Strategies To Identify Theory

Porter’s Five Forces and the Impact of the Internet on Each Force

Discuss about the Leading Dtrategies to Identify Theory.

A successful university looks at the long haul objectives while recruiting students. Moreover, the information identified should help build a strong long term relationship with the prospective students. So, in a recruitment process, a recruiter would have the academic results in mind as well as the age, availability, goals, interests and the financial capabilities (Collins 2017). Using the performance index set by the institution, a recruiter can determine the students that the university desires based on their academic, athletic or talent performance. High-quality students would be determined by their performance, the first major set in the recruitment process.

In addition to this, the recruiter would then analyse the data to merge the goals of the institution with those of the recruits. From the age, goals and interests, a recruiter can determine the objectives held by the student. Personal objectives can then determine the overall value of the students, this because a student may have all the necessary credentials but have a negative performance in a given institution as his goals do not align with those of the chosen institution. Furthermore, this information will also determine the area of study desired by the student. In Now, multiple areas of specialisation for instance in an academic institution are a good recruitment strategy that can guarantee high end, quality students are obtained (Blackboard 2014). Moreover, a recruiter would know the support needed by each student, from financial capabilities to physical challenges based on the extra no academic information. This information is valuable in identifying the role played by the university in helping the students achieve their goals. Finally, it is through this overall, analysed information that a recruiter would identify the best students with the best qualities to meet the institution’s objectives.

Describe the five forces in Porter’s competitive forces model and explain how the internet has affected each one – Porter’s five forces model is a business strategic tool used to identify the power held by a business. In essence, this model helps identify the strengths of competitors and the value of the position intended by a business (Entrepreneur 2015). Lately, this tool has seen drastic changes owing to the World Wide Web and now occurs in a more dynamic world than when it was originally set by Michael Porter in 1979. One of these forces is competition, competition has changed with the introduction of digital business. New businesses leveraging on new design platforms are cropping up each day, this has seen many businesses go bankrupt or merged to survive (Evans 2015).

Comparison of Data Warehouses and Data Marts

Secondly, the bargaining power of both buyer and suppliers has increased because of the transparency is seen in the pricing. Moreover, suppliers are able to form many new partnerships accelerated by similar digital models. On the other hand, buyers have instant access to information and can determine the best source of products, hence have an increased bargaining power. Thirdly, consider the threat of substitutes imposed by the different products and services available. Digital business has brought many substitutes to the older and traditional businesses, for instance, taxi services can now be met by a combination of digital platform and the taxis themselves (Uber and the Uber drivers) (Ness 2008). Such combinations in business have lowered the barriers to entry in business the fourth aspect of the five force model. In essence, today’s businesses are able to compete in a virtual world where the room of expansion is much larger than the physical world. Finally, with the improved resource accessibility comes renewed and enforced competition. This competition has fuelled the rivalry between existing competitors catalysed by the emerging competition.

Differentiate between data warehouses and data marts. Describe a few of characteristics of a data warehouse – Data warehouses are analytic solutions to existing problems of redundant information. They use an integration of diverse as well as redundant data to offer conclusive decisions. Furthermore, data warehouses are relational databases that are designed to analyse strategic information. Data marts, on the other hand, are decision support systems that use subjective approach to analyse information. In essence, data marts are a subset of an organisation data that deal with a specific department or specific events (Firestone 1997). Moreover, data marts are created with a specific purpose in mind, for instance, measuring the performance of a new product. They may also hold large amounts of data but will always have lesser data as compared to data warehouses within the same organisation.

Data warehouses are an efficient way to meet the needs for decision support systems (DSS). DSS systems are then used by big organisations to make decisions that offer the best outcomes. Data warehouses help extract information from mass and heterogeneous data sources, for this, they are subject oriented focusing on specific aspects of information. Secondly, they are integrated as they simplify analytics from a long range of information gathered from different (heterogeneous) sources. In addition to this, data warehouses are time variant which means their viability and significance depends on time and may change with it. Finally, data stored in a warehouse is always non-volatile as it’s never updated on time but is updated by an organisation’s operational systems. Therefore, data added to a given data warehouse is done to supplement the operations of the data rather than to replace it (Inmon 2002).

Benefits of BI Systems

Discuss the strategic benefits of BI systems – Businesses seeking competitive advantage over their rivals must understand the information they generate while conducting business. Information ranging from the sales they make, expenditure costs and even number of employees must be strategically analysed to make the best decision (Guarda, Santos, Pinto, Augusto & Silva 2013). Business intelligence offers innovative ideas in terms of technology to boost information analysis and decision-making processes.

