Contemporary Economic And Business Ethics - An Essay Using Doing Ethics Technique.

Adopting Technological Culture in Telstra

Discuss about the Contemporary Eonomic and Business Ethics.

In the modern world of communication, it has become important for all the organisations to adopted one of the best technological cultures within the company (Gaita, 2011). All around the world there are many industries who have changed their working mechanism. This change is not easier to adapt but needs to be more carefully so that no ethical concerns arises with the change process. Since the change of working mechanism has the greater impact on the stakeholders of the firm hence it is crucial that they take care of the problems that might arise in this regards. The use of technology is also crucial as it helps the firm to make their business process smoother as well as of high quality. The major benefits include improvement in efficiency, flexibility in the operations etc. but somehow it has ethical concerns attached with it. The major issue that arise while bringing the technology into use is the threat of increasing cybercrimes (Chakraborty and Chatterjee, 2012). As the companies these days have data in very large amount hence they face many kinds of ethical issues related to information. Telstra which is one of the largest communication firms in Australia had to make an effective relationship among the moral and ethical principles related to communication. Policies related to IT governance needs to be taken care of so as to eliminate ethical issues attached with it. This report evaluates the situation with the help of Doing Ethics Technique. It also evaluates the ethical consequences that arise due to such changes and the factors that are involved in it.

It has become highly essential for an organisation to make sure that they analyse the situations that may arise while making the changes. Along with this Telstra also needs to analyse the current business environment situation that is prevailing in Australia and all around the world. Since the changes bring ethical issues with it hence a company needs to analyse it in various aspects (Danielewicz-Betz, 2012). There are various techniques using which the analysis can be done. One of the most common is the Doing Ethics Technique.

DET is the technique that helps in analysing care from an ethical point of view. The technique throws light on asking simpler questions that will assist in analysing the most crucial issues in this case (Grant, et. al., 2014). Prime focus of this technique is to analyse the care ethically instead of finding the best solution.

Ethical Issues of Technology Adoption

Australia’s biggest telecommunication firm Telstra was established in the year 1975 and it has services related to telecommunication sector in their portfolio. It is present in more than 20 nations and in Australia is understood to be the Australia’s fastest mobile network. The firm gives over 17.6 million retail mobile services, 3.5 million retail fixed broadband services and 5.1 fixed voice services to its consumers alone in Australia (Thomas, Burmeister and Low, 2017). For giving appropriate services to its clients, the firm has adopted a digital route. This cited company heavily relies on innovation which results in disruption and hence ultimately helps in gaining competitive advantage in the industry. There was change in their conservative engineering culture. They implemented a must fasted structure which relies on digital technologies. Telstra has focused on their consumer’s interest and hence they build their application 24/7 Telstra as well as crowd support platform.

After adopting such technologies, the interaction among firm and clients got better because the technology gives them the choices for resolving their queries and the same time when it get generated. This can be done form any place. It has certain disadvantages associated with it and it is having a negative impact on their company and its consumers. Their prime concern is related to the security and privacy concerns associated with the people with the help of this platform (Koslowski, 2013). Adding to this there is also an issue of job loss. As this model promotes automation which is a primary reason for having a loss of jobs. An infrastructure that is based on digital mediums enhances the threat of cyber-attacks or becoming a cyber-war victim. The cyber criminals can easily attack on the data and hence data breached can be possible.

There are few of the fact available which is as follows:

• The cited firm has adopted a digital model by building a mobile application 24/7 and a crowd support platform.
• Such devices assist the consumers in resolving the issues at the time it is generated as well as it enhances the consumer’s service experience.
• It also raises privacy and security issues because of the crowd support platform.
• Utilisation of this platform enhances the chances of data breach as the numbers of hackers are increasing day by day. They can easily collect the data related to company and its stakeholders.
• Such an infrastructure has enhanced the company’s vulnerability especially against the attacks done by the cyber-criminals.
• Telstra is also promoting automation hence can result in the loss of jobs for the employees.

The issues that may arise while the changes are done are:

• The risks related to data breaches have enhance because of use of such platform. This increase is substantial the possibility of attacks have increased multi fold where they can easily collect the private data related to clients.
• Client’s security is at risk because of the platform as well as they have also come under the threat to cyber-attacks.
• Because of the Crowd support platform, the firm is pushing the automation at their first priority hence resulting in huge amount of job losses.
• Since the company is planning to store data on the cloud mediums hence the data is more vulnerable to the cyber-attacks related to cloud computing.

