Analysis of IT Systems in Business Functions: British Home Plc Report

This report examines the role and application of IT systems within the business context, using British Home Plc as a case study. The analysis covers the usage of IT systems across various organizational functions such as HR, finance, marketing, and R&D, highlighting their contribution to achieving busi...Read More

Business Information
Technology System

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Analysis of usage of IT systems in various functions of organisation..................................3
P2 Explicate ways in which IT systems contribute in attainment of objectives.........................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P3 Analysis of diverse ways in which IT systems stores, process data for knowledge, data,
communication and customer data relationship management....................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
P4 Assess how IT system can be utilised for supporting value added change for improvisation
in business operations, performance and sustainability..............................................................8
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P5 Recommendation of IT solution for business problems........................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
IT system is one of a supporting concept which is helpful in case of the developing value
chain and an effective operation for business firm. In today's time, value of an IT system is vital
regulation in order to brings out harmony and peace into the IT system (Tian, 2017). The major
purpose of the information technology is led functioning of operation such as supply chain
management, logistics, value chain along with rising long term profitability for the business firm.
This report will cover British home Plc., which is one of the successful medium sized group of
companies and which is also diverse in multiple of sector such as retail, travel, property &
consultancy. Thus, report will put light on analysing use of IT system within different function,
also how IT system contributes to achievement of the objectives and recommending practical IT
solution for development of an organisational scenario. Also, report will put critical analysis on
explanation and evaluation of the topic.
TASK 1
P1 Analysis of usage of IT systems in various functions of organisation
Information technology is one of the broader concept helps to illustrate technological role
& functioning in different sector's of a business firm such as HR, finance, operation, marketing
etc. On one hand, where IT system is used to easy activities of firm such as providing easy of
doing activities or initiate performance at a growth level (Seebacher and et. al., 2017).
Organisation such as British home Plc operates in multiple sector such as retail, travel, property
or consultancy which in sum total consists of N number of customer which in reality million in
numbers. IT system is useful to find support such as recording of the quality information, assist
in connecting from one department to other's along with sharing data & information in
prosperous way. British home Plc is a multiple sector firm of which focus is to serve customer's
in different sector namely retail, travel, property and consultancy. In that case, IT system has
played its pivotal role to creates relationship among varied department of this medium sized
organisation (Coffing and Bonfiglio, 2017). Therefore, clear & cut analysis of usage of different
IT system in different organisation is as follows:
Human resource: It is one of the core function of a business organisation deals out to
control & maintain employee's and other valuable resources effectively in business firm. Human
resource Dept. in British home Plc perform activities such as recruitment & selection as well as

recording details of each & every employee's. They are using IT aspects such as Email, portal
etc., to share information or data from one location to another. In context of British home Plc,
support of different IT system are as follow:
Email: It is termed as electronic mail useful to share information from one entity to other
using internet portal. HR Dept. of the British home Plc uses Email so as to transfer valuable data
to other as part prioritise task or work (Heinrich and et. al., 2017). British home uses Email
version of the Microsoft which is tested as safest server to share true data for operational aspect
of this firm. Usage of the Email is to bring transparency & consistency in case of sharing of the
data & information to other people. In addition, it will try to save cost in acquiring other system.
Finance: It is one of the superior department of every business which comes out to pump
money in various activities such as marketing, logistics, recruit & selection etc., so that firm can
approved its efficiency and develops firm function on the prominent basis. Financial sector of the
British home plc invests funds in the IT system such as integrated accounting system and e-Book
and these two IT system are used to record funds inflow & outflow at the extensive way. In this
leading medium sized firm integrated accounting system is used to record financial information
and other financial data. Due to this IT support, security and maintenance cost has declined and
led to profit oriented work.
Marketing: It is nominated as pecuniary department of which aim is to promote along
with developing market to sell goods or services (Jia and et. al., 2017). Value of an IT system
can very well applied in marketing Dept. as it involves recording customer's info and profile
data. British home plc has put down huge invest in IT system such as cloud computing, AI etc.,
so as to create one to one connection with customer's and keep them with the firm to serve more.
For this medium sized firm, use of the IT system and its types are as follows:
Cloud computing: It is one of the valuable technology which involves sharing & access
of the information using the server and constitutes mixed functioning of both internet and storage
server. British home Plc uses clouding to store profile purpose data of customer's and restore it
only for firm marketing intention. It is convenient as it involves heavy and no need to be carry.
Research & development: It constitutes giving birth to the product or services of any
firm and bringing prospective & expected changes into the firm business. R&D Dept. of British
home Plc is mainly on bringing prospective changes in existing product or services and with use
of the effective IT system in well organised manner. British home uses TQM and six sigma

