ICT

Impact of ICT on business

Discuss about the Cultural Diversity and Communication Technology.

ICT is referred to as information and communication technology. It is the improved technological aspect that deals with integration of telecommunication and audio-visual transmission of networks. ICT is the extended synonym of Information technology that is IT, but it scope is much broader than IT (Sánchez & Alemán, 2011). This is because it supports the very important part of day to day life that is communication. It is basically the merger of telephone network, audio-visual and computer system with common cable. There are different components of Information and Communication Technology management that are

• Data
• Cloud computing
• Software
• Internet access
• Hardware
• Communication technology
• Transactions

These days, Information and Communication Technology has become the part of every field and affecting the life of the people very adversely. The businesses are using ICT tools in their communication processes (Ashrafi & Murtaza, 2008). Advent of social networking sites are supporting the society to communicate and interact, thus the culture of communication and the medium that are being used to communicate are also changing. This suggests that ICT has its impact on businesses, society and culture.

ICT is affecting every aspect of business from the way the businesses conduct to the communication part of businesses. The development of new industries such and digital marketing, Business process outsourcing, online shopping sites etc. are because of the integration of ICT tools in business processes. As far as the aspect of marketing function in the organization is considered, this is the function that involves ICT tools. IT helps in developing new communication tools for the company to make the people aware about the products and the services in cheapest and effective way (Yi & Thomas, 2007). Social media, digital marketing and customized tele-marketing are some of the examples. Communication is the important part of marketing these days. Communication with the customers by the sales person face to face takes time and efforts while communicating them with some of the ICT medium such as telephone, emails, text messaging is comparatively easy and require less efforts. The customers also feel easy to reply to the marketing professional by these mediums. Internet is one of the major elements of Integrated marketing Communication. This suggests marketing is the area that is partially dependent on ICT tools (Etro, 2009). Not only marketing but the functions like networking, operations and finance also uses ICT tools to complete their processes. Software like Sage, Excel etc. is used by the finance experts in the company. HR experts use the SAP software to maintain the data of the employees. Several new practices have been implemented in the company to facilitate the employees (Shirazi, Ngwenyama & Morawczynski, 2010). Those are also because of information and communication technology. The first and the foremost practice is work from home. It is only possible when the employee has the access on the portal that he usually uses to work in the organization. As all the processes of the business or the organization are conducted online so the employees can easily have access on the work portal through internet facilities. Transformation in the businesses can be clearly seen these days. No business today can ignore the aspect of technology in the functioning of the company. This is because implementing technological tools can only requires a one-time investment but provide cost effective result to the company (Herold & Marolt, 2011). The reach of the companies have increased. Customers can easily contact with the companies directly regarding the services and the products. There are lot more benefits of ICT in business other than that.

Impact of ICT on society

ICT is the element that has great impact on the society as well. As the nature of job changes, the way the people are living also changes. Likewise in business, the communication mediums in day to day lives of the people are also changing. It has been analysed that with the advancement in the technology, the medium by which the people communicate with each other has also changes a lot. Introduction of internet and integration of telecom services with the computer system has allowed the people to have convenient communication and interaction with each other (Bertot, Jaeger & Grimes,2010). The most important benefit that has been observed is the reduction in the time. Things can be done in less time by using the information and communication technology. It has been analysed that there are many people these days that are doing online shopping. The trends of online shopping has increased to much because it saves the time of the people as well as provide them the facility to compare the products and their prices. It has been analysed that people are getting addicted to online shopping and thus offline store businesses are getting affected. Social networking is the biggest invention of information technology (Shachaf,2008). This is because it has changed the world and the way they communicate. With the help of social networking, people forgot to meet and have got together. They try to communicate with each other from these sites only. This has a positive impact as well. It allows the people from different location to communicate and interact removing the distance barriers. Social media allow the customers to interact even with the companies to share their reviews and experience of the products and services they are using. Education is the most important part of society. The ways the students get the education make them the social person. ICT in the education system makes it very easy for the educators to provide education to the students with the use of various online portals, submitting online notes for the students etc. are the practices that are being used by the teachers to support the students. Society has get very much influenced by thee ICT tools. The major technology that has affected the society is mobile technology. Every single person in the world these days has mobile phones in their hands. They are becoming slave of the mobile technology as they can do anything with that. They can have food, they can travel by making booking from their mobile, they can communicate, they can have location and route of any place etc. There are things which were not so easy for the people earlier but now they have access to each and everything anytime just with the mobile handset and the internet connection in that (Leidner, 2010).

Impact of ICT on culture

Culture can be defined as the phenomenon that has been used to have relativity between the people in the society. The culture is something that has followed by the people in according to their beliefs and values. It has been analysed that introduction of information technology has changed the culture of the people and the society. The beliefs that were traditional earlier are now changing with time (Consoli, 2012). Westernization is the biggest example of cultural change due to ICT. The people are getting so techno friendly that they are using the technology in their daily practices. This attraction of technology management is forcing the people to shift to urban areas. Thus, the culture that has been followed by the in the rural area has been changed and they adopt the new changes of urban culture. As discussed that communication has become so easy with the use of ICT tools, thus, the people can easily have access to other country’s culture and beliefs. It affects them a lot and people sued to adapt that culture of different countries which actually vanishes their traditional culture (Lopez-Nicolas & Meroño-Cerdán, 2009). The mix culture has been seen in the places now a day. This is because of the interaction facilities all over the world.

It has been analysed that ICT professionals have very important role in maintaining the ethics. It has been analysed that some of the people misuse the technology available to them. This is the major drawback of using these ICT tools. The major step that needs to be practiced in using the ICT tools is the security facility (Youssef & Dahmani, 2008). It should be ensured by the ICT professionals that the data that has been shared by the people on the online portals should be secured with the mediator ICT companies and should not be leaked. This is because the customers have trust on the companies and using their tools for interactions. If the data is leaked, it is legal offence and the company can penalise fir the same by the relative government.

Conclusion:

The above discussion concludes that improvement in information and communication tools have provided many benefits to the company but also provide them with some of the disadvantages. It affects almost all the aspects of life, society, culture and business. It is require by the ICT professionals to maintain the security of the data user are sharing on the ICT tools so that there is no crime and ICT can be used for improving the living standards of the people rather than decreasing the quality of life.

References:

Ashrafi, R., & Murtaza, M. (2008). Use and impact of ICT on SMEs in Oman. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 11(3).

Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., & Grimes, J. M. (2010). Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies. Government information quarterly, 27(3), 264-271.

Consoli, D. (2012). Literature analysis on determinant factors and the impact of ICT in SMEs. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 62, 93-97.

Etro, F. (2009). The economic impact of cloud computing on business creation, employment and output in Europe. Review of Business and Economics, 54(2), 179-208.

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Shirazi, F., Ngwenyama, O., & Morawczynski, O. (2010). ICT expansion and the digital divide in democratic freedoms: An analysis of the impact of ICT expansion, education and ICT filtering on democracy. Telematics and Informatics, 27(1), 21-31.

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Youssef, A. B., & Dahmani, M. (2008). The impact of ICT on student performance in higher education: Direct effects, indirect effects and organisational change. RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal, 5(1), 45-56.