Information Technology in HSBC: Analysis of Role, Ethics, and Trends

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Information Technology (IT) within HSBC, a leading UK-based banking company. It begins with an introduction to the importance of IT in modern business operations and its role in enhancing efficiency and productivity, followed by a literature review that defines the role of IT in business, explores ethical and social issues like data privacy and environmental responsibility, identifies various networking technologies such as SDN and Edge Computing, and discusses the significance of social media in business, including brand awareness and customer engagement. The report also covers the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The analysis section examines IT's impact on service quality, the rise of mobile banking, and ethical considerations within HSBC. It discusses the role of IT in decision-making, business growth, and customer support. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings regarding the role and impact of information technology on HSBC, emphasizing its importance in driving operational activities, making management decisions, and developing sophisticated products and services.

Introduction to
Information Technology

Abstract
Information technology promote the effectiveness of the organisation and develop overall
efficiency to increase overall competency and effectiveness. In this report the organisation is
HSBC which is UK based Banking company that is working all over the world and one of the
leading banking organisation. Information technology is very effective in improving the
performance of the company and become key factor in overall development.

Table of Contents
Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
2.1 Defining role of information technology in business ...........................................................4
2.2 Ethics and social issues in organisation.................................................................................5
2.3 Identifying the networking technology and its types.............................................................6
2.4 Determining social media importance...................................................................................6
2.5 Software development life cycle ...........................................................................................7
ANALYSING AND DISCUSSION ...............................................................................................8
3.1 Role of Information technology in the organisation..............................................................8
3.2 Ethics and social issues in the firm........................................................................................9
3.3 Types of networking technology ........................................................................................10
3.4 Defining importance of social media in enterprise..............................................................11
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Information technology is important application that helps the commercial world to work
more efficiently and its requirements has been developed a lot more in today's world. This
become the necessity of all business operations to increase their productivity and facilitates in
saving the money and effort for longer period of time (Fedorova, I. and et.al., 2020). In this
report the organisation that is selected for this report is HSBC Holding plc is multinational
investment bank and financial services holding company. This is largest bank in the Europe with
the total capital of US$2.715 trillion. In this organisation the need of information technology is
playing important role and making the important part in using the advancing technology in the
organisation. In this report it is being discussed about the role and ethical issues of technology
has been using in the organisation. Apart from that analysing and discussing the benefit of
technology in business is being discussed in this report.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Defining role of information technology in business
This technology facilitates storing and regaining the huge information in very effective
manner with the help of advance hardware and software networks at low cost (Alexander, John
and Pettit, L., 2018). This provides the enable working of data to create distinctly new
information that helps in taking quick decisions. Many companies are extensively using the
different application of computers and types of telecommunication that store, retrieve, study,
transmit data and send information. There are many roles that has been played by the
organisation are as follows-
 Decision making- This enhances the speed and accuracy of the business to take right
decision and that leads to successful organisation and that go through market research.
This could be done in many ways through online surveys, forums, blogs and group
discussion through in-person interviews as well.
 Business growth- Business success depend on the marketing tactics and strategies that
was formulates by the organisation to give tough competition in the market. Many types
of marketing campaigns helps in reaching the potential customers and this could be done
through advance use of information technology. Many necessary decisions and steps can
be taken from the help of IT applications and search engine such as (SEO), Pay per click

(PPC), Blogging and discussion forum, email shot and many other. Now everyone is
using the IT in some or other way to add values in their operational system.
 Customer support and satisfaction- Higher level of customer services satisfaction is
key of success in the organisation and which cannot be achieved without real time
customer support services process. IT has played important role in communicating and to
serve high quality services to the customer in real time.
2.2 Ethics and social issues in organisation
 Data privacy- This issues has been increasing day by day due to larger exposure of data
and facts globally and this is widely available on website. As, many organisation were
using internet in their work and that sometime fall them into wrong hands. Many hacker
were doing illegal work in order to gain the maximum profit and leads to many problems
to the company.
 Accounting practices- This is one of the more classic and ethical issues that were facing
by many companies and it has some serious implication as well (Ha and Nguyen, 2017).
Manipulating the financial data and misconduct of accounting practices puts the trouble
to the company.
 Environmental responsibility- This responsibility in business is targetted by the big oil
companies and lumber business to do farming and other business. This is very prompt
issues is still of ethical issues in business that every company needs to pay attention to it.
Every business organisation has the responsibility for carbon footprint that company
produces and many organisation should be very strict about its responsibility and need to
be consider as the important duty.
 Health and safety- This is also very ethical problem that has been developing in today'
scenario in the context of health and safety of employee and customer. Business should
pay proper view to the health and safety as this might affect them in longer period of
time. This include health of mentally and physically both and need to be consider as the
necessary issue for the business organisation and proper actions must be taken to ensure
health and safety at work.

