The Value of Effective IT Systems in Business Operations

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THE VALUE OF EFFECTIVE IT SYSTEMS

Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Impact of IT systems and their contribution to solving business problems.......................................2
Analyse the use of IT systems within the different function of a Company.......................................3
Introduction to Company..................................................................................................................4
Describe and explain their manual processes you intend to transform............................................4
Different ways of storing and processing data for knowledge management, customer relationship
management, data management and communication management...............................................4
Describe how the proposed system helps in customer’s relationship management.........................6
Data Management:............................................................................................................................7
Evaluate how the IT system can be used to support value-added change for improving business
operation, performance and sustainability within Company.............................................................8
Recommend practical IT systems to common business problems.....................................................8
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................9
References...........................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Advancement of information technology has brought a lot of opportunity for the Company. Access
to high-speed internet technology has resulted in the overall improvement of the organization
process. Use of technologically advanced communication tools helps in timely delivery of message
and improvement in interaction, engagement and better coordination among employees. Any type
of business whether a small, big or global organization like Unilever use IT system for managing the
business operation. The companies must ensure that they have effective IT systems that can collect,
process, store and share data. In this internet and technological era, only those companies will be
successful that will have IT infrastructure and expertise to use IT systems for their benefits. By using
the IT system the companies can easily automate business operations and improve productivity. Use
of Big Data technology for data analysis has improved the decision making capability of Unilever. The
correct use of Technology can have a positive impact on Unilever performance and revenue.
Impact of IT systems and their contribution to solving business problems
Information System
An information system can be defined as a set of components that work together to manage data
processing and storage. The main aim of the IT system is to support Company organizational
processes such as communication, record keeping, data analysis and decision making. Companies
use these systems for improving their business operation, make a strategic decision and which help
them in gaining competitive advantages over their rival. The information system involves many
components such as hardware, software and communication network. The main advantage of the IT
system for the company is that it has improved productivity. Through advanced computing power,
the company can easily complete a difficult task on time. The investment in the IT system will be
efficient if the firm’s systems implementation will align with the Unilever business objective. The IT
implementation that will align with the business objective will help in improving the company
performance (Otim et al., 2012).
The Company that will have a mismatch between what they want to achieve and the IT strategy of
the company will result in poor performance. Therefore Unilever requires effective planning and
management of the IT strategy. The implementation of the IT system depends on benefits for the
company. The development of the IT system and the ability to collect data and information will help
in the decision-making process which will result in an overall improvement in the Company efficiency
and profitability. The acquisition of IT resources by any Company will have a great impact on the
firm’s competitive advantages. From the above discussion, it is clear that access to IT systems will

have a positive impact on company efficiency and performance. There are various functions within
Unilever such as recruitment and selection, performance management, reward system, marketing
and sales, promotion etc. An effective IT system implementation will result in an improvement in
Unilever organizational functions (Aral et al., 2013).
Analyse the use of IT systems within the different function of a Company
The computing technologies combined with internet technology have resulted in improvement in
the communication and coordination among the employees. The IT department of the Company is
one of the most important departments.
Communication: Effective communication is very crucial for the Unilever. The development in the IT
and the communication tools has improved the process of communication. Now due to the ICT
technology businesses can contact any person. The improvements in communication have a positive
impact on the performance of employees (Chakravarty et al., 2013). High level of employee’s
engagement results in higher motivation level of employees. The Company can achieve high-speed
communication through the use of communication channel such as;
Email: An email can be used for communication between employees. It can also be used for
communication with the clients.
Video Conferencing: can be used for communicating with the remote teams. The video conferencing
technology can be a very effective way of communication with remote workers. Remote teams can
easily collaborate with other team members.
Collaboration Software: Through collaboration software such as Skype, Slack and Team Viewer can
be used for remote working. With these tools, the management of the project can be done from afar
location. Project teams can work together and complete the project on time.
Data management: Unilever must understand the importance of data. Access to data and
information can have a huge impact on the company’s business. The IT department will have the
responsibility of managing the data and information of the Unilever. For proper management of the
data, companies will require access to advanced database software. The database can be used of
data storage, management of data and processing of data.
Marketing: Now the use of computers and internet technology has resulted in the digitalization of
the marketing process. The digital marketing process involves content creation, online advertising,
eCommerce and marketing research. All these functions can be performed effectively by using
information and technology (Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014).

