Industry Best Practices - Research Paper Example

This essay intends to describe one of the best practices in retail industry in relation to remote connectivity solution. The objective of the essay is to describe the advantages and disadvantages of remote connectivity solution. Furthermore, the essay would also discuss about the opportunities of improvements in remote connectivity solution (SonicWall, Inc., 2007). Best Practice for Remote Connectivity Solution In Retail Industry Traditionally, remote access was enjoyed by only a certain number of people in a retail organization such as executives or sales force.

However, intense progress of mobile devices along with introduction of high speed internet connectivity have increased the expectations of organizations in retail industry to ensure better and safe access to various networks and services. Retail industry nowadays demand accelerated information transmission and real time information processing in order to enjoy remote access of organizational information. In fact, there are several best practices for remote connectivity solution in retail industry.

One such practice is introduction of ‘Virtual Private Network’ (VPN) technology (Kouroubali, Starren, Barrows, & Clayton, 1997). Advantages VPN technology is a rational solution for remote access in retail segment. This system provides secure access to the organizational resources in retail segment by establishing an encrypted channel in an online environment. VPN technology permits retail organizations to reach their internal network in cost effective and secure manner. VPN technology can provide great flexibility to the employees to access the organizational network from any place and at any time.

In this way, this technology helps employees to perform their job effectively. By implementing VPN solution, employees can conduct the regular business activities such as communicating through e-mail or using customized network program rapidly. The VPN solution can also enhance the productivity of retail organization as they will be capable of providing suppliers or business associates to access the required information without compromising the security (Lee, Hwang, Kang & Jun, 2000). The major advantages for applying VPN practices for remote connectivity solution are: It can provide secure communication with access authority by customizing the network system according to the information requirement for each user such as employee, suppliers or business associates It can improve the productivity by improving inner organizational network and applications It can minimize the communication expenses and enhance the flexibility of employees to perform regular activities (Cisco Systems, Inc., 2008) Disadvantages Although VPN provide solution to remote connectivity in retail industry, it also has quite a few disadvantages.

VPN technology helps to extend the organizational network which at times makes the organizational resources more accessible for network invaders. They can disclose sensitive information of organization to the public network. VPN technology is quite vulnerable, because any sort of fault or error in the system can result in security breach of organizational network. Except encryption technology, VPN system does not use any kind of security layer as a primary defense. Hence, it poses a threat for retail organization as people can access organizational information by bypassing the outside