Tesco's Success: Leveraging Information Technology to Accelerate Growth - Essay Sample

Abstract

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Executive Summary

Tesco is a British multination grocery, which is one of the most successful business organizations in the country. Its success can e traced with the willingness of the management to embrace the application of Information Technology applications, which are utilized in various departments. The company prefers different networking technologies, all of which has ensured the achievement of a centralized service from its single data center. As a result, access to the necessary information can be accessed within as well as from areas external to the organization. Many works of literature have been published in the field of application of IT to the company, Tesco, which reveals how much it has benefitted as a result. However, the analysis of the information published reveals that some ethical and social challenges result in the process. Nevertheless, overall, the success of the organization is highly depended on the application of Information Technology.

Introduction

Information technology (IT) has unique applications, which have changed the way people operate in the business environment of the modern. This has enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in business activities guaranteeing success to the firms, which embrace the associated business tools that come Information Technology. IT also serves to serves to help an organization economize on the resources while maintaining the quality and efficiency requirements contributing to a significant level of productivity (Bausells 2019). Concerning the significance of the IT tools, companies like Tesco and other business organizations of the contemporary society have resort to embrace the incorporation of the applications. While there are some considerable challenges around the use of the IT applications in Tesco's business operations, the tools have enabled the organization to attain improved productivity.

Purpose

The report aims at analyzing how IT has enabled Tesco to record significance performance steps. The report recognizes that the implications of IT in a firm may be negative or positive depending on the compatibility on the specific activity or process to which it is connected. Concerning this idea, this paper responds by identifying the role of IT in the success or failure of Tesco. Besides, it shows the ethical and social issues that pertain to running businesses. Moreover, it identifies and differentiates between different types of networking technologies in the same organization. It also documents a discussion of the importance of Intranet and Internet as applied in Tesco. Finally, the report covers an explanation of the stages involved in the system development life cycle.

Background

The application of Information Technology and its applications has enabled Tesco to effectively use its capabilities and resources to develop a significant competitive advantage over its greatest rivals like Sainsbury in the business of retail trade. Tesco is multinational groceries, and a general merchandise retail business organization in Britain whose headquarter is in Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom (Zhan et al. 2016). Tesco is a potential business organization, significantly applying IT tools, which has enabled the supermarket chain to dominate the UK business by offering superior products and services. As a result, the company is one of the most successful business organizations in the United Kingdom.

Literature Review

Information technology and Its Role in Business

Information technology refers to the use of computers, network, storage devices, processes, and other infrastructure to create, process, store, secure, and distribute data electronically. The role of information technology cannot be overemphasized when it comes to business operations (Bausells 2019). The following are some of the purposes of information technology in business.

Storage

Information technology provides a mechanism for storing a large amount of data on a physically small device such as flash disk, hard disc, and the cloud. This enables businesses to save money that would have been otherwise used for building storages for their files.

Data Sharing

With information technology, data sharing becomes accessible through the use of online databases. A large amount of data can be shared by people in different geographical location simultaneously. Zhao (2014) argued that a business could come up with a central database which is shared by all devices. This helps companies to perform a single task on the database, and the effect is reflected on all devices connected to the database. Zhan, Tan, Li, and Tse (2016) added that data sharing applications such as flatshare,Bluetooth, and xender make it easy to transfer business data from one device to another.

How the Internship Affects Future Career Planning

Networking technology refers to any technology via which computers are connected and communicate by sharing information. There is various type of networking technologies, some of which include:

Local Area Network (LAN)

This is a network technology that connects many computers within a small physical region, especially within a building or small groups of building. Xie and Allen (2013) felt that this type of network technology is widely used in offices because it is very easy to design and troubleshoot. LAN network is commonly used to share resources such as hard disk and printers.

Wide Area Network (WAN)

Wide area network is a network technology that is used to connect many computers over a large geographical region such as states, countries, and continent. WAN technology is complex to design and to troubleshoot (Sibanda & Ramrathan 2017). WAN usually uses Satellite links as their communication medium and operates on a low data rate.

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)

Metropolitan Area Network is just like a bigger version of Local Area Network. It is meant to cover the entire city, and it interconnects several Local Area Networks together to form a wider network. According to Sibanda and Ramrathan (2017), it is mainly owned and operated by private or public companies. MAN uses optical fibers and cables as its communication medium.

Ethics and Social Issues of Using Technology in General

Ethics refers to the prescribed code of conduct that is acceptable in a given society. Introduction of technology creates a new landscape that changes the way people communicate and transact businesses (Bausells 2019). This, therefore, brings forth the ideas of ethics. The following are some of the ethical and social issues in using technology.

Information and Privacy

The internet is flooded with a lot of information about people and organizations. The internet, therefore, makes it easy to find people's phone numbers, academic information, new friends, and information about a company or an organization (Palmer, 2005). The availability of this large of data makes it easy to breach into a person or organization's boundary while using the internet for learning. Encroaching into a person or organization's privacy is unethical and may attract a penalty.

Communication Issues

Information technology has completely altered the way people communicate and interact with each other. The invention of social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, electronic mail, and other online messaging has completely changed the way people interact. Page (2019) argued that the change in the communication landscape had made face-to-face communication to gradual die. Information technology has, therefore, come with challenges concerning ethics that should accompany a decent conversation. It is unethical, for example, to ask for permission from a boss through a facebook text, or forming relationships online.

The Importance of Intranet and Internet in Business in General

An intranet is an online portal where a company or organization's information is kept. The intranet allows an organization to keep information about their employee, staff news, and memos and makes them available at all time to the users. On the other hand, the internet refers to the interconnection of computers. The following are the importance of intranet and internet in business.

Resource Sharing and Collaboration

Intranet and internet allow businesses to share resources. A company can create and store information about its employee, news, and events in their intranet. Farhanghi, Abbaspour, and Ghassemi (2013) provided that this allows employees to use and share the same piece of information regardless of their physical geographical location. An intranet allows for the creation of a collaborative site where employees can work together and exchange valuable ideas which might prove to be of value to the organization. The intranet makes it possible for remote workers to collaborate and exchange ideas freely. On the other hand, the internet enables interconnection of devices to share information within an intranet.

Analysis and Discussion

Role of Information Technology in the Selected Business

Tesco has been keeping up to date with the technology. There are numerous ways that technology has helped Tesco to improve shopping for its online and offline for both its customers and employees. This has increased its sales and boosted its customer experience. Tesco has, for example, implemented stock counter technology, which has made more comfortable the work of its employees tasked with stock counting. Tesco came up with RFID-enable barcode to be used for F&F clothing range (Donnelly et al. 2013). This enables the goods to be automatically counted and the information transmitted to the suppliers who will keep in constant touch with the business to ensure that the store does not run sort of product.

Types of Different Information Systems That Are Used in a Selected Company Like Management Information System, Decision Support Systems, Etc.

Tesco utilizes the features of some information systems the most significant ones being Management Information System (MIS), Decision Support System (DSS) and Executive Support System (ESS). MIS is applicable in Tesco as a computer-based system providing its managers with necessary tools for management, evaluation, and running of the individual, organizational departments (Coe, Lee and Wood 20...