Process improvement: The use of IT systems can help in improving the organization process. The
teams can use online video conferencing tools for communicating with the remote teams, this will
save a large amount of cost. Use of IT systems by the HR department can help in improving the skill
and the knowledge of employees by conducting online training. This will result in both
improvements in the HR functions and saving both time and cost.
Enterprise Resource Planning: Enterprise resource planning is the process of interconnecting the
Unilever organizational process such as the HR, marketing, sales and accounting by using software
systems.
Introduction to Company
The Unilever is a multinational company. It specializing in selling consumer goods such as food,
beverage, cleaning agents and care products. Currently, the company owns around 400 brands. The
company revenue for the year 2018 was 5,098.2 crores EUR. It employees around 1,55,000
employees. Company is a dual-listed company governed by the same director. Michael Treschowand
is the current non-executive chairman. The chief executive of the Company Group is Paul Polman.
Nestle, DANONE, Reckitt Benckiser, Kraft Foods, S.C Johnson are the main competitor of Unilever.
The company aim is to become faster, dimple and customer’s centric company. To become an agile
company Company must adopt information and technology. The company is planning a digital
transformation.
Describe and explain their manual processes you intend to transform
The Company that has the It skill and the knowledge of management of IT infrastructure will have
better productivity and will be more profitable than the companies lacking IT skills. The use of It
system helps in the effective management of the Company process. The company want to transform
its manufacturing, innovation, marketing and selling. The use of information technology will help the
company in becoming more competitive. The company want to become more consumers centric by
using the data-led marketing and sales model. The use of IT and digital technology will help Unilever
in improving the its process. They want to use digital marketing, data-driven marketing, eCommerce,
information and analytics. Presently the company is using a manual process for marketing, sales,
data and information management (Mithas et al., 2011).
Different ways of storing and processing data for knowledge management,
customer relationship management, data management and communication
management

In this digital age, the companies are using the data and information for better decision making.
Access to the right data at the right time is very important. Due to the large amount of data the
technology such as Big Data technology is being used for the analysis of data. The amount of data is
constantly increasing and the storage devices are becoming small and more powerful. The
companies must use the effective technique for storage, retrieval and processing of data. Due to a
large amount of data, the companies must use the advanced tools and techniques for the processing
of data. Nowadays the companies are using the BigData technology for analysis of corporate data.
Big Data Storage: the big data storage is the type of data that is used for storing, managing,
processing huge amount of data. The BigData storage support input/output operations on a large
number of data files and objects. The BigData storage device is made up of a redundant and scalable
collection of the directly attached storage pools. The storage infrastructure is directly connected
with the high-performance computing servers that are capable of processing a large amount of the
data. The big Data storage infrastructures have native support for Big Data analytics solutions such
as Hadoop, Cassandra and the NoSQL (Jagadish et al., 2014).
Databases: a Large number of company invests in the data storage technology such as a database.
Improvement in the data storage and the database technology, modern database are capable of
storing a large amount of data. Companies must use a safe and secure database for storing
customer's and business data (Abadi et al., 2016).
Figure: Cloud Data Storage
Source: ResearchGate

Data storage on the Cloud: The process of storing digital information online is referred to the cloud
storage. The internet-based storage system offers flexibility, adaptability and efficiency (Prahlad et
al., 2013).
Describe how the proposed system helps in customer’s relationship
management.
Management of customer’s data has become very important for the Company. The consumer data is
one of the most valuable resources for the Company. Therefore the companies are responsible for
safeguarding the consumer’s data and information. Companies can use customers Relationship
Management software (CRM) for the management of consumers data (Salesforce, 2019).
CRM:
A CRM system is used for managing Company relationship and interaction with customers. The main
aim of using a CRM system is to help companies automate the process of managing the customer
relationship and improve the profitability of the Company. A CRM system is used for contact
management, sales management, and productivity management.
The working of a CRM system:
A CRM system can be used for storing the customer's contact information such as email, telephone,
website and social media profile. It can also store information about the client's personal preference.
The CRM system have functionality for displaying the complete information about an individual and
the companies, this can help in better understanding the relationship with consumers and
companies. The CRM system provides enhanced views of customer’s information, information about
the interaction with the business, this helps in better conversations with the customers (Kumar,
2010).
Benefits of using a CRM system
Contact management: The CRM system can store information about the call, question, negotiation
with the client is recorded. This information is accessible to the entire team. The CRM system uses a
centralized contact management system. This helps the sales and the marketing teams for tracking
progress and client history.
Team collaboration: The CRM system helps employees of the different department to work
together. E.g. the sales and the product development team can easily collaborate and developed a
high-quality product.

