sales data effectively to increase the turnover.
1) Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system
Point-of -sale system is a system by which the transaction process of any firm get
automated and tracking of sales proceeds becomes easy. This system is also used by Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado. It is a kind of advancement in technology that is
being used in any organisation to perform in an effective way. Always there are pros and cons
which are attached to every new thing done .Given below are some advantages and
disadvantages attached with this technology.
Advantages:
 It helps to track business data online and hence,eliminate the manual work. Thus, saves
both time and money.
 It helps to store and process the sales data effectively.
 It helps to eliminate the rely that someone has to put on the manual workers.
 Eliminate the use of register which is a messy task.
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 It helps in decision making , as automatic proceeds helps to detect the products which are
not giving any benefit to the company. The manager than curtail the production of that
particular product (Sawesi and et.al., 2016) .
 It functions very strongly to determine the product cost and hence,it becomes easy for the
manager to predict the price of their produce.
Disadvantages
 For smooth functioning of this , software has to be updated on regular basis to avoid any
error.
 This centralise system increases the security risks, and therefore it is essential to protect
the confidential system to drain out.
 It increases the cost to access the web and its installation.
 One must also have to invest in hardware updates as well and hence increases the cost.
2 Assistance that POS system provides to the gain competitive advantages in any business
Point-of -sale system is an electronic process to transact any sale proceeds. In this era of
competitive advantage ,where everyone wants to beat the rivals the use of technological
advancement is very important (Schwalbe, 2015). One must know which product is giving them
the advantage and also the product which one has to cut down to enhance the sale proceeds .
This system is very important to control the inventory. It helps in the automatic
generation of purchase order and thus lessen the manual workout to have a quality evaluation.
To beat the competition on must know what products the customers are liking. This system once
implemented can give a elaborate picture of which product is been sold the most , and hence
helps the manager to take the next production step accordingly to increase the turnover (Avgerou
and et.al., 2017).
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At the time of restocking the store this system is really very helpful. One can take the
print of the trend of the purchases according to the season and hence fulfil the shelves
respectively. This is what Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado is doing. The
marketing manager first analyse the previous sales proceeds and then stock the store according to
the requirement of the season in which the plant can flourish easily (Bankole and et.al., 2015).
This helps them to increase their turnover and to keep their customers satisfied.
Again with the help of this product cost can be analyses easily, and the price prediction becomes
an easier procedure according to the customers wants. In this way it helps to give an increased
production.
3 Advantages of having a centralised database
Installation of database at a single location in an organisation is known as centralized
database. The whole database is been stored only on a central computer. For example : desktop
or server CPU .Business premises consists of various departments, that is, financial , human
resources, marketing, storage etc. It is very important for the success of any business to manage
the information and data of all the departments in an effective way. To cope up with all these
centralised system is very helpful (Dorsey and et.al., 2017). The Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery of Colorado has also used this system which helps the marketing manager to know the
information of any department to take the respective steps to enhance the turnover. By this they
can analyse which product is giving higher advantage. Various advantages of it are as follows:
 It helps to maintain data integrity. It means there is no repetition of any data and
hence ,no confusion while taking any data for particular calculation.
 It creates valuable history for marketing man to analyse the things to enhance the
turnover.
 The user has to learn only one system and hence, make training program easy.
 Using this data can be easily transposed, transformed and managed.
 Sharing of data also becomes easy.
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 Recovery of the data is most important factor which is useful for any organisation in case
of disaster.
 Security of data is again an advantage of it as only the authorized person can have a
access over it. This helps to keep the confidential information in a better way.
4. Assistance provided by POS system to facilitate decision making
Decision making is one of the most important advantage of using Point-of -sale system.
These are the managerial who decides upon the particular situation in an organisation. To decide
upon something one needs to consider all the important data related to it. This can be done with
the help of this system. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado has also used
this.
Point-of-sale system is an automatic process to transact the sales proceeds and to track
them which works electronically (Walters and et.al., 2014). This is the reason the manager get to
know about the status of the sales proceeds at an instant the same is being carried out. This helps
them to deal with the business activities in a better way.
