Information Technology as the Best Option for Dealing with Problems of Small and Medium Enterprises - Case Study Example

Running head: E- portfolio E-Portfolio Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Introduction Information and technology (IT) is the method used to communicate electronically using computers. It is also the use of computer technology and network in conducting services in businesses. IT is used in developing and reducing manual work in companies leading to improving of services and contention of customers. In the modern world, IT has been adapted almost everywhere making the world a better place for everyone. Since the invention of information and technology, there have been several business transactions. This has improved business, and there is positive economic growth worldwide. 7 eleven Due to high unpaid debts to their lenders, it has to sell assets to ito yokado in order to raise money. In the other hand, the stores in Japan were making billion of dollars. 7 eleven went ahead and established its store in various parts in China, and made massive profits. 7 eleven is one of the international chain of convenience stores in Japan that is in turn owned by the seven and I holding. 7 eleven has always been an enormous competition for private and convenience stores. It established its first store in 1978 and by 1988 it had over 5000 stores in Japan. The company created millions of information systems in all its stores, in Japan. The reason for doing this, was to known their customers, and what they want, to develop a tracking device to track anything that may go missing in the stores, to give the clerks in every store the possibility of knowing the details of their customers such as age, and gender, and to known the exact time that multiple purchases are made. The information systems were also used to track every thing that happened in the stores including the performance level of the employees in order to reward the top performers. This was one way of competing with the other convenience and independent stores in Japan (Waters & Lester, 2010). The director of 7 eleven, checked the quality of products in other companies, and he would improve the quality of products in 7 eleven’s stores in order to secure the most customers. The company had a system invented for checking the quality and originality of the products they purchased from different manufacturing companies. In Japan, space is so expensive and 7 eleven controlled this by creating smaller store. Since they knew what their customers needed and at what time, they only kept the products at needed the time, and provided them when the customers needed them. They even made many shelves in their store specifically for the products that had high demand (Heathcote, 2005). Small and medium enterprises Small and medium enterprises (SMI) are the companies that their head out falls below a limit. This term is mostly used Europe and by the international organization such as World Bank, European Union and the United Nations. It has been proven that the small and medium enterprises are the highest contributors to the economy of United Kingdom. It is responsible for 52% of United Kingdom’s economy annually. IT has also contributed to 1% of the 51% of the small and medium enterprises (Lucas & Sanborn, 2002). For a long time, many small and medium enterprises have refused to use IT to increase the amount of profit they receive. A research made by Cisco system found out that, IT has contributed to 47% of the labor productivity from 1992 to 2000. On of the reasons that are preventing the small and medium enterprises from using IT is because, it is considered as one of expenses that the SMEs will be including in their budgets. The SMEs should also research on; the products preferred by most customers, the quantity and the quality of their goods, and to improve the relationship between customers and the seller (Bryan & Clegg, 2006). By doing this, the SMEs will improve the United Kingdom’s economy with a higher level. The enterprises should apply the strategies of improving its market according to the product enterprise deals with and try in expanding in other fields. Wired education at Harvard Harvard is a business school that began in 1995 and since then, it has invested more than 10 million dollars in applying web publications in campuses. It is also known as HBS. The students have been using the school intranet to research on their assignment and even other projects in the school. This has eased the work of the professor since the students can read on their own and wait for exams. It has helped the students because they are able to hold discussions online with students from other places (Waters & Lester, 2010). During class time, the professor does not have to write anything on board, the professor logs in HBS intranet to pull cases and the note on the lesson are displayed in the student’s monitors. The web can also display video clips related to what the students are learning to make it easy for the professor when teaching. Intranet has password and can only be used to students assigned for it. There are significant soft wares that are installed to allow student access to any website with ease (Jafari & Kaufman, 2006). Through the intranet, there are professors who are assisting the learners respond to questions related to the fields they teach. This has significantly satisfied the student educationally. The students are able to get assignments through intranet and even access to libraries for researching on their assignments. Nowadays almost every course is online and students are able to get the details of what they want through intranet. United States election Globally, United States is ranked as one of the nations with the highest growth in technology. United States has been using voting machine for counting votes during election. These machines were recommended in order to avoid cheating in the election, and since then they have never been injustice until in the year 2000. It was discovered that the old machines have been encountering some breakdown causing cheats in election. The vice president gore started demanding manual recounting of the votes when he heard that president bush’s victory was due to machine errors. Manual counting of the vote would not be trusted due to people tampering with ballot boxes, fraud and common human errors. The proposed solution was to have digital voting machine in the future in order to avoid complains about unfair election. The national science foundation was about to start the online voting but they discovered that this was not secured, and people may be forced to vote for people they do not want. Ecommerce at Quantas The sudden rise in fuel price between 1999 and 2000 created pressure in quantas which is the largest airline in Australia. The company had also to deal with its competitors and still pay some debts in Sydney airport. This made the company be at risk of bankrupting, and it had to take some measures in order to stabilize the company’s status. One of ideas the company had is to use information, and technology techniques to get more customers (Waters & Lester, 2010). Quantas joined business to business purchasing companies that linked leading airlines in Australia. The companies provided quantas with a variety of cheap and quality services, for example, fuel, and continuous servicing of the airport. The airport sent mails to their frequent customers asking them to book flights online. This attracted many