software which are part of their support to have check on their existing product or any defect
insides of it (Stair and Reynolds, 2013). With use of the total quality management, R&D Dept. of
the British home Plc is doing good on its task to gain long term effeciency into British homes.
P2 Explicate ways in which IT systems contribute in attainment of objectives.
Information technology plays pivotal role inside organisation for achieving verifiable
goals. It can aid firm's to move out their operations in an suitable manner. IT system has been
used by British home for accomplishing co-operate goals or objectives in different ways, they are
mentioned below:
Product Development: IT will rate up the structure in which products compass in the
market. By devising use of patented data along with marketing ability organisation can
communicate their goods needs. CAD (Computer aided design) and manufacturing software will
aid to speed up decision. Collaborative technologies assist different teams to work on various
sub-sections of a team simultaneously (Schwalbe, 2015). IT aids organisation to respond to
altering needs of customer. British home can have this within their product development so that
they can formulate effectual decisions with respect to that.
Process improvisation: ERP (Enterprise resource planning) allows management to
review sales which have taken place, costs for their services along with operating metrics with
unified software platform within a real time. An ERP system will regenerate various legacy
systems for finance, human resources and different functional areas which will make internal
processes cost effective as well as efficient. British home can opt for ERP system and this will
assist them to make their processes more easier, quicker, accurate and will yield accurate results.
Cost efficiency: Development of IT systems may be costly at initial duration but it will
led to long-term cost savings which make it worth investing. It will also lead to reduction within
transaction as well execution of tasks in an effective manner. IT based productivity solutions
which ranges from word processing to email have allowed organisation to save cost associated
with duplication along with postage while maintenance and improvisation within quality of
customer services (Reichert and Weber, 2012). This aids British home to have effectual systems,
there implementation will be costly but results attained by this will be affirmative. Like with
respect to human beings there is higher possibility of occurrence of errors but with respect to
software this possibility gets reduced by sometimes there might be bugs but high accuracy can be
attained if systems are implemented in required manner.

Competitive edge: Fast product development, cost savings and creation within existing
processes aids organisation to gain as well as maintain high competitive edge within market.
Like if British home will develop their app for smart phones then their competitors will also go
for the same so that they do not lose shares within the market (Rainer and et. 2013). This will
lead British home to have competitive vantage as customers will opt for services rendered by
them by having easy access to services. British home can make use of software simulations,
rapid prototyping and other IT based systems for bringing in product successfully within the
market.
Globalisation: Firm can survive during competitive environment which is having
financial & operational malleability to enables growth up to the domestic level and within global
market. It is one of the core operating model which is crucial for globalisation like outsourcing
and telecommuting (Saunders and Galletta, 2016). British home may go for outsourcing most of
its non-core function such as finances, human resource, R&D and operations to assists
organisation along with sustaining usage of network engineering to act in contact for its
suppliers, customers and overseas employees.
TASK 2
P3 Analysis of diverse ways in which IT systems stores, process data for knowledge, data,
communication and customer data relationship management
IT system is generally as one of the information system, communication system or more
specifically speaking, a computer system – including all hardware, software & peripheral tools or
equipment. Use of the IT system is to creates effective management & communication among
people and led them to store their data and information in an effective way. IT system not only
involves communication, but also assist into the sharing of the data/information to other people
of any firm (Mohammed and Yusof, 2013). In context of British home, IT support system such
as data storage, process data, valuable information intelligence, CRM integration, data
maintenance are some necessities of an information system in the medium sized organisation, so
that British home plc will grow on its potential level. In context of this medium size firm, there
are several diverse way with help of It system can be grow at its potential stage are as follows:
Data storage: It is termed as process of storing valuable data using storage sources like
hardrive, pendrive and CD-Rom. It is also defined as integrated pltaform useful in case to record

media, file, data for longer time. Except hardrive, pendrive and CDs is now considers as oldest
mode of storing data. Now-a-days, cloud computing is emerging server based technology used
by many big venture in the present time (Laurillard, 2013). File storage is vital to store and
access data in case of the urgency. It is expected that cloud computing will further help
customer's and firms to save time & cost. British home Plc uses hardrive to store valuable info &
data such as business bill, attendance & credential of their people and commonly to record data
related to stock kept and delivered.
Knowlege management system: KM system is refers to as any kind of the IT system that
consists of storing and retrieves valuable data or knowledge, improving collaboration, helpful to
locate knowledge sources, mines repositories for hidden knowledge and access knowledge under
the KM process. KM system are of different types and british home is eligible to uses all such as
follows:
Expert system: It is a kind of KM system being develops to faciliates a subject matter
expert. It is mainly used to record confendial data and expertise support which values firms a lot.
Groupware: It is an effective Km system helpful to share calender, project activities and
instant messaging among staff people to increase growth & performance of the business on an
effective way.
Sharepoint: It is important for people to stores various documents at the single location.
Sharepoint enables people to record multiple version of the same document, helps user search
using definate folder's or data section.
Decision support system: It is helpful for floor manager's, sales manager, CEO etc., helps
to take out decision to finalise business or the operation strategy. Decision support unit is mainly
comprises of primary & secondary data. It also helps to enables edition of the data and convert it
to the desired format.
Database management system: It is an essential components of KM system which assists
to support active storage & retrieval of data which is also known as database management
system.
Data communication: It is termed as interchange of the valuable data among among
receiver and sources through transmission media like wire-cable. In current era, communication
of information is mainly conduct using internet such as Email and data sharing server. Cloud
computing is even developed platform which provides support of storing and sharing of valuable

