IT for Business Accounting

Question: Discuss the role of information technology in the retails business. Answer: Introduction Information technology is widely used in every sector for efficient productivity and the improvement of the business approach, but it also enhances the efficiency of the workflow process of the organization (Davenport 2013). In this assignment, Wal-Mart is taken into consideration that is one of the leading retails shops in the world and uses IT services for the betterment of their institute. It also helps the organization to handle complex retail operation in point-of-sale and point-of-supply. It also provides them business competence by enhancing their speed and flexibility. In this assignment, the importance of the IT in the retail business for Wal-Mart will be explained along with their utilization procedure and the advantages. Moreover, the risk involves in implementing IT, their maintenance and the monitoring process will be discussed. Ultimately, the assignment wraps up with the overall conclusion and the recommendation regarding the report topic. Discussion Importance of IT in business Borghoffn and Pareschi (2013) depicted that the importance of IT in business is that it enhances the business procedures by increasing the efficiency in handling a retail operation on a daily basis. Chakravarty et al. (2013) illustrates that it also holds the entrepreneurial culture and the class relations as it provides the managers to operate data from any of their activities hubs and can communicate with their oversea managers for better interaction. Moreover, IT is also beneficial for protecting the financial details and confidential executive decisions through efficient software (Marchewka 2014). In addition to that, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) makes the system quicker and reliable as everything is carried out electronically from the printing of tax invoice to maintain details in a database that on the other hand helps in reduction of manual paperwork. Wal-Mart uses the information technology to support the customer details and the supply chain management systems for their currently establish 4457 stores along with the 30,000 suppliers (Walmart 2016). The effective IT procedures make them able to sell products of more than $1.25 billion of goods per day (Walmart 2016). Especially in the case of Wal-Mart, they implement ubiquitous storage that helps them to compute the data anytime for the business execution for the organization. The concerned organization signifies the importance of IT, by applying Management Information Systems (MIS) for inventory management that also supports their logistic management along with enhancement in the decision-making (Qrunfleh and Tarafdar 2014). Value-added network (VAN) is employed by Wal-Mart to make the transaction procedure that is carried out by the user through the internet while purchasing items online. Necessity of IT for the survival of the business It is crucial to the success of a business and its survival as it develops the overall functionality of the company procedures and its approach. It not only helps in the storing enormous information about the employees and the inventory they have in their organization. Moreover, Sahebjamnia et al. (2015) depicted that IT software for disaster recovery plan (DRP) is used by Wal-Mart that deals with deal with potential disasters or risk like external attacks, which comprises of the virus attack in the system or the suppliers fails to maintain their level of services in a disaster. While on the other hand, Alhazmi and Malaiya (2013) portrays that there are other risks of facility risk like electricity failure, climate control device failure, fire and not maintaining the flammable liquids along with the data system risks that comprise of the telecommunication system, data backup and software applications. Big data concept with the RDBMS and Data Mining makes it possible of an organizatio n to manipulate the existing data and insert new data without and redundancy and duplicity and can be managed an enormous amount of data at a single time (Li et al. 2016). Lou et al. (2015) states that, organization uses data warehouses for better JIT environment that can provide an alert message regarding the refilling of the stocks in the warehouses after the stocked inventory tends to finish. Requirements to implement IT to the business In order to get a competitive advantage, it is crucial to implement IT in the business procedure especially in the retail business where consumers desire to get everything accomplished by their smart device. Thus, Chae et al. (2014) depicted that organization requires sufficient budget for implementing IT facilities in the appropriate places like POS machines in the billing counter that makes the overall operation faster than the manual handling. POS reader also proved to be beneficial in counting the paper currencies in banks as well as in retail industry while billing for the purchased items (Mithas et al. 2012). Designing and installation of these IT services needs experts surveillance so that the work can be implemented effectively. Collaboration with IT industry is also proves to be beneficial for Wal-Mart to provide importance to IT as they are doing by formulating partnerships with IBM, HP, Cisco and others (Walmart 2016). In addition to that, training must have to be provided to the employee so that they can utilize the equipment properly. Professionals to the staffs should provide regular training and occasional assessment could also be conducted to ensure that these staffs can perform well along with the proper maintenance of the IT equipments. Utilization of IT in retail business Khodakarami and Chan (2014) demonstrates that Customer relationship management (CRM) technologies are used to take customers feedback for developing the relationship with their end-user. Leading retail industry like Wal-Mart uses Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to support cloud based solutions for maintaining and managing their other overseas stores present across the world from the headquarter (Monk and Wagner 2012). This helps them to interact with their internal stakeholders. Moreover, Grycuk et al. (2015) depicts that RDBMS is used to administer the user's data and the cloud based solution along with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) makes Wal-Mart enable to store proper details of their employees, suppliers, customers, products details and inventory management information for data backup and failure detection in retrieving the data. Data mining is a technology that the concerned organization utilizes for gather information of some targeted person or products that are mainly used during the auditing time (Engel et al. 2013). Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is used for printing of the tax invoice along with the POS device that automatically calculates the total amount and estimated weight of the purchased products. Advantage of the usage of the IT One of the most advantageous aspects is that it enhances the productivity and profitability of the organization. Davenport (2013) portrays that electronic storage with the protection of records and faster communication are some additional advantages of implementing IT in the business. It not only provide a safer place to store the users information but also made most of the process automated that reduces the erroneous result of the manual handling of the data (Borghoff and Pareschi 2013). It helps the Wal-Mart to communicate with their other stores efficiently and they can handle all the operational functionalities from a single workstation. Thus, it reduces the cost of another information system by centralized at one location. It also provides a competitive advantage with all other organization presents on the field by developing a new methodology for enhancing their business. Willcocks (2013) illustrates that implementing advanced IT services provides the organization with the better facility of storing an enormous amount of data without any duplicity and making the approach much faster than the maintaining registers. Risk in introducing IT in the retail business Wal-Mart faces a struggle for the customer data as sometimes the information of the customers and their buying products is overloaded due to insertion of an enormous number of data. The transparency and the tracking of the data within the system are often hard to detect for the system during the manipulation of the sales information. Mukhopadhyay et al. (2013) mentions that there is some a hacker in the society, which intends to hack the customer transaction details as well as the particulars of the inventory management system to harm the client and the organization. These are termed as the cyber risk that comprises of the transaction procedures of purchasing the product. Vallone et al. (2016) demonstrate that Wal-Mart also faces a risk of synchronizing their software systems with the requirement of the customer for purchasing an item through online that resembles the breakdowns in communication. Another danger in implementing IT system in the business is the risk for hacking the stored data and improper integration of the data protection software at the initial stage. The less expertise suggestion and lack of training to the employee also some of the evolved risks as the technology is developing so fast that sometimes it is not possible for the leading institute like Wal-Mart to match with the race of the technology. Maintenance and monitoring of the IT The retail stores like Wal-Mart prevent the loss of their products by integrating EAS alarms in the stores to watch the activities of the consumers in the stores. These security cameras by add, update or delete information as per as the requirements and provide services to regular maintenance so that the camera can work properly. The concerned organization also uses advanced transaction recorder for navigating their contact forms or shopping cart pages and records every step of the consumer (Park et al. 2015). Moreover, Wal-Mart monitors the IT services by diagnosing server and the occurrence of the website failure, which perform automatic trace routes and provide you detailed error log files. Moreover, Nili et al. (2014) depict that they also track the records of the online as well as offline business and transactional activities and analyses e-mail reports using interface. Moreover, the EDI system is protected by appropriate antivirus software, firewalls for preventing any intruder attacks and data encryption tools so that no hacker can access the user's data. Conclusion The implementation of the information technology plays a crucial role in the retails business by enhancing the business procedure and results in better productivity and profitability. Implementation of IT tools not only makes the organization to handle the operational functionalities from one place through a single workstation to manage their overseas groups that result in the better interaction among the Wal-Mart members. Practical IT tools also protect financial details. EDI makes it possible to carry all the work electronically that reduces the manual mistakes and accomplishes those works in lesser time. MIS software is used for inventory management and to prevent any risk of an external threat and cyber risk by disaster recovery plan (DRP) IT tools. Furthermore, POS machines are used for faster calculation of the total amount in the billing area and safer transaction procedure for customers who purchased items through online. Recommendation The technology is developing so rapidly that it is difficult for the organization to adopt one technology after another within a short interval of time. As a result, it is recommended for the group to appoint a professional expert for implementing new technologies for proper maintenance of the operational functionalities. In addition to that, proper training must have to be provided to the employees so that they can serve their best to the customers within less interval of time. Wal-Mart can also take initiatives to communicate with their clients through social media networking sites like Facebook Fan page or by opening a Twitter account. People nowadays spend a lot of time on these social networking sites and gets knowledgeable about the organization's procedures. Proceeding in this way, they can receive the user's response and can attain idea about their requirement and most liked products. References Alhazmi, O.H. and Malaiya, Y.K., 2013, January. Evaluating disaster recovery plans using the cloud. InReliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS), 2013 Proceedings-Annual(pp. 1-6). IEEE. Borghoff, U.M. and Pareschi, R. eds., 2013.Information technology for knowledge management. Springer Science Business Media. Chae, H.C., Koh, C.E. and Prybutok, V.R., 2014. Information Technology Capability and Firm Performance: Contradictory Findings and Their Possible Causes.Mis Quarterly,38(1), pp.305-326. Chakravarty, A., Grewal, R. and Sambamurthy, V., 2013. Information technology competencies, organizational agility, and firm performance: Enabling and facilitating roles.Information Systems Research,24(4), pp.976-997. Davenport, T.H., 2013.Process innovation: reengineering work through information technology. Harvard Business Press. 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