Analyzing the Role of IT Systems in Tesco's Business Operations

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the information technology systems employed by Tesco, a multinational retail organization. It explores the application of IT across various functions, including marketing, data management, and communication, highlighting their contribution to achieving organizational objectives such as maximizing sales, decreasing costs, fostering innovation, and gaining a competitive advantage. The report details different data storage and processing methods, such as on-premises solutions, cloud storage, CRM software, and MS Excel. Furthermore, it examines how IT systems support value-added changes, improving sustainability, performance, and overall business operations. The report concludes with recommendations for practical IT solutions to address specific business problems within Tesco's context. This report is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools for students.

Business Information Technology
Systems

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P1 Use of IT systems in different functions of organisation.......................................................1
P2 Contribution of IT systems in achieving objectives of the organisation...............................2
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................3
P3 Different ways by which IT systems store and process data.................................................3
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................4
P4 Use of IT system to support value added change for improving sustainability, performance
and business operations...............................................................................................................4
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................5
P5 Recommended practical IT solution to business problems....................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Information technology is referred as use of various computer systems in order to store,
transmit, retrieve as well as manipulate information or data within the business of an
organisation. IT has always been beneficial for organisations and has helped in operating
business. IT of the organisation effects its culture, relationships as well as efficiency of the
organisation. In this report Tesco is taken as an organisation, which is a multinational retailing
organisation of UK dealing in groceries and general merchandise. It is the world's third largest
retailing company as per its gross revenues. Present report discusses role of different IT systems
which can support organisational objectives of the company. Also, this report includes the
flexible and reliable IT systems which can help in meeting the requirements of business and also
evaluates various IT systems which can result and support the change in the organisation. This
report also includes the recommendation on the practical IT system solutions given to various
organisational scenarios.
LO 1
P1 Use of IT systems in different functions of organisation
IT forms the important part of the organisation and it is used in various departmental
functions of the organisation which help in easy performance of tasks. Use of IT in various
functions of the organisation can be explained as below:
Marketing functions: Marketing is the core aspect of Tesco' s business which helped in
achieving the goals of the organisation but without IT it will lack effective marketing capabilities
(Lee, Thomas and Baskerville, 2015). IT can help in marketing process in various ways like it is
helping content creation, as company can create advertising as well as sales copy on the
computer system by using word processing software and can also help in creating beautiful
graphics to attract customers. IT has helped the marketing department of Tesco in its online
advertising and in the process of E-commerce. IT is also used for market research to collect the
information of the market.
Data management: It is the most important function of Tesco, managing the data of customers,
clients as well employees is a complex task. With help of IT, company has been able to store
huge amount of data and information which can be easily retrieved instantly. In current scenario
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data comes to the company in various forms like audio, video, text, etc so, in order to manage
and control these forms of data company needs IT to operate such a huge data base.
Communication: Having a effective communication in place, Tesco can carry out its business
functions easily and can also help in carrying out internal business functions. It also helps in
setting a proper collaboration within the various departments in the workplace. In the
communication systems IT plays an important role as IT helps Tesco in achieving
communication at very high speed through multiple communication channels (Peters and et.al.,
2016). By using IT, company has been carrying out the communication through emails, video
conferencing which is the best of communication process which can help company in carrying
out effective communication with the people at different locations. IT has also been used in
development of collaboration software which has allowed different teams of Tesco to work
together and also has helped the company to cut their projects times to half without any delays.
Process improvement: IT has helped Tesco in improving the different processes of the
organisation for example IT is being used in human resource planning and for training and
developmental programs of employees (Mežinska, Lapiņa and Mazais., 2015). With IT systems
in place it has allowed Tesco in effective communication with employees and has also used for
the resource planning of the organisation which has resulted saving of cost and time for the
organisation.