There are various stakeholders that get affected with it, they are as follows:

• Telstra itself: With the use of such an application, they came under the threat of cyber-attacks. They have done so as to increase their efficiency as well as to improve the Customer Relationship Management. This was also done for increasing the service speed. The adoption of technology in the year 2010 was able to minimise its full expenses as well as fulfil he needs of its clients. Further there are several issues related to the technology that can be dangerous for the company like the employee dissatisfaction. Since the data related to the company is stored at various platforms and hence the chances of attacks have also enhanced. Telstra faced a huge amount of criticism for not addressing to the issues of data privacy and security especially related to the crowdsupport platform. This company was also criticised for the loss of jobs due to bringing automation within the organisation. In the larger time period it was seen that due to these issues and certain more there was a decrease of 37% in their profits in the year 2017.
• Customers: Another biggest stakeholder on whom its attack can be fulfilled is their clients. Taking use of 24/7 mobile application platforms of the company their personal queries are resolved easily and at faster speed but it has also enhanced their data threats. This is because of the fact that security of the platforms is not well and hence data can be easily stolen. The cyber-attacks have become more common due to the fact that it gives easy access to the hackers that are in search of loop holes in the network. Data related to their clients are at risks.
• Governments: It has also affected the government as it has somehow responsibility towards safeguarding their citizen from any kind attacks (Woods and Howard, 2014). Since government has the role in the Telstra hence their responsibilities becomes bigger.
• Cybercriminals: They are not the stakeholder of the firm but they were highly interested in the servers of Telstra. This is due to the fact that there is large amount of data available with the users. With the introduction of digital mediums the work of the cyber-criminals has become easier (Yoon, 2011). If the data gets into the hands of wrong person, then there is a surety that they can take use of this data for blackmailing the stakeholder of the company.

The ethical issues and their implication can be understood by the help of several theories. For example:

• Deontology: This theory suggests that any ethical situation must rely upon the action rather than the consequences resulted through the action. The cited firm’s actions must be focused towards improving the experience of their consumers based on the services they are providing. This theory justifies the platforms even when there is breach of privacy possible hence the actions of the company according to this theory cannot be considered to be unethical (Singer, 2011).
• Utilitarianism theory: This theory is bit different from that of deontology as it totally judges on the consequences and not on the actions that is taken in the process (DesJardins, 2011). Although the action of utilising new technology was beneficial for both users and company still it is not perfect in regards to the company ethics. This is because of the security and privacy concern brought by the technology. As this theory judges the morality of the situation hence it does not understands the process to be ethical. This theory suggests being unethical because of the consequence like vulnerability to the data breach, at the same time because of the job loss that this technology is generating.
• Virtue theory: It is a theory which judges the situation based on the honesty and character. The decisions that are taken by the firm enhance the consumer’s experience and at the same time it fulfils their requirements. Since the decision was beneficial for both company and clients hence this theory suggests the action to be ethical.
• Contract theory: This theory judges the action to be ethical or unethical based on the legitimacy of the actions taken (Burmeister, 2013). The cited firm’s actions relied on digital disruption for giving high quality services to its clients. Since the company is also destined to protect the privacy rights of their consumers and are taking various efforts on this issue hence this theory underlines it to be ethical. Their ultimate aims were just to provide high quality services to its clients at the same time bringing disruption in the market.

Even after the fact that there are many steps that were taken by Telstra for enhancing cyber-security, it is not capable enough to restrict large number of cyber-attacks that can be possible on their systems.

There are various types of solutions which can be applied in the case of Telstra. For addressing the security and privacy concerns, the firm can rebuild its digital framework were more focus should be put on the concerns related to data breach. They can rebuild their security infrastructure with the use of firewalls. They can also spread awareness in their consumer bases so that their must not be breach because of the wrong practices of their clients.

Options for Overcoming Security and Privacy Concerns

What are the options?

• Telstra can rebuild its digital disruption model and discard the old ones and they can be back to their previous method.
• Telstra can enhance its investment related to cyber-security infrastructure so as to protect themselves and their stakeholders from any kind of data piracy.
• The cited firm can spread the awareness related to the cyber security issues in-between their stakeholders so that no such situation even arise.

Among the options available it is better that the company invests in its infrastructure related to the cyber-security. Telstra considers the fact that there is potential threat in utilising such digital framework. Company must take precautionary actions for protecting the data. This will also help the company in managing its digital image which provides them competitive advantage over their rivals in the industry.