Many benefits are associated with BI systems, more so in decision making where many businesses fail, consider the following benefits. One, reduced overall labour costs, with BI systems the time spent producing an organisation’s report is eliminated. Instead of manual input, they simplify the system by automating these processes i.e. from data collection to analysis. Two, it eliminates guess work and in its place offers quick business responses. BI provides accurate and updated information that is usually based on real time data. This information is then used to forecast future solutions for the business, helping it meet its objectives. Moreover, it is through BI systems that a company can learn about its customer’s behaviour. Customer behaviour affects the decisions made by customers and therefore, a business can align its products to suit a certain behaviour hence maximise its performance. Finally, BI systems eliminate the information bottleneck experienced by end users who are forced to wait on the expert analyst to obtain an organisation information. BI systems will allow authorised users to access information and even allow them to turn it into actionable data used to make specific, subject oriented decisions (Goewey 2015).

Why are authentication and authorisation important to e-commerce? – E-commerce is the commercial or business transactions that occur over the internet e.g. buying goods online, transfer of money etc. Unlike normal business transactions where you exchange money (physical) for the good and where control is exhibited, the internet present a completely different environment. First, the internet is an open network that anybody can connect to at any given time or place. Furthermore, people have different intentions while engaging in online activities, for instance, some do so for the sole purpose of stealing (Wills 2014). Authentication and authorization offer security measures to safeguard innocent individuals engaging in genuine transactions.

Authentication provides the necessary credentials to prove the identity of the individuals involved, this because most e-commerce transactions occur with parties who are unable to see each other. Furthermore, the person on one side of a said transaction is unknown to the other, therefore authentication offers the necessary identification procedures or protocols to prove the authenticity of the person involved in a transaction. Authorization, on the other hand, provides the limits or permissions that a certain entity has to access certain resources (Kabay 2002). Authorization allows the correct and verified parties to conduct business without interference from third party members.

Importance of Authentication and Authorization for E-commerce

Both authentication and authorization enforce important encryption features such as non-repudiation and data integrity. These trust related features ensure the correct data is transferred from one party to another and also ensures the data reaches its destination unaltered by other parties over the internet. Finally, both authentication and authorization provide the leery public with the confidence to conduct online transactions. E-commerce is such a success because of the convenience it offers and the number of people who use it. Encryption technologies that encapsulate these two security features ensure user communicate securely with different merchants over the internet.

List 3 Web 2.0 social networking tools and describe how you would use each for marketing your products – Web 2.0 is the greater advancement of online technology as seen today where as compared to the original days of the web/the internet. The current system is seen to have more collaborations, interactivity, persuasiveness and connectivity. E-commerce is highly prevalent today which has led to e-marketing especially under social media platforms, where a high influence is seen because of the user numbers. Moreover, it’s estimated that many people spend time on social media sites as compared to any other form human activity (Ferlazzo 2012). Below are some of these social networking tools used today.

Twitter – Its membership includes celebrities, politicians, news networks among other individuals, in essence, it has members in all aspects of life. Twitter through its design is able to act as a small micro-blogging site where members update their followers. These updates known as tweets can be business products that can instantaneously be seen by millions of customers based on the followers one has at a particular time.

Blog sites – blog sites such as Edublogs provide businesses with a quick platform to showcase products and provide detailed information to customers in a more social environment. A business can market their product freely without using the formal restriction seen in formal advertisements or websites. Moreover, the products can be evaluated by the customers who are able to leave instant feedbacks

Facebook – Facebook is one of the best social media platforms to market a company’s product especially those meant for young people. To date, it’s still associated with the young and allows users to share pictures, videos and other items relevant to a business. Furthermore, a business can pay for Facebook adverts at a pay per click procedure, this can increase the accessibility of the said adverts and product.

Discuss the major limitations of e-commerce. Which of these limitations are likely to disappear? Why? – E-commerce offers many benefits to both the customers and service providers. However, there are some limitations that are experienced when dealing with this form of business, some of which are technical while others are non-technical. Technically, the biggest drawback of e-commerce is security, where systems used are unreliable and lack the necessary specifications to offer good security measures. Moreover, technology is still evolving and with each security, protocol comes a way to break it. Secondly, special web servers are needed to set up e-commerce infrastructure which is sometimes difficult to integrate with the current, existing systems.