Manual method to handle all these transactions is not that effective to increase the
performance. The main reason behind this is that work done by the workers in a register takes
too much time and becomes much more messy. This also increases the chances of error, which
ultimately affects the quality.
This system can be helpful to answer number of questions the marketing manager wants
to know in order to increase the profit. For example:
 what are the sales proceed of a particular transaction?
 Which product is giving the maximum profit?
 Which material can be chosen to restock the store according to the customer needs?
In this way these informations can be used to manage a business in a better way . This is
because of the reason that manager can take steps according to the need of time and what
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actually a buyer wants (Orr and et.al., 2015).This leads ultimately to the more sell of product t
earn more profit.
5)Various telecommunication options for this POS system
:
To install to point-of-sale system different types of telecommunication systems can be used.
They are the ways by which signal, message, words,images or sounds can be transmit using
radio, wire or any kind of optical medium (Rappaport and et.al., 2015). Depending upon the
need , one can install the system using any of the telecommunication media.
For this first of all the network channel has to be planned which connects one user to the
another. Different types of network system are as follows:
 LAN: Defined as local area network which provides link within the organisation
premises or any adjacent building ,that is, within he radius of less than 1 km.
 WAN: Defined as wide area network in which the computers connected may have radius
of more than 1 km.
 MAN: Defined as metropolitan area network that links the user and computer in any
geographical region. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado has also
installed this .
Again to implement these wired or wireless media can be used. A wired network is one having a
wired configuration which uses Ethernet cables to transfer the data. In small network single
router can be used while in large networks, multiple routers or switches can be used. But this is
quite cumbersome and hence, wireless media comes into a picture. It can be defined as the
transfer of information using electrical conductor, radio waves or optical signals. With radio
waves distances can be short as with the Bluetooth. We can say that wireless media uses wireless
data connection to connect various data nodes.
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6 Risks that are associated with POS and measures to protect the business against same
Every system is prone with pros and cons. Similarly point-of-sale system is also has some
factors which increases the risk for any organisation.
First of all it increases the cost to access the web , hence the manager has to take care of
the overall budget. Again , one has to invest to updates the versions of software which makes
financial planning to be overviewed.
Usually security risks are mainly attached with this point-of-sale system. Customers
privacy is at risk ,since the customers who are using debit card at a particular point-of-sale
station run the risk of their PINs been revealed to the others (Walton and et.al., 2016) . Web
based system generally has the risk of security and privacy. This can be protected by using POS
devices approved by PCI Security Standard Council which keeps all the data confidential. The
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery of Colorado has also taken help of this. Limited
employee access can also help to lessen the risks.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that information technology is an important
factor which affects the business performance .With the help of suitable installation for various
systems ,such as, point of sale system,MAN network or any other wireless connection, one can
easily assemble the data requisite to sustain in this competitive environment.
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REFERENCES
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Sawesi, S., and et.al., 2016. The impact of information technology on patient engagement and
health behavior change: a systematic review of the literature. JMIR medical
informatics.4(1).
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Avgerou, C., and et.al., 2017. Information Technology in Context: Studies from the Perspective
of Developing Countries: Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries.
Routledge.
Bankole, F.O., and et.al., 2015. The impact of information and communications technology
infrastructure and complementary factors on intra-African Trade. Information
Technology for Development .21(1).pp.12-28.
Dorsey, J.,and et.al., 2017. Point of sale system. U.S. Patent Application 15/599.826.
Orr, R.N., and et.al., 2015. System and method for interfacing a client device with a point of sale
system. U.S. Patent 9.195.982.
Walters, R.A. and et.al., 2014. Point-of-Sale System. U.S. Patent Application 13/972.763.
Rappaport, T.S., and et.al., 2015. Wideband millimeter-wave propagation measurements and
channel models for future wireless communication system design. IEEE Transactions
on Communications. 63(9). pp.3029-3056.
Walton, J.R. and et.al., 2016. Method and apparatus for providing an efficient control channel
structure in a wireless communication system. U.S. Patent 9.473.269.
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