2.3 Identifying the networking technology and its types
Networking technology is evolving day by day and there is new innovation everyday.
These are some technology in this domain that transform the picture of network industry. These
are very helpful in many sectors and its importance has been increasing accordingly and that rule
the industry. Some of latest networking technologies are as follows-
 Software Defined technology (SDN)- This is emerging architecture aimed to make
network more flexible, manageable and cost effective (Im, Gui, and Yong, 2019). This
has improved network performance by effectively control and forwarding the network
and become directly programmable. This also help in understanding the network and
assure rapid troubleshoot and deliver the customer services.
 Edge Computing- This is distributed open architecture which enable internet of things
and mobile computing. This has been developed by itself or by local server. This enable
data, application and power to be more closer to the user. This basically means
decentralise the data processing at the edge of network.
 Internet of things- This used by physical and regular devices or appliances and consist
of internet connectivity and sensors. These devices helps in interacting with each other all
over the internet. The everyday IOT examples are smartWatch, 3D printers, Hue bulbs
and many other. These are highly cost optimized and gather data and helps in improving
it many other manner. This also encourage balance between virtual and practical
experiences and that leads to certain other advantages also.
2.4 Determining social media importance
Social media become important source of building the business more effectively and also
it is necessary for every organisation to use the social media efficiently. Through social platform
it helps in connecting the people and essential piece of marketing strategy and its is cost effective
and which can be use by any other business enterprise. Following are the benefits are as follows-
 Create brand awareness- If an organisation wants to increase the brand name in the
market will need an medium to reach the audience (Koch, 2018). So, social media is the
very effective manner to boost the viability and reach to the customer. It is free to create
and develop the business profile on all major social networks.
 Show authenticity- Customers is not basically interested in the business that publish in
dry, corporate style. Instead they were more attracted towards the brand personality that

share on social media. This develop the trust and that shows formal and friendly side of
company. This kind of improving the brand image and facilitates in reaching more
audiences and costumers.
 Improving the engagement- Through regular interaction from social media post and
promoting several likes, comment ans shares. This increasing the engagement of
customer and will help in promoting business organisation (Kung, 2019).
 Provide support- This platform has successfully breaks the barriers between all
companies and their customer are more interacted with each other. So, many customer
service through Facebook, Twitter to solve the problem and to find the relevant
information regarding their services. This support the customer the experience in much
better manner and promote efficiency.
2.5 Software development life cycle
This represent the pictorial and diagrammatic representation of the software life cycle.
This model depicts the all methods that required to make software product using life cycle stage.
This determined the suitable life cycle for particular plan and then observe to excel in much
better manner. Following are the stages in SDLC Cycle are as follows-
 Planning and requirement analysis- This is important and necessary stage in SDLC as
this facilitates in planning for quality assurance requirement and identification of the risk
that was associated with the project that was done at this stage. Business analyst and
other project organiser set up meeting with the client and gather all data like what
customer wants to build and who is end user (Lloyd, 2020).
 Defining requirements- Once the requirement analysis is completed and than next step
to present the requirement and get them accepted from the project shareholder.
 Designing the software- This concern with the bring down all knowledge of
requirement, analysis and successfully design the software project.
 Developing the project- In this stage the actual development begins and programming is
being built. Developers has to follow the guidelines given by management and
programming tools like compliers, interpretors to develop the code.
 Testing- After code is being generated, it is being tested against the requirement to make
sure that product is able to resolve the problem that gather in requirement stage.

 Deployment- This stage refereed that once software is certified and has no bugs or errors
are there then it is being deployed. It based on the assessment and suggested
enhancement in the object segment and after maintenance begins (Plumb and et.al.,
2017).
 Maintenance- Once it start using the developed system then the real issues come up and
proper requirement to be solved from time to time. In this stage all procedure has been
taken care for the developed product is known as maintenance process (Qureshi, Boyer
and Wickramasinghe, 2020).
ANALYSING AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Role of Information technology in the organisation
Information technologies has been developing in much better forms and its benefits are
regularly increasing in terms of improving the communication process and other important
factor. In selected organisation HSBC, the role of information technology is to grow the
operational activities and making important decisions in the management in appropriate manner.
This develop the sophisticated product development, better market infrastructure and reliable
techniques for the control risk. Following are the role of Information technology are as follows-
 Impact of IT on services quality- This is more viable impact of technology that has
developed the efficiency of the company and deliver the service in effective manner. This
has improved the services that has been provided to the customer to increase the
competitive edge. In the selected organisation HSBC, they were enhance the E- Banking
services that enable them to do transaction in much faster form and at any time. They can
handle the funds in real time and 24/7 and act as convenience for the benefit of customer.
They become personalised according to the requirement of customer and providing
services at very effective manner. It also reduce the cost of delivery and inquires self-
service channel.
 Increasing of Mobile banking- IT has played key role in promoting extension of
internet banking and this is provided by the bank or other financial institution. This allow
its customer to conduct the financial transaction remotely only through mobile device and
become convenient way to do the transaction and other activity. This can be use anytime