Far from these technical limitations are the non-technical limitations, some of which can be easily rectified if well managed. The tax issue is still a big limitation in e-commerce, this because buyers and sellers of online goods are sometimes situated in different countries which have different taxation laws. In the end, the business transactions may have to account for extra computations owing to the different taxation laws. Secondly, we have fear, fear exhibited by the user of the internet who in some cases fear to conduct business with organisations which lack a physical presence. Moreover, product suitability affects the purchases made as some delivered products greatly differ from the delivered products (Money matters 2017).

Tax issues are limitations that can easily disappear with the implementation of international taxation laws. Furthermore, these laws can cover only e-commerce transactions to maintain the jurisdiction held by individual countries. Fear of conducting online business will slowly disappear as seen today where more people are engaged in e-commerce than in the past. People now trust these transactions owing to their success, efficiency and convenience. Moreover, there are proper security measures to protect one’s online assets.

Describe the benefits of integrated accounting software packages – Every business experiencing a high growth rate and a high customer expansion rate encounters many difficult decisions. These decisions either make or break the business based on their outcomes. Employing proper, strategic planning techniques coupled by integrated business software systems helps accelerate the speed to reach the set goals. Accounting software packages are a good example of these integrated systems which help make financial decisions e.g. employee salaries and expenditure costs.

Speed is the first major benefits associated with these integrated systems. Automated packages that perform invoicing duties make the accounting processes fast and efficient. Moreover, they facilitate higher workloads where entire departments are evaluated at a single instance. On top of this, computerised systems minimise errors associated with the accounting process. Users are only required to enter information and set the regulating parameters such as percentage or fractions while the software packages do the rest. In itself, this automation reduces confusion on the end result of the overall computations. Speaking of the end results, these systems also enable users to produce accurate reports, reports that can run different comparison algorithms based on a company’s performance. Finally, consider the organisation and accessibility offered by these software packages. Humans are prone to errors and can easily lose a physical spreadsheet having a business’s accounts. However, with modern storage solutions, a business can have multiple back-ups to a single accounting document, properly organised within the company’s infrastructure (Shanker 2017).

Explain why web-based customer interaction centres are critical for successful CRM Systems – Many companies today try to engage with their customers through interactive CRM systems, these interactive CRM systems are implemented through multiple communication channels, for instance, call centres and web applications. The general objective of these systems is to understand the customer preference and therefore, customise the products to fit the needs of these customers. In addition to this, CRM systems are now facilitated by customer interaction centres (CIC), centres that solely focus on the needs of the customers.

Web-based CICs enable a one on one interaction with the customers while offering the advantage of confidentiality. Customers feel safe to offer their own opinion which is unsolicited by the parties involved. Furthermore, many people spend most of their time online as compared to any other aspects of CIC systems. In fact, it’s easier to obtain accurate feedback from customers online as compared to face to face interviews or even telephone reviews. In addition to this, web based CICs are cheaper as the medium used is already available (internet) and all that is needed is access to it. Finally, web based CIC are an automated way for a business to have customer interactions. Technology today calls for automated systems, systems that run on immediate command, free of human involvement, therefore web based CIC are critical as they offer the conveniences seen in automated systems (Urbanski & Bzdyra 2016).

Explain the important role that information systems play in supporting a supply chain Strategy – Information technology is seen as a mandatory requirement to control the modern chain of supply. These supply chains are highly complex as they contain different independent companies that make up the diverse multileveled networks of systems. Furthermore, different supplier exists for different services or products which mean, a unique distinguishing factor is needed to beat the competition. Information systems (IS) provide companies with the necessary competitive advantage by providing access to special supply resources.

Supply logistics and operations are always under pressure owing to the changing market conditions that must meet the customers’ demands. IS can easily manage these operations based on the information they have with and the set rules provided. Moreover, these systems are able to forecast future supply proceeding which helps a company make better supply decisions. In addition to this, Importers, as well as exporters, are required to have an accurate account of all their products. IS systems facilitate tracking and monitoring operations which help to serve different clients across the globe.

In essence, information systems serve as a complementary product that helps improve the strategic proceeding of a company’s supply chain. Their role in supply chain management can be grouped into three major categories; planning and collaboration, tracking and delivery, and transaction operations. In transaction operations, IS systems maintain accurate records of repetitive transaction. Demand forecast, production capacity and supply efficiency are the sole purpose of planning and collaboration. Finally, tracking and monitoring ensures the security of the products and ensures coordinated deliveries are made on time (Operations & IT Articles 2012).

References

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