British Airways is the largest airline in the United Kingdom. Millions of passengers travel through this airline every year. Highly satisfactory airline service is provided by British Airways to its passengers. In 2015, the estimated turnover of BA was £11,333m and it increased in consecutive years. According to researchers of information technology, it is important for business of airline services. There are several advantages applied by IT on business of British Airways. IT is an effective way to manage all important business activities and resources of British Airways. From further discussion, we will clear with need and importance of IT in BA (“What Is Information Technology (IT)? – Definition From Whatis.Com”, 2017).
In airlines industry, various airline companies exist that are giving high competition to British Airways. Therefore, to compete in competitive market, latest and advanced technologies are necessary to use to enhance proficiency of business.
Among crucial factors to make business successful, information technology is also considered. In case of airline business of British Airways, the mean of using information technology is the selection of appropriate technology, suitable use of resources and to obtain best channels for communication and information sharing. In earlier days, conventional technologies were used by British Airways to perform its several task. Those technologies were time consuming and caused some system problems.To get rid of this problem, British Airways decided to use IT applications. In BA, IT is needed for better communication with customers and within the organization as well. Besides this, IT provides a strong information database to store huge amount of information about passengers, flights, luggage etc. The information stored into database is easier to access by users from anywhere (Plaisier, Broese van Groenou and Keuzenkamp, 2014). Eventually, IT applications are so useful to work with clients and to communicate with customers who are at remote and local locations. The rapid growth of IT has brought various improvements in ticketing system and it has become easier to access information from this system. The information is stored into ticketing system in organized form and this information is easier to understand. In some airline companies, the problem in ticketing system and management of flights is commonly encountered that leads to discouragement and lack of trust among customers. In this case, the better option is to use Information Technology to control this type of issues in British Airways business. These are some critical factors that enhance the need of information technology in British Airways.
The survival of business consists of several key factors and information technology is one of them. Today everyone is using information technology applications, devices and other tools and techniques for different purposes such as communication, information sharing, online messaging etc. The development of smartphones has made possible to connect with others and to access information from online database anytime and from anywhere. That is why, now people also want to book tickets online and want to collect information regarding scheduling of flights by using smartphones (Albury, 2017). To fulfill these demands of customers, it is important for British Airways to use Information Technology applications. In airlines industry of United Kingdom, various new airline companies are coming with advanced IT applications. This characteristic of new airline companies enhance level of competition for British Airways in market (Baird 2017). That is why for survival, IT applications must be used by BA. IT can provide an appropriate customer management and resource management solutions to British Airways and these two software solutions will provide help to manage customers and resources of company in most effective way (“British Airways Cites IT Investment as Key Factor In 20% Profit Increase”, 2017). The proper management of customers leads to customer satisfaction and they want to attract towards services of company. On other side, resource management is also important for business organization and it leads to efficient work and good business performance. Every single resource of business such as financial resources, human resources and technical resources etc. paly key role in success of business. That is why every airline company like British Airways should focus on these resources. Another important thing about information technology is its role in automation of complex business issues that can’t be managed at manual level. Cloud based enterprise platform are also introduced by IT and by using these platforms company can manage its resources by using ICT services that is advanced version of Information Technology. Cloud based solutions will also help British Airways to survive in competitive airlines industry.
Information Technology applications have some essential requirements that must be completed by every user who wants to work with these applications and want to obtain accurate outcomes. The major requirements of information technology that must be fulfilled by British Airways to apply IT into its business are proper knowledge about a particular technology to employees, availability of skilled and experienced employees in organization and proper installation of hardware and software components of IT applications (“London Airports Mayhem: British Airways Blames Indian IT Services”, 2017).
The IT applications that are used in Airlines Industry are not easier to use. IT professionals are required to work with these applications that can understand its complexity and can use it according to requirements (Eun-Song Bae and Daecheol Kim, 2014). All those employees who have basic knowledge about IT applications those can also work on small and less complex IT applications that are developed for airlines industry. But training is important for those employees so that they can also work with complex IT applications. The training process should be implemented under IT experts (Eun-Song Bae and Daecheol Kim, 2014). Therefore, the hiring of experts is one of essential requirements of IT for British Airways. The installation of IT applications should be done properly with its all hardware and software components. If there will be any problem in configuration of applications then problem can occur in storage and access of information. Besides this, due to any abnormal activity of user with system, it can be damaged. That is why, technical experts of British Airways should take responsibility to configure IT applications. The employees of British Airways who will work with IT applications, they should have knowledge about implementation of automation system that can be used to handle critical systems such as ticketing system and to use decision making tools.
IT is considered as one of the important factors that are required to run business successfully. In British Airways, IT plays a vital role (Escobari, 2017). In British Airways, Information Technology is used to communicate with clients and customers who are at local and global locations. With IT 24×7 hours service can be provided to customers by BA. The ticketing system of BA has become more improved and can store huge amount of information regarding passengers, their booking and cancellation of tickets, scheduling or rescheduling of their flights and their baggage. This is very main information related to passengers of BA and must be stored appropriately in secured database system (“Global IT Failure Impact: British Airways May Face 100 Million Pounds Compensation Bill”, 2017).
