Digital Business Applications And Their Implications For Business Operations
Understanding the Market Rationale for Digital Business Applications
Demonstrate critical awareness of how digital business applications can support and change the way of doing business by aligning strategic and organizational goals
Digital business application tend to help an organization to reach its strategic and organization goals efficiently and effectively. Digital business involves a business using a website or use of mobile app to implements and record some of the transactions. These applications are meant to optimize the business processes. Usually a business can create revenue streams and effective business model and improve on the service to the customers. Today, most organizations are changing to digital business as there are significant changes to how the organizations perform their daily tasks (Crosland, 2018).
The digital business application with the combination of a great market insight, leadership team and platform development tend to help in the accomplishment of the organization goals and the strategic goals. The success of the organizations in measure by the range of meeting the goals set. The digital business applications helps the organization to develop rapidly develop and move in new markets and globally with the help of internet. Using internet, the organization will provide services and product to wider marketing increasing the revenue (Intelligence, 2