Role of IT in Business Management - Essay Example

Role of IT in Business Management The advent of Information Technology to Business has drastically changed lifestyles. This change has taken its effect on individuals and businesses alike. Corporations are dependant on IT for successful completion of various business activities. E-Commerce is the latest revolution in IT which allows companies to exploit the power of the Internet to boost their sales. The availability of commodity priced IT systems, high speed and affordable communications infrastructure and ever increasing research and development in computer languages have swelled success rates of companies which are dependant on IT.

The functions carried out by the Information System in business verticals broadly fall under five categories. These are namely: (Angell, 1991)Information processing and usability function.Educating and learning function. (Providing learning opportunities for nave users)Information system development function. (Methodologies)Management and control function.Strategy and planning function.Information technology has helped organizations in managing their resources efficiently and to produce the maximum throughput.

Information technology has become an integral part of any organization small or big. This is due to the fact that any organization will have to make critical decisions when it comes to marketing. Information technology when implemented in the following areas of business plays a big role in improving the organization's market hold:Supply Chain Management: Any organization has to take important decisions regarding their products as to what to supply, how much to supply, how to supply and where to supply.

Supply chain management can be divided into three main flows: Product Flow, Information Flow and Finance Flow. All this information is stored in databases and data warehouses. This information retrieved and fed to SCM application programs to be analyzed. SCM software has algorithms to determine the best way to fill an order and to track the product status, etc. E-Commerce: Many people nowadays prefer buying products over the internet rather than buying from a retail outlet. Organizations can use internet to sell their products which reduces the paper as well as the manual work to a large extent.

An organization can advertise their product over the internet and over public media. A lot of time is saved both of the organization as well as the customer.Business Intelligence: Information technology is applied to business intelligence to improve decision making ability. Business of an organization depends on factors such as sales metrics, production metrics and internal operations. Databases and data warehouses are used to store important information about the operations of an organization.

This information can be gathered later and analyzed so as to improvise on the previous mistakes and make the correct decisions.Strategic Management: Strategy plays a very important role in deciding the efficiency of an organization. Strategies are applied in every organization to help the organization produce the maximum output by following a particular pattern of operation. Information technology helps in strategic management of the organization by providing tools through which strategies can be studied and compared.

An organization can decide upon the strategy which might work the best for them. Also previous strategies can be studied and same mistakes can be avoided.ReferencesAngell, I.O. and Smithson S. (1991) Information Systems Management: Opportunities and RisksBusinessintelligence.com, "businessintelligence.com-An article on Business Intelligence Roadmap", http://www.businessintelligence.com/ex/asp/code.20/xe/article.htmSearchcio.techtarget.com, "searchcio.techtarget.com-An article on Supply Chain Management", http://searchcio.

techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci214546,00.html1000ventures.com, "1000ventures.com-An article on Strategic Management", http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/mgmt_strategic.htmlManagementhelp.org, "managementhelp.org-Inroduction and basic overview of E-Commerce", http://www.managementhelp.org/infomgnt/e_cmmrce/e_cmmrce.htm#anchor1167431