Another android and windows applications are highly preferred to use among people and business organizations. With usage of these applications, British Airways can send information to its passengers on their phones regarding their bookings, flight timings and journey. Besides this, an important use of Information Technology is related to process of automation. British Airway organization is using an automated software solution that automatically provide updated information regarding passengers’ flights. In this way, IT applications are used by British Airways for handling regular business activities. This is the internal usage of IT applications in BA. At external level, customers use IT applications of BA to collect information about company’s service and their flights.
Several benefits are provided by information technology to business organizations in different industries. In airlines industry several improvements and efficiencies have seen after implementing IT applications. British Airways also got some significant benefits from usage of IT. The first benefit of using IT is that company has got various problem solving tools and enhance scalability of organization. Online marketing service to book ticket online for customers of British Airways, is an effective tool. By using this tool, both local and remote users can book their ticket easily anytime from website of company. Whole information will be stored into company’s database that can be accessed easily when required. It means, IT has increased the ease of information access (vivianmeril, 2017).
Another benefit of IT is availability of effective and easy to use communication modes to communicate with passengers by company (Tracy, 2017). Online calling, text messages, online chats and notifications are commonly sent by company to passengers on their mobiles to provide latest information about their flights (“The Brexit Could Cause Major Complications For British Airways”, 2017). It is most fast way to communicate with passengers and for sharing important information. If we talk about advanced level of IT applications then cloud based solutions are also provided by IT for airlines industry to resolve their problem of storing large amount of data of passengers that can be accessed easily from different geographic locations. Besides this, by using IT applications, speed and accuracy of employees of BA Company has increased that has put influence over overall performance of company. These benefits and advantages of British Airways enhance competitive advantage of company and helps it to survive in competitive market (Czerny and Zhang, 2014). Several tools and techniques of IT are used in British Airways to make appropriate decisions that will also provide help to deal with competitive advantage of company. These all discussed benefits of IT increase its importance in every airline business industry (“Airlines IT Solutions – Airline Industry Consulting Service | ITC Infotech”, 2017).
Every technology has two impacts positive and negative. In above segments of report, we have discussed about benefits or positive impact of information technology. Now in this section of report, we will emphasize on risk factors or negative impact of IT on business of British Airways. The main risk factor of IT in case of British Airways Company is failure of system that is used to store company and passengers’ information. The system failure can occur due to shut down the system in nonstandard way by users or server failure. This will lead to damage of whole information that is stored into system. Failure of any hardware and software component of system will lead to improper functionality of system and due to this inaccurate output will be generated (Arjomandi and Seufert, 2014).
The security and privacy risk is not a small risk for IT users. Malware attack and DDoS attacks are also vulnerable for information system of British Airways. Hackers always ready to find confidential information such as personal and financial information of passengers and to obtain this information they do attack on systems and access information which is further misused by them (Calder, 2017). As we know that passengers do their booking online and in this process they have to submit their personal and credit card information on company’s website. If company’s network and database will not be secured then this sensitive information can be easily accessed by network attackers. Besides this, hackers send emails with attach virus scripts to company and when this email is opened to read, virus automatically spreads into system and it can damage main files and folders of company’s systems. These risk factors of IT put so vulnerable impact on users that is why control is necessary of these risk factors by technical department of British Airways by using all available security tools and techniques .
To control above discussed risk factors of IT, some effective security tools are available for IT users. British Airways can use those tools to maintain security of IT applications. These tools are anti-virus, network monitoring tools, spyware, firewall and security patches (Kilic, Zaim and Delen, 2014). These software solutions must be installed into systems by users and they will help scan and monitor whole system periodically to detect and remove harmful entities from system. Another way to maintain security and privacy of IT applications is to eliminate manual protection of system. The advanced security tools should be used for this purpose. There are latest software available in market for monitoring and maintenance of IT applications. Besides this, periodic update of security patches that are installed system, is also required (“Competing on Customer Service: An Interview with British Airways’ Sir Colin Marshall”, 2017).
At developers’ end cryptography should also be used to develop secure software solutions. By using this security technique, the input data into system will be stored into database in encrypted format which is necessary to get prevention from hacking attacks. In this way, British Airways can monitor and maintain IT applications (Gerrard, 2017).
Conclusion
After this whole discussion we can say that airlines industry cannot get required outcomes without using IT tools and techniques. To compete with new business entrants in airlines industry and to maintain competitive advantage in market, support of information technology is necessary. British Airways is already implementing some latest IT applications and getting better outcomes. But security of information should be the first priority for every business organization. In this report, we have discussed above effective security tools that can be easily used by company to get prevention from virus and other network attacks.
References
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