P2 Contribution of IT systems in achieving objectives of the organisation
Having an effective IT systems in the company can help in achieving the goals and
objectives of the organisation. Every organisation set various objectives and put efforts towards
their achievement but in the absence of IT it not possible to achieve them. Following are the
contribution of IT in achievement of Tesco's objectives:
Objectives and contribution:
1. To maximise sales: In order to maximise the sale of company's products IT system play an
important role in achieving this objective. With the help of IT Tesco can get proper insights from
the markets which can help in accelerating the opportunities for increasing the sale of the
organisation (Pan and Seow, 2016). Also, IT can help is setting collaboration between sales and
marketing team which can help them is developing proper marketing and sales strategies that can
help in achieving this objective. Also, IT system of Tesco can take insight from the markets and
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can help in analysing the sales trends of the customers which can help sales department to predict
the future sales of the company.
2. To decrease cost: Decreasing the cost of the company is one of the prime objective of the
organisation and with the help of IT system in place can help Tesco in achieving this objective.
IT can help the company in improving the production process and various other processes of the
company which can help in minimising the errors within the business process, that can reduce
the cost of business operations. For example with the help of IT company can reduce the costs of
HR planning also can help in decreasing the cost of marketing process and even the production
process. So, this is how Tesco can decrease the costs of business.
3. Innovations in the business: In order to innovate the business process IT system can prove to
be a major contributory factor for Tesco. With the help of IT company can improve the quality
standards of their products and services which can help in attracting existing and potential
customers (Li and et.al., 2018). Also, company can bring innovation in its business operation and
in the communication systems of the company. With the help of IT Tesco can bring innovation
in their marketing and sales processes. So, this is how IT system can help the company in
innovating the business.
4. To gain competitive advantage: In order to achieve competitive, IT plays an important role
as it helps the company to improve its business functions, mitigate the errors, improve the
communication system, decrease the costs, innovate the business and increase the sale of the
company. So, IT system is the major contributory factor for achieving this objective of Tesco.
LO 2
P3 Different ways by which IT systems store and process data
There are different ways through which IT systems in Tesco can store and process data
for knowledge management, customer relationships management as well as communication
management are as follows:
On premises: It is the most effective and easiest way of storing and retrieving data at any time,
this is considered as the original method of storing data for any business. On premises storage
method involves various servers which managed and owned by the company itself . As Tesco is
large company, these servers can be located at private data centre facility. It may sometime may
include the various machines which are located in office data room. This method can provide
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Tesco to have a great control on organisational information and data. This method is not too
costly and has minimum maintenance cost (Lu, 2017). There is a certain limitation of the method
is that outdated equipments needs to be replaced and software needs to be updated and even the
access protocols needs to be strictly followed.
Cloud storage: This method can prove effective way storing the huge mount of data, as it is the
model of computer data storage where the digital data of the company is stored in the logical
pools. This method can enable company to store data on internet by using the cloud computing
providers which manage and operate data storage as a service. This can be delivered to the
company on their demand within its time and capacity as well as the cost and also eliminates the
managing and buying company's own data storage infrastructure (Kavanagh and Johnson, 2017).
This method can give Tesco an agility, durability and global scale as company can access the
data at anytime and anywhere. This method brings huge benefits to the company as it decreases
the cost of the company as company does not need to buys hardware, does not need to update the
software etc. It also enable to deliver the required amount of data at the right time and also this
method provides high data security to valuable data.
CRM software: With the help of this software company can store the data of their customers
and can be accessed at any time (5 Ways to Back up Your Data, 2019). As Tesco is in retailing
business and has to deal with various customers so this software can prove beneficial for the
company.
MS Excel: This is simplest method of storing data, here Tesco can store their sales records and
the records of their customers which can be retrieved at any time and it is less complex and easy
to use.
P4 Use of IT system to support value added change for improving sustainability, performance
and business operations
Business operations: IT systems can be used in various ways which can help Tesco in
improving the business performance. Improving the business operation is the goal of every
organisation and companies grow and change and improving the business operations becomes
more complex time after time but IT systems of the company can help in reducing these
complexities and help in bringing the valuable change in the organisation (Orna, 2017). Business
operations can be improved by Tesco by various ways for example it can help the company to
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reduce costs, as IT makes the business process efficient and help the company to reduce the cost
of running business process and also reduce the cost of quality. IT systems can also help in
delivering the positive customer experience to their customers which can help the company in
generating revenue. IT can also help in making future prediction which can help Tesco to
identify new opportunities and minimise risks. So, this how IT systems can bring value added
change in the business operations.