and with minimal time and effort. In HSBC, they actively providing the Mobile Banking
facility like instant fund transfer and checking its statements of previous transaction.
 Internet banking- This enables customer to do banking transaction through bank's
website on the internet. This system of accessing accounts and general information on
bank products and services. In the selected organisation, they providing internet banking
to the customer who were not able to visit the bank and can do the work while sitting at
home only.
3.2 Ethics and social issues in the firm
There were many ethical and social issues are there that impact the working condition of
the organisation and develop various conflicts and issues (Rahmelina and et.al., 2019). These
were occurred on the basis of many forms and leads to dissatisfaction and miscommunication
among firms. In the selected organisation, this issues has been faced by management and leads to
certain issues. Some of the issues are as follows-
 Remuneration rights- As employees are important source of organisation to make their
business profitable, so they need to be paid fairly according to their work. Many other
benefits relate to the monetary terms must be given as per the contract. This will be
unethical if they were not paid with fair remuneration and with that they should given
many other fringe benefits to them. In HSBC, they have faced the conflict among the
company that they were not giving appropriate monetary benefits as per the promise
made by them. Employees has also raised the voice against the management and demand
the fair remuneration and other monetary benefits.
 Diversity and discrimination- This is another way that an organisation has facing the
issue regarding diversity and discrimination. Due to large number of workforce and witth
culture might create problem in the firm and become difficult to handle the situation.
Many employees has faced the issues regarding the discrimination in the workplace and
reason could be anything and leads to many other complications. In HSBC, there are
many types of employees who come from different places and religion has somewhere
other faces the issues. Because this is multinational company where large number of
employees are working from different countries has also faced the problem of
discrimination.

 Harassment- This could be of any type and does impact the working of employees and
impact the working condition at greater level. This deeply effect the performance and
completely demotivated the employees and which leads to certain problems in terms of
functioning. In the HSBC, they were facing the issues that will leads to toxicity in the
environment of banking and lower down the confidence of the company. This could be
physically, mentally and sexually and which is totally unethical and must be stopped as
soon as possible.
3.3 Types of networking technology
Networking technology is something that need to be consider accordingly and has to be
developed according to the time. These innovation are very important in view of improving the
efficiency and effectiveness in the organisation and also help in sustain in market. In the selected
organisation, the networking technology has also been used to enhance the productivity and
operational activities. Some of the networking technologies are as follows-
 Intent based Networking- This is new form of internet and it is combination of
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning (Rajaraman, 2018). This helps in reducing
the complexity to create and manage the networks. In HSBC, this networking has
improved the productivity of the organisation and build up the communication network
with its potential customer.
 Machine learning- This application of Artificial intelligence and that helps in
developing the experience from the learning and this is not recorded officially. This helps
in making the informed decisions from past events through looking the pattern from the
past. In the HSBC, this technology develop overall better and personalised experience
when they do transaction in the mobile and internet banking. This always focus on
improving the customer behaviour in the service and always on increasing the
performance of the services.
 5G Network technology- This is next generation of mobile networking that provide the
fast speed and amazing connection on smartphone and other devices. This will carry vast
amount of data which allow to connect world in much better way and expand the
broadband wireless services from Mobile Internet to IoT (Reuter, 2019). In the selected
organisation, this technology will help the organisation to connect with customer and
enhance the quality of service and that improve the effectiveness of the organisation.

3.4 Defining importance of social media in enterprise
Social media has now become important source of attracting the customer and will lead
to certain benefits to the organisation and its necessary for everyone to use the social media to
improve the efficiency. In HSBC, they were actively using the social media to get engage with
the potential customer and provide numerous benefits. Some of the uses of social media are as
follows-
 Establish the brand- This helps in improving the business image and provide many
opportunity and will lead to make the leader. Through social media they able to make
more focus to build the connections with the customer. In HSBC, this helps in improving
the connectivity with potential customer and aiming to establish as a leader in the market.
 Stay top of the mind- This support in reminding the name of the organisation in the
mind of customer through regular memorising of company's name. This gives many
opportunity to connect with regular customer and followers and to make the remind of
the organisation. In HSBC, they were using the social media to attract the customer and
to retain them for longer period of time.
 Increase in website traffic- Social media and its ads helps in driving the traffic to
website and leads to promotional activities (Weber and Kauffman, 2020). In selected
organisation, this helps in bringing the large amount of traffic and make it effective to do
marketing campaigning. This also promote the effectiveness and efficiency of the
operational activities.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that Information technology helps in improving the
effectiveness of management that leads to many benefits to the organisation in many other forms.
In this report the role of IT in the company is to develop and the overall efficiency and also leads
to improving competitive edge. Ethical and social issues need to be solved in the organisation
and some of its are Harassment, Remuneration issues and many other. The types of networking
technologies are Internet of things, Machine learning and some other which help in improving
overall performance of the company. Apart from the need and use of social media are promoting
the brand awareness and develop the communication with the customer.

REFERENCES
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information technology needs of biomedical biobanks. Biobanking, pp.17-29.
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Technology.
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