Informatics And Its Specific Applications In Financial Reporting And Analysis: Case Of Retail Industry

In this report you will be demonstrating your skill in academic writing and presentation skills. We will be carefully looking at your word skills in this report.  In this report you will be reporting on financial applications and information systems.  Please pick an industry such as Banking, retailing etc. and discuss the following sections with reference to this industry.  If you are unsure what industry to choose, please choose Retail.  If you prefer you could pick one organisation.  

Overview of Informatics

The report provides an overview of the informatics and the specific applications that would aid in the process of financial reporting, analysis and in the process of effective decision making. The industry that has been selected in this case is the retail industry. Pomerantz (2017) commented that informatics include the practice of the information processing and the engineering of information system. The present report would evaluate the different aspects of the information processing with special references to retail industry. In the first part, the report would discuss about the usage and the impact of the social media in the modern business. The second section of the report would shed light on the data that it would bring on the industry. The report would analyse the role of the social media and the data on the business.  

Saravanakumar and Sugantha Lakshmi (2012) defined social media as the computer-mediated technologies that allows the development and the sharing of the information, ideas and career interests through the different communities and the networks. Social media offers a platform of social networking that enable the people to develop social network with different people and possess same personal ideas. The 21^st century has seen a rapid growth in social networking. Initially, it was meant for people to communicate easily through chat or share personal moments. However, the modern day social networking is not limited to only between general users, but has taken the form of a platform for business like as Facebook Market place.  

The different usage of the social media in the modern business is listed below:

1. Increasing brand awareness and loyalty: Social media helps to increase the reach of the business and share the valuable information. This would help to create brand awareness and enhance the loyalty of the customers due to the increased transparency (De Vries et al. 2012). For example, a brand if provides its followers with latest information on its product and services, consumers get updated on products and services all the time. It helps in creating brand awareness.
2. Connecting with the target audience: Social media acts as two-way communication channel between the business organization and the customers. Through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube the customers can better connect with the customers that helps the business to better understand the needs and the wants of the customers (Kim and Ko, 2012).  In this way, a brand is able to reach customers which are not possible through the offline medium.
3. Improving Retention of Client:Social media improves the communication with the clients and extend those chances to better connect and manage the relationship with the clients. The communication and the convenience of the social media helps to create strong relationship with the clients and obtain feedback to improve the relationship.
4. Keeping a track of the competitors:Social media helps to obtain information about the activity of the competitors that helps the business to develop plans accordingly so that the objectives of the business can be fulfilled (Kim and Ko, 2012). The knowledge of the competitors can be used for improving the business.

The main issues that are encountered by the retail organizations are:

1. Selecting the target market for the business
2. Identification of the strategies of competitors for applying them in the business.
3. Creation of the brand name and increasing the loyalty of the customers.

The different supermarkets like Woolworth, Coles, Woolworths, Primark and others have created an online presence to better connect with the customers. All the supermarket has established an online presence through the social media that help them to acquire information from the customers about their needs, wants and also a review of the products that help in selecting the products that would be kept in the market or creation of the strategies. The above figure also makes it evident about the fact that social media help in publishing and developing the e-commerce. For instance, Woolworths has created a social media presence because it needs to create brand awareness. The presence of Woolworth has been created not only in Australia but also in different parts of the world. Social media has created the transparency of the brand and has helped to attract a lot of customers and thereby increase the sales of the company. Social media is indeed, an important platform that helps to enhance the business activities of the organisation.   

Big data has brought huge changes in the business environment. With the increase accessibility of the data collection, analysis and the interpretation, it will create far reaching impact on the business in different possible ways. In the recent days, big data and its implication affects very business in different ways. Different types of data about the business help to carry out different types of decisions and strategies for the business organization (Turban et al. 2013). Data plays an important role in the process of the identification of the customer behaviour, discovering the shopping patterns and at the same time improving the quality of the customer service and create customer retention. Witten et al. (2016) commented that data mining is essential in the retail industry that helps to increase the goods consumption ratio, design more effective goods and create distribution channels and reduce the cost of the production.

The Role of Social Media and Data in the Modern Business

Ramageri and Desai (2013) commented that the retail organizations are encountering competitive environment that increases the globalization. The retailers need to collect large amount of customer data and transaction details. In this case, an example can be used to evaluate the importance of data in the business organization. For instance, suppose an analysis is done on the brands that the customers spend money on, then he data collected can be used by retail to stock more products.

1. Which brand you prefer the most in case of purchasing shampoo?

• Dove
• L’Oreal
• Matrix
• Pantene
• Head & Shoulder
• Tresemme

Table 1: Favourite Brands of Shampoo 

In the above graph, it is evident that majority of the customers likes Dove (26.3%) and then Matrix (19.5%). This would help to create an understanding about the brands that are mostly used by the people and this would help the retail organizations to stock the products. In this way the data are essential part of the business that helps to make important decisions about the business.

Data covers different activities for constructing the final data set from the initial raw data. While carrying out the data mining, the different modelling techniques are selected and applied and the parameters that aid in the optimal values. At this stage, model is thoroughly evaluated and reviewed. Hence data and business are related with each other.

For understanding the importance of the data in the business, an example has been made that about the shampoo brands that are mostly preferred by the customers in Australia. Exploring the internet, rough data have been collected as an example that would help in the process of understanding the usage of the data. First, the options have been selected, and for this, the mostly used shampoo brands are selected. Then the frequency is used for each of the products. However, for each of the products, the frequency is converted into a percentage. The frequencies are converted into percentage because it would help in better presentation and the understanding of the data. After this, the data is converted into graphs which illustrate the products which are most preferred by the customers in Australia. Pie chart has been selected for this reason. The different shampoos are selected which are represented with different colours and then a key has been used to identify the colours for each of the products. The x-axis is marked with the names of the shampoo brands, and the Y-axis is marked with the percentage of the responses. The above graph makes it evident that the importance of the data in the business.

Conclusion  

The present report provided an overview of the importance and the impact of the social media on the business. The report also analysed the importance of the data on the business.The importance of the social media in the retail business has been explored. In addition to this, the data and its importance on the business have also been evaluated. The business organisation needs to collect different types of data related to the business. With the increased competition, the retailers need to collect a significant amount of customer data and transaction details. These data are stored and analysed for undertaking different types of business decisions for the organisation. The current presentation helped to analyse the critical data in the business. The business organisation collects different types of data which are used for undertaking decisions and the strategies for the business.    

References

De Vries, L., Gensler, S. and Leeflang, P.S., (2012). Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: An investigation of the effects of social media marketing. Journal of interactive marketing, 26(2), pp.83-91.

Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., (2012). Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-1486.

Pomerantz, J.R., (2017). Perceptual organization in information processing. In Perceptual organization (pp. 141-180). London: Routledge.

Ramageri, B.M. and Desai, B.L., (2013). Role of data mining in retail sector. International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering, 5(1), p.47.

Saravanakumar, M. and SuganthaLakshmi, T., (2012). Social media marketing. Life Science Journal, 9(4), pp.4444-4451.

Turban, E., King, D., Sharda, R. and Delen, D., (2013). Business intelligence: a managerial perspective on analytics. Prentice Hall, New York.

Witten, I.H., Frank, E., Hall, M.A. and Pal, C.J., (2016). Data Mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques. Morgan Kaufmann.