The Strategic Use Of IS/IT For Innovation In Organisations

Prepare a paper that critically discusses how organisations apply the strategic use of IS/IT to achieve IS/IT-enabled innovation.

Managing Information system is an information system that is used for making decision, controlling and visualizing all the operations of an organisation. The motive of using information system in an organisation is to improve the overall value and profit margins. The IS and IT system in an organisation are used to make the operation automatic by eliminating the manual efforts. This technological system offer huge benefits like it helps in improving business processes and operations. The technology assures that feedback is taken regularly so that need of customers is met. The effective management of customer data help the company to perform direct marketing and promotion activities. In this report, the use of IS/IT innovations in an organisation is discussed along with that examples. It is found that artificial intelligence, and other advanced tool should be used to make the operations automatic. The success measures of these technologies are discussed and the impact or internal as well external factors are discussed. Some of the recommendations of using IT technology in an organisation are also discussed in the last section.

Innovation in business is important as it creates sustainable value for the company as well as customers. Business innovation by using information technology creates new business value. In this some of the examples were IT/IS innovations are used are discussed.

Some of the example of IS/IT innovations that are used in businesses are discussed:

• It is seen that from last decade’s company are widely investing in artificial intelligence and digital strategies that helps in reaching to wider audience. Many customer loyalty programs are launched that helps in tracking the customer purchasing behaviour and also designs customer reward system. It helps in reducing line waiting time and allows customers to connect with the business easily (Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014). For doing this, they make use of data to improve customer experience by creating AI driven strategies. In this decisions are taken by analysing the past behaviour and other factors. Businesses make use of virtual workplace software’s so that the expensive for getting an office space is safe. It makes all the team members to get connected easily using various programs (Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014).

(Source: https://aws.amazon.com/machine-learning/what-is-ai/)

It is seen that artificial intelligence helps in resolving various challenges that are faced in an organisation.

• Businesses has innovated their decision making process and have changed the operations strategies (Tayeh, Al-Jarrah and Tarhini, 2015). They make use of new payment and cash flow management that help business to connect to the international partners easily. It also helps in mitigating the cash flow issue as payments are made in a single attempt. It supports business to share their economy easily (Shahiduzzaman and Marek,  2018). It helps in cutting the cost of business.
• The other latest IT innovation that is adopted by businesses is use of big data. Big data supports business in many ways like helps in collecting feedback from the customers. Then analyse the feedback and reconstruct he products. Big data helps in testing various high end computers aided designs that help in improving the performance (Tayeh, Al-Jarrah and Tarhini, 2015). It is a tool that maps the data across the country and tracks all the internal threats so that sensitive information remains secure. Additionally, cloud computing is majorly used by business as they store data over cloud instead of using physical servers. It support the company to access the services from anywhere at any time (Ramachandran, Fegade and Raichurkar,  2017).

(Source: https://technofaq.org/posts/2018/08/5-uses-of-big-data-analytics-in-business-process-management/)

• Businesses make use of enterprise resource planning system as it improves the overall business process so that performance of business enhances. The main aim of this is to reduce labour cost as most of the operations are completed using It technology. It also improves the interaction between staff and companies (Telegraph, 2018).  It is software that integrates all the functions that take place at the workplace. It also reduces the errors as all the operations are done automatically by eliminating the manual efforts (Ramachandran, Fegade and Raichurkar,  2017). It is beneficial from marketing point of view as it helps in gaining more opportunities. ERP provides valuable data and analytics solution that helps in understanding customers and offer them better insight so that marketing strategy could be improved. It also makes communicate easier and effective so that better customer service is offered (Telegraph, 2018).

(Source: https://technosoftwares.com/role-erp-software-organisation/)

It can be said from research that innovation offers a long term success for an organisation. It modifies business model so that changes could be adapted easily and better product and services is offered. Innovation can be said as the introduction of something new that helps in innovating new ideas, devices or methods (Vatharkar, Gao and Fomin, 2018). IT/IS innovation is useful as reduce the time and efforts needed to complete a task by making the operations automatic.