customers since one could even book flights at home and was convenient any time. Quantas established an online college and employed the students after they graduated. They also made the contract for money transaction with several banks ensuring that customers would pay online with the bank of their preference. The company adapted information and technology in almost all its programs, projects and services provided to their customers (Jafari & Kaufman, 2006). Occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) OSHA is an agency that was created to monitor the welfare of employees and employers and ensuring their safety in work places. In the 1990s OSHA was involved in many cases whereby companies oppressed their employees and by the time OSHA was about to take action, the company had corrected everything and OSHA was left without evidence. Employees were continuously complaining, and OSHA had to use some strategies to end complains. They adapted information and technology to fix CCTV cameras to monitors the actions in companies (Jafari & Kaufman, 2006). The cameras used displayed all that happened in the companies in the screens, in OSHA’s offices. Apart from ensuring that the employees were in secure workplaces, they also tracked the illegal businesses that were conducted in companies. These made it easy for them to arrest and charge the companies that disobeyed their rules. When the companies noticed that they were tracked through cameras, they stopped illegal businesses and improved the condition of their companies. Nowadays OSHA has fewer cases and is using information and technology techniques in almost every activity. (Bryan & Clegg, 2006). Criminal investigation The criminal scene investigators (CSI) had been for a long time dropping criminal case due to lack of evidence. The people were complaining, and the government was about to ban the force since it was not helping the public as it was required. The force had to take some responsible measure in order to sustain the agency. IT was their best option since it had worked in several institutions. The force was introduced to DNA which was to be used to identify criminals through the help of medical personnel. If it was a death case the evidence found on the body of the victim was taken to a government laboratory where several tests were done and DNA different found was used to charge suspects. They also used the technique of taking fingerprint on the evidence found and after scanning the criminals would be identified. This was a way of identifying criminal without arresting innocent suspects. (Jafari & Kaufman, 2006). Within a year, the US penitentiaries were full of criminals, and crimes had significantly decreased. The CSI began using IT to improve their techniques in getting evidence; today it is the leading investigative agency in the world. The world is also enjoying the success achieved by IT in different fields. Medical research The several wars in the 19th century there were many death cases in hospitals all over. The available microscopes were the light microscopes and could help in research since its magnification is extremely low. People had slowly started giving up on hospitals and death had become a threat to many people’s lives. There was need to seek for help from other fields in order to stop the deaths. By the help of IT, there was the development of electronic microscopes that would magnify up to million times. (Waters & Lester, 2010). These microscopes were used in the invention of better drugs reducing the deaths that occurred. The microscope was multi purpose and could perform different tasks at the same time. Many hospitals started using the same strategy and death rates reduced immensely. The information technology also invented faster and better medical facilities which were used to save many patients’ lives. Since then information and technology has greatly improved the structure of our hospitals. Nowadays hospitals have the better services compared to the 19th century, and death rates have highly decreased. People seek medical attention for prevention of diseases and not only for seeking cure. Even though, the IT seems to have slowed down in establishing other developments in hospitals, they are still in the process of bringing up better thing for the brighter future. State Street Corporation This is among the rated top ten best banks in United States which is located in Boston. In the 1980s, the bank was going through some financial problems due to the stiff competition. The bank had started selling its entire share, and it was almost running bankrupt. The bank was not fully considering the customers’ needs and grievances. The customers were even moving to other banks due to the fear of loosing their shares when the bank closes. The company used IT in improving their services by borrowing some ideas from the information and technology sector. In those days, there were several cases of theft in banks, and they fixed this by installing cameras that could record everything that happened in the bank. This also helped in the bank managing, and employees in the bank would work hard because they knew they were under the supervision. There was also introduction of online and paperless banking and this prevented cuing in the bank. The bank made the contract with some companies, and there was a transaction of money in different companies, and customer workers would receive their salaries through the bank. Today, State Street Corporation makes billion of dollars annually and has the best services. All the services provided by this bank are related to the field of IT since the modern world is dealing with computers. United States roads Traffic jam was one of the major problems in American roads, in the 1980s. There were long queues, and there was slow economic growth of United States since people spent most of their driving instead of working. The government improved the condition of the roads, but this did not solve the problem. The best option was to apply IT is monitoring all the roads in order to avoid the congestion of vehicles on one route. (Waters & Lester, 2010). There was the installation of cameras on every road, and through computer programs, one could know the best route to use. The police force was also able to identify the cause of road accidents and implemented the best measures to avoid them. There was also the invention of electric train which were even faster than vehicles and were could not encounter traffic jams. Although IT did not invent this, it contributed to the invention and also uses their skills in improving the structure of the trains. Nowadays United States is among the countries with the best roads. The improvement of the roads has contributed to the stable economic standard of United States. Information and technology has been one of the best options of dealing with problems since the modern world is a computer world. References Brounstein, M., Donaldson, M. & Economy, P., 2010. Thriving in the Workplace All-in-One for Dummies. New York: For Dummies. Bryan, C. & Clegg, K., 2006. Innovative assessment in higher education. London: Routledge. Heathcote, P., 2005. D201: Using ICT (DiDA.). Payne Gallway. Jafari, A. & Kaufman, C., 2006. Handbook of research on ePortfolios. Montana: Idea Group (IGI) Inc, Lucas, S. & Sanborn, R., 2002. Special Edition Using Crystal Enterprise 8.5. Philadelphia: Que Publishing. Waters, J. & Lester, J., 2010. The Everything Guide to Social Media. Washington DC: Everything Books. Read More