information to person who belongs to similar server (Jaques, 2017). This is the highly protected
using security shield and even not easy to hack.
Brief analysis: From the given analysis, British home Plc has pioneer suggestion to
implements strategy such as customer's data relationship management. In this, focus is able to
store actual profile of the customer and essentionally data is huge in quantity. Using this, CRM
tools can be implements to rise sales of this firm along with developing support for acquiring an
effective customer relationship for operational efficiency of the British home.
TASK 3
P4 Assess how IT system can be utilised for supporting value added change for improvisation in
business operations, performance and sustainability
IT is an emerged technology and changing its pace every time in different scenario. Its
importance in business operations is vast and crucial if planned or manage accordingly. An IT
department need to be there in organisational structure to organise and align business operations
with IT systems efficiently. There are some ways through which utilisation of IT systems in
improving business operations, performance and sustainability can be assess such as - Organized data: Organising function is one of the critical process for successful
company to be well maintained and decision making. Acquiring effective information
systems by businesses ensures problem solving process faster and streamlines
communication. Employees can have easy access on every information and this will
improve their strategic thinking and performance. Management Information Data (MIS)
system organises database of British Home Plc. and it provides past, current and present
information to employee of every hierarchical level. The primary goal of British home
Plc. is to reduce human errors and improves performance of organisation and IT systems
aids it to achieve such goals through improved systems. Security risk is always associated
with this factor as hackers use ransomware to stole information to gain access on
company personal information. To avoid hacking British Home will install anti-virus and
firewall to ensure proper security of its data.
 Eliminates waste: IT systems improves organisational internal processes or operations
by implementing various sub-systems to reduce cost and waste. Knowledge Management

system, data storage, Online training and Management Information Systems are some of
example through which IT improves British Home's operational and managerial
processes. Systems provides quality and value in functions with less employee efforts
which increases productivity and eliminates duplication of work. Although IT systems
are costly affairs, expensive at time of installation and management may face resistance
from employees while implementing it. British House will be benefited in long run when
it becomes incredibly cost-effective for business. Stores and safeguard information: It stores, preserve and maintain sensitive as well as
general data of company for lifetime (Legner and et. al., 2017). IT systems allows
organisation with ability to store, backup, share, access, rewrite and protect valuable or
confidential information. Data storage systems are used by British House to store data
according to date and time to access easily which improves performance and
sustainability of organisation. Duplication of records due to recurring storage of data can
leads to confusion while filtering information and using it for decision making. British
House may install system that avoid entry of duplicated data in portal. Faster decision making: The level of success depends upon decisions and strategic plans
formed by management, for this organisation uses information systems. Decision making
processes requires effective data from company sources which is provided by systems
after evaluating its validity and reliability. British House has Performance Appraisal
Software which helps in motivating employees to become more productive and
evaluating employees effectiveness in organisation. Problem related to such system is
break down, interruption in process and defective information systems may deliver faulty
data to other operations which can create problem in processes. British House may reduce
this through regular updating its systems to avoid such wastage of time and energy.
TASK 4
P5 Recommendation of IT solution for business problems
British home Plc is the medium sized firm that operates under different sector such as
travel, retail, properly and consultany. As, they operates under wide and well spread market of a
UK and also many customer's at current time (Hitomi, 2017). IT sector is an emerging sector

provides firm to control and build chain of the solution such as brings new technology,
adaptation to save time & cost along with productivity or efficiency of a business firm. British
home Plc is suffers with an issue of lack of decentrilised IT system and seruiosly this is a matter
of concern. British home Plc has its own operation Dept. but they have failed to brings
innovation in that process. This could as reason of lack of financial benefits or might be firm
failed has failed to understand the scenario. Along with this, firm is also failed to appeal to youth
customer in buying travelling products or services. Finally, it was revealed that due to lack of IT
system, British home is failed to rises its business effeciency. Hence, technological solutions are
feasible necessities such as development of the database management system, bringing new
changes in IT support system along with new idea's to appeal prospective customer's.
Giving priority to automation computing: This covers cloud compting and also major
importance must be investing to it, so that burden of physical storage will be removed. Clouding
is helpful for automatic backup of the data using internet and this is helpful to access information
and data regarding operational aspect of the British home Plc. As this solution is comparatively
bit costlier in comparison to hardrive, but it helps to access information or data at any time with
access of internet connection (Hendriks, 2013). Hence, this is a cost burden for initial period, but
effective for operational aspects of the British home for long time.
Investment in the digital technology: British home was suffering with an issue of lack of
appealing to the youth as might be because of lack of social appearance of the business firm. In
the present era, most of the people are currently placed on social media such as Facebook, twitter
or instagram etc. Also, people visit websites mostly to makes purchase decision and hence digital
marketing can be good option to makes out an effective appeal to people to buy & purchase
using digital marketing tools such as SEO (search engine optimisation) etc.
Due to all such IT solution, estimation of accomplishing business operation and long term
profitability is expected in case of British home Plc. Plus, British home Plc is need to evaluates
all such as tools or techniques so that right utilisation of IT solution can be taken care into the
business operation (Burrough and et. Al, 2015). Also, quality measurement of all these IT
solution is rise to ascertain effective productivity for operation.

CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is concluded that IT system has been resulting into growth to
business operation in an effective manner. The vital purpose of the IT system is to give easy
operation of the business so that they earn higher profitability at given point of time. Hence, role
of cloud computing is to gather easy access of data/information and sharing given information to
other prescribed in an effective manner. IT empowerment is necessary to led accomplishing
strategic position into the market along with decision making in context of brings IT revolution
in business firm. Thus, it is prominent for me IT tools such as management information system
(MIS) and database information system to record data accordingly along with setup platform for
accomplishing technical objectives.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Becerra-Fernandez, I. and Sabherwal, R., 2014. Knowledge management: Systems and
processes. Routledge.
Bentley, T., 2012. Learning beyond the classroom: Education for a changing world. Routledge.
Burrough, P. A.and et. al, 2015. Principles of geographical information systems. Oxford
university press.
Hendriks, C. J., 2013. Integrated Financial Management Information Systems: Guidelines for
effective implementation by the public sector of South Africa. South African Journal of
Information Management, 15(1), pp.1-9.
Hitomi, K., 2017. Manufacturing systems engineering: A unified approach to manufacturing
technology, production management and industrial economics. Routledge.
Jaques, E., 2017. Requisite organization: A total system for effective managerial organization
and managerial leadership for the 21st century. Routledge.
Laurillard, D., 2013. Rethinking university teaching: A conversational framework for the
effective use of learning technologies. Routledge.
Mohammed, S. A. and Yusof, M. M., 2013. Towards an evaluation framework for information
quality management (IQM) practices for health information systems–evaluation criteria
for effective IQM practices. Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 19(2), pp.379-387.
Pearlson, K. E., Saunders, C. S. and Galletta, D. F., 2016. Managing and using information
systems, binder ready version: a strategic approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Rainer, R. K. and et. 2013. Introduction to information systems: Supporting and transforming
business. John Wiley & Sons.
Reichert, M. and Weber, B., 2012. Enabling flexibility in process-aware information systems:
challenges, methods, technologies. Springer Science & Business Media.
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2013. Principles of information systems. Cengage Learning.
Jia, Q., and et. al., 2017. Enterprise 2.0 post-adoption: Extending the information system
continuance model based on the technology-Organization-environment
framework. Computers in Human Behavior. 67. pp.95-105.
Heinrich, R., and et. al., 2017., 2017. Integrating business process simulation and information
system simulation for performance prediction. Software & Systems Modeling. 16(1).
pp.257-277.
Coffing, D. and Bonfiglio, L., 2017. Transaction system for business and social networking. U.S.
Patent 9,600,674.
Seebacher, S. and et. al., 2017., 2017, May. Blockchain technology as an enabler of service
systems: A structured literature review. In International Conference on Exploring
Services Science (pp. 12-23). Springer, Cham.
Tian, F., 2017, June. A supply chain traceability system for food safety based on HACCP,
blockchain & Internet of things. In 2017 International Conference on Service Systems
and Service Management (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Legner, C., and et. al., 2017., 2017. Digitalization: opportunity and challenge for the business
and information systems engineering community. Business & information systems
engineering. 59(4). pp.301-308.

Online
Five IT Functions in an Organisation. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://smallbusiness.chron.com/five-functions-organization-34002.html>.