In the first sections some of the IT/IS technology that could be used by businesses are listed. The advantages and issues in using these approaches are listed below.

• Using of artificial intelligence helps an organisation in many ways:
• AI helps in identifying the paters and purchasing habits of customer. It improves the overall shopping experience and increases sales (Vatharkar, Gao and Fomin, 2018). It analyse the data and past transactions stored over cloud and provide highly accurate offers and services to customer. It also makes customer interactions automatic by offering real time assistance. One of the biggest advantages of using artificial intelligence is data mining. It helps in getting undiscovered advantage from the market. It also predicts the outcomes by analysing the data and customer’s data (Nielsen,  Mathiassen and Newell, 2014). Thus, it can be said that AI systems provide businesses with a extensive range of benefits that includes personalised advertising, customer service, operational automation, inventory management and recruitment. These are just ways in which AI can be used.
• IT innovation has allowed businesses to make payment using cards and other payment methods. These methods have helped in boosting up the overall sale so that customers can make payment from anywhere at any time. They make use of mobile payment system as they are secure. It also helps in exploring the traditional business economy to digital age. It allows businesses to innovate and remain open to new ideas (Nielsen,  Mathiassen and Newell, 2014). This is possible by technology as it plays an important role in innovating new methods. New payment gateways as offered flexibility to customers and have allowed making digital transactions.
• Big data is a new innovation in the market that is proved beneficial for businesses (Soomro, Shah and Ahmed,  2016). It helps in understanding the market condition by analysing the behaviour of customers so that future trend could be recognized. It also supports in identifying the customers in a better way and big data tools are used to save the overall money (Tallon, Queiroz, Coltman and Sharma,  2016). It also eliminates the burden of IT staff by making use of real time system. Additionally, the data stored is accurate because big data tools reduced the risk of inaccurate data. It also supports in capturing the audience by identifying the marketing campaign (Soomro, Shah and Ahmed,  2016).
• Enterprise planning system also helps in an organisation in many ways. It improves the work flow by creating a user friendly interface so that employees can easily access all the relevant information. It increases the productivity by integrating all the functions into a unified platform (Yeh, Lee and Pai,  2015). It contributes to greater efficiency within the business operations. It also offers transparency within the organisation by maintaining information at one place. It also removes the redundant data so that inconsistency and confusion gets eliminated. It also offers greater security without adding any barriers for the employees (Wagner, Beimborn and Weitzel,  2014). It is observed that powerful integrated ERP system enables interactions of marketing, sales, quality control, products processes, supply lines, stocks and many other department of an organisation.  It eliminates the loss manual errors while performing any action (Wagner, Beimborn and Weitzel,  2014). An ERP system automates all the processes by keeping them into a useful format that is standardized and common for the whole organization.

It is seen that there are various internal factors like organisational, individual, and management that supports the success of an organisation (Tarhini, Arachchilage and Abbasi,  2015). Some of the external factors are market, industry, social, economic, technological and political/policy factors that supports in the success of IS/IT enabled innovation. 

The use of IS/IT for innovation

Impact of internal factors- The internal business environment comprises of factors within the company that impact the success and approach of operations. The roles of leaders in an organisation play an essential role in internal factor. The leadership style impacts the culture of an organisation and strength of an individual also contributes in overall success. The use of new IT technology requires some talented staff so that they can manage the resources effectively (Tarhini, Arachchilage and Abbasi,  2015). The role of other staff and culture of an organisation contributes in overall success. Innovation is important as it support the organisation to compete with the competitors. The organisational structure also contributes in the overall success. Now days a flat hierarchy structure is followed with few layers of hierarchy (Madon and Krishna,  2018).  The communication should be two way, from top to bottom and bottom to top. The internal factors determine how an organization will move forward. Some of the external factor that also contributes in overall success is discussed below.