Increased productivity: The automated system is capable of generating automated follow-up emails.
The managers can easily access the details of the customers and the customer care executive can
easily access the data of consumers without leaving the call.
Sales management: The sales managers can access the consumer data, track the sales activity,
provide help to sales teams and provide a real-time update to the sales team. A CRM helps in the
effective management of the entire sales process from lead generation to closing.
Improved Customer satisfaction: Access to the customer’s data about its interaction with the
business makes it easy to deal with customers issue and complaints. This makes sure that the
customer does not face any problem and the issue is resolved on time (Lin et al., 2010).
Better Marketing ROI: The tracking of the processes helps in understanding which marketing
campaign is effective. The marketing campaign tracking system provides information about which
type of marketing campaign is effective for specific customers.
Enhanced product and Service: The CRM system collects a large number of data from consumers
and businesses. This helps in understanding the customer's demand and their view about the
business. By understanding the problem at early-stage companies can easily take effective measures
to avoid the challenges.
Data Management:
The data is one of the most important assets for companies. The importance of data depends on
how companies utilize their data for the benefit of the company. The unlocking of the potential of
data lies in data management. Steps involved in data management are;
Data access: The ability to get and retrieve the data at any time is referred to as the data access.
Data quality: The companies should make sure that the data available is accurate and can be used
for the intended use.
Data Integration: Data integration is the process of combining different types of data. Data
integration tools can be used for integrating data.
Data Governance: Are a set of rules and decision for managing the Company data. The data strategy
of Company must align with business strategy.
Master data management: The master data management unifies and manages all the data that is
common. The master data is stored and managed from a single location (Loshin, 2010).

Data streaming: Data streaming is the process of analysis of the data by applying logic, recognizing
pattern and filtering data.
Evaluate how the IT system can be used to support value-added change for
improving business operation, performance and sustainability within
Company
Collaborative: Use of information technology improves communication and coordination among the
teams and individual employees. This makes sure that every member of the Company shares a
common vision for the company success. The effective collaboration between teams helps in
building trust promotes transparency and engaged employee.
Culture: Implementation of the information and technology will help in shifting the business
structure towards empowering the employees for making a decision and contribute ideas.
Cloud-Based storage: The cloud-based services are economical and agile, the companies can choose
the services that will meet their need. This will help the companies in saving huge cost.
Mobile: Nowadays large numbers of the customers are using the mobile device for communication.
According to research, about 50% of web traffic is generated on the mobile device
Innovative: The information technology has made the process of innovation simple and Unilever
must use the latest technology for conducting research and development activities at the company.
Data-Driven: Access to data and the data analysis capability will improve the decision-making
process. Unilever must develop data skill and knowledge about data analysis.
Customers Centric: The shift of Company to information technology will help in better customer
satisfaction rating. Unilever main aim is to adopt digital strategy for becoming customers centric
company.
Recommend practical IT systems to common business problems
Engaged employee: Unilever suffer economically when the employees are not engaged. By using the
technology they can easily remove these barriers and improve the communication and the
coordination among the employees. Information technology can help Unilever by providing
transparency, learning opportunities and communication. Businesses can track and improve the
performance of employees using the data. By using the communication tools such as smartphones,
video conferencing platform, online collaboration tools such as Skype, Slack and Teamwork. By using
these tools Unilever can easily develop team spirit among employees.

Increased Profits: Businesses are expected to grow revenue by 23% by using IT and adopting digital
strategies like using the data analysis for decision making. Access to data will help the company in
taking the right decisions at the right time. E.g. the AT&T have successfully accelerated the revenue
by providing professional development opportunities. This has resulted in increased motivations and
the overall improvement in the productivity of workers.
Recruitment and selection: recruitment and selection are one of the most important processes. The
use of technology will result in enhancing the overall recruitment process. The use of technology in
recruitment and selection can save cost and time. The tracking system can manage the application of
candidates. The system can easily sort the candidates based on the skill, qualification etc. Through
online testing, the skill and competency of the individual can easily be evaluated. The video
interview is considered as the best substitute for the traditional interview process as it reduces the
need for a telephonic interview. The manager of Unilever will not have any need to arrange a
meeting with the candidates (Pfieffelmann et al., 2010).

Conclusion
The development of the internet and information technology have resulted in the digitization of
businesses. Many Company has understood the importance of IT for the business. Through the use
of technology, companies can easily transform into a digital business. For effective management of
the IT infrastructure, the companies should invest in training and skill development of employees. In
today’s digital era, only those companies will be successful that will utilize technology for performing
daily operations. As studied earlier IT brings a lot of benefits for Company. Company processes such
as communication, coordination, planning, decision-making process, recruitment and selection,
employees engagement, training and development activities are improved through the use of
information technology. Finally, we can conclude that IT will play a significant role in improving the
Company process.

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