It is said to be as the basic framework having formal nature which can assist Telstra by giving them a structure for making sure that their goals supports the IT investments. It helps in making effective and appropriate utilisation of information technology in their business which will help them in achieving their goals (Bunge, 2012). The Governance related to IT suggests the ways in which the IT infrastructure will be placed with the firm so that no issues related to competition, selection and business benefits can arise. It aligns decision making, strategies and the IT infrastructure in the same plane. The framework suggested by it will help in reducing the concerns related to privacy and security.

There are various principles that need to be followed by Telstra within Australia related to the IT governance. Certain rules need to be followed in this regards:

• Responsibility: It professionals are responsible for the utilisation and performance of the IT infrastructure. Each and every aspect related to IT infrastructure needs to be checked by them on regular basis so that no issues arise in the business.
• Strategy: It is crucial to align IT infrastructure along with goals hence managing the ethical complication while using the technology needs to be maintained. For this proper investment in the IT infrastructure is needed.
• Acquisition: The acquisition of IT network must be made as per the influence of internal and external factors. Before enhancing the investments the timely evaluation of IT structure must be made.
• Performance: There must be balance between the resources that company has and its capacity to deliver while ensuring user’s security.
• Communication: All the rules relative to IT infrastructure must be communicated among the stakeholders so as to avoid the confusions while the whole process is going on (Tinetti and Basch, 2013).
• Human behaviour: The structure must be made as per the requirement and trainings must be provided to the users.

There are various types of technologies that have been used within the Telstra and all of it provides them the competitive advantage over the others.

Telstra is offering consumer service facility named 24/7. Users can avail its services with the use of mobile technology and it is available on both iOs and Android Platforms. Using this application, person from Telstra can interact with others on the crowdsupport platforms. This helps in finding solutions for the users of the company at the same time it is generated. This provides competitive advantage to the company as it helps in providing better customer service which is very essential in the modern day firms.

Company also takes use of the outage management system that is capable of accurately forecasting the duration and size of the outage, finding costs and raise alarms regarding the systems that is used in the organisation. This also helps in having competitive advantage over the rivals as the proper strategies can be made using the technology. Appropriate calculation of costs helps in managing financial position of Telstra which is crucial in the amount of competition that is present in the market. As Telstra was highly concerned about making cost cuts hence the technology will be extremely helpful.

Ethical Consequences Assessment

Telstra is also using Internet of Things which is highly beneficial for connecting all the devices within the firm. It is considered to be as the future of the business technology. As Telstra is moving towards automation hence IOT can be very beneficial which will help them in having edge over their competitors.

For doing this analysis ACS code of ethics could be beneficial. The analysis is as follows:

• The primacy of Public Interest: It is crucial for every employee that that they put the public interest at the first priority (Australian Computer Society, 2014). In this case, it is seen that even when the technologies are providing better services to the users but there is a higher chance of data breach which violates their legal right. Hence it is not ethical.
• The enhancement of quality of life: It can be seen that the technology is enhancing their experience regarding their services which results in their enhancement of life. But as the automation is making the job cuts hence it is degrading their life standards which is negative in this regard and hence cannot be considered ethical.
• Honesty: While providing the services company is not providing details regarding the chances of data breach to its customers hence it fails in the ethical test.
• Competence: The technology gives the edge to Telstra in the industry hence it is ethically justified. This also increases the sustainability opportunity of the firm.
• Professional Development: Since the new technologies is bringing automation hence may result in job loss. This violates the code of ethics.
• Professionalism: Since it helps the employees to understand the problems related to the clients and they are able to solve it hence it increases professionalism.

In the scenario that is faced by the Telstra, the first recommendation is that company must take use of effective data protection software that could help in maintaining the authenticity in data as well as ensuring that no hackers could attack on the systems. The application 24/7 should be protected with the help of firewalls. Apart from this it is also crucial that company should start training their employees which could help them in managing the unintentional data breaches.  Along with this crowdsupport system must be removed as well as the crowdfunding. This is because both are the sources from where the data can be stolen. Instead a more protected support platform must be provided. Encryption will help the firm in restricting the data theft which can happen while there is sharing of data.

Conclusion

From the above report it can be concluded that Telstra is one of the biggest telecommunication company which provides high quality services to its clients. It is has transformed its way of doing business by implementing technologies in their business. Such changes may result in various kinds of disruptions. With the introduction of application like 24/7 as well as crowdsupport architecture it is possible to solve the queries related with people but this has also raised various types of security and ethical issues for Telstra. This is clear from the analysis done by doing ethics technique. Telstra must utilise best of safety support architecture so as to reduce the vulnerability of the data related to customers.

References

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