Impact of external factors- The external factor like political, social and technological affect an organisation. External factors take care of the conditions and circumstances outside the organisation. The economy can affect the business and the competitors in the market can also change eth profit margins. There are chances that policies generated by the organisation may have negative effect. The social factors cover the policies and procedures that can impact the success of an organisation (Lindkvist, 2018). The customers and suppliers also affect the overall success. The political factors can add up risk to the businesses as government can change the taxes any time. Such decisions directly impact the growth of business. It is seen that political decisions affect the economic environment and also influence the country’s socio-cultural environment. Some common political factors on business organisation are impact on economy, changes in regulation, political stability and mitigation of risk. The social factors that affect the business is the buying habits of customers, attitudes towards business and other competitors in the market. The technology helps in building better relations so that it can grow successfully (Chae,  Koh and Prybutok,  2014). It makes all the process automatic which reduces the manual efforts and the chances of errors. It also helps in connecting to virtual team members easily, the automation of many unskilled tasks can allow companies to replace human production lines with entirely machine ones. It helps in reducing the costs for manufacturers, distributors, supermarkets, and many other different businesses (Henttonen, Kianto and Ritala, 2016). On the other side, it increases the automation in job that reduces the chances of manual efforts.

Recommendations and guidelines for helping organisations succeed in their efforts to embark on using IS/IT for innovation 

Some success factors for above listed examples

It is suggested that an organisation should make use of IT for innovation so that they can bet their competitors. Using IT strategies in the business process will help in beating the competitors and strategies should be adaptive so that adjustments could be done. It is found that IT has made all the operations and work processes automatic and eliminated the manual efforts. The technology should be implemented in a way it helps in tacking all the issues. The technology should be implemented so that all the operations are made automatic and manual work is removed (Da Veiga and Martins, 2015). Thus it saves the overall time and fulfils all the practises of an organisation by improving the performance. It also improves the communication system by allowing employees to connect easily using various instant communication tools. The technological factors help in connecting through employees away from cultural boundaries. The innovation using IT/IS supports in keeping the services available from anywhere ay anytime. It also promotes in creating operations efficient so that decision making could be done easily and effectively. Thus, it is recommended that IT technologies should be used to improve communication, team work and connectivity (Da Veiga and Martins, 2015). It technology should be used in mitigating risk this could be done by using risk management software that make sure only authorised user access the information. Thus, IT innovations should be used in every department like from converting the physical space to virtual space, from using the physical devices to digital services. These innovations have helped in developing the open standards (Alreemy, Chang, Walters and Wills, 2016).

The prime areas where IS/IT can be used are data Processing that is used to improve operational effectiveness by automating the work flows and so that operations become digital. Management Information Systems should also make use of information strategies so that management effectiveness could be improved and decisions could be make effectively. Strategic Information Systems also improve effectiveness by changing the way in which business work (Akman and Mishra, 2015). It is recommended that technology should be used as time tracking software so that loopholes could be found. It also allows an organisation to conduct webinars and offer online training.

Conclusion

Information technology can be used in an organisation to boost up the performance by making the operations wok digitally.  Some of the examples were innovation is used in businesses is via artificial intelligence that helps in making smart decisions.  Some of the examples were innovation is used in businesses is via artificial intelligence that helps in making smart decisions.  Advanced technology is used in making payments so that flexibility is offered to customers. Some of the other IT innovation that could be used is big data and cloud computing that supports business to store data over cloud instead of using physical servers. It support the company to access the services from anywhere at any time. The other way is enterprise resource planning system as it improves the overall business process so that performance of business enhances. The main aim of this is to reduce labour cost as most of the operations are completed using It technology. It also improves the interaction between staff and companies by making communication effective. These technologies help an organisation in many ways.  It eliminates the loss manual faults while performing any action. It makes all the operations automatic by keeping them into a useful format that is standardized and common for the whole organization.

The impact of internal factors and external factors

References

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