Performance: Having the effective IT system in place Tesco can not only improve the
performance of employees but can also improve the performance of entire organisation. With the
help of effective IT system, it can ensure that company's business is well-organised and can help
in solving the various business problems and even making the decisions much faster (Xiang,
Magnini and Fesenmaier, 2015). Another advantage is employees can improve performance to
higher levels for example sales team of Tesco can improve their sales performance by predicting
the sales tends of the future. So, which can help in improving the performance of the employees
in the organisation. Also, employees of the Tesco can have access to all the information at
anytime and any where which help them in improving their productivity.
Sustainability: IT system can also help Tesco in achieving sustainability of organisation there
are various ways by which IT can bring sustainability in the business. IT system can help the
company to generate awareness and spread awareness programs related to sustainability within
the organisation and can also result in environmental sustainability. Company can adopt Green
IS in order to contribute towards environmental sustainability (Baumgartner, and Rauter, 2017).
IT systems can also develop capabilities of Tesco towards the sustainable approach and can help
in establishment of green processes within the workplace. So, this is how Tesco can contribute
towards the sustainability and maintain sustainability in the organisation as well.
LO 4
P5 Recommended practical IT solution to business problems
There are various challenges which are faced by Tesco in operating its business like very
high market competitions, very sluggish market growth and sales, lack of innovations and lack of
management strategies. These challenges can be faced by Tesco by applying proper IT solution
which can help the company in improving its business performance in the market (Shmueli and
et.al., 2017). In order to overcome the challenges facing tough competitions IT system can help
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the company to analyse the market conditions and also can provide insights of various
competitors which are available in the market (Mu, Kirsch and Butler, 2015). With the help IT
Tesco can gain the information of its competitors and analyse their sales trends and marketing
strategies due to which company develop proper marketing strategies and makes changes in their
business operations which can help company to face the competition in the market (Shmueli and
et.al., 2017). With the help of IT systems Tesco can properly organise it workplace and develop a
positive culture in the organisation which can help the company to increase their productivity
and can help in gaining the competitive advantage. In order increase the sale of the company's
products can make use of IT systems which help to track the sales record of the sales team and
also sales team can use various gain the information of low performance areas and can develop
the strategies for improving the sale 's products in the market. Also, company make use of IT
system in managing the before sale and after sale performance of products (Sun, Sun and Strang,
2018). Tesco can make use of various sales software systems which can help in improving the
sale of the company products in the market. For example Tesco can use Pipedrive software
which is the one of the best sales software solutions available in the market, as this software can
help the company to deal with the different stages of sales and can help in tracking down the
sales team progress and identity.
As Tesco faces the problem of lack of innovation in the organisation, but with the help of
IT system can bring innovations in their products and services. For example in order to innovate
their product production department with the help of IT can makes changes in their products as
per needs and requirements of the customers. For this company can gather accurate information
of the customer needs and preference with the help of communication technologies like social
media (Boshyk, 2016). By this company will be able to innovate their products and not only this
company can also make use of IT system in order to provide unique services to their customer
within UK. For example company can make use of E-commerce in order to provide better
product delivery service to their customer can improve response time. IT system can help the
company's top management to take proper can correct decision with the help of decision support
systems which can help the company to improve their management strategies. So, this is how IT
systems can provide practical solutions to business problems.
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CONCLUSION
Present report concludes that IT systems forms an important part of organisation and
company can make use of various IT systems in order to improve their business performance.
Company can use IT systems in order to improve the various functions of the organisation and
also IT is the major contributory factor which can help the company in achieving its objectives.
It can also be concluded from the report that IT systems can store and process the data in various
ways and help company to in improving the business operations.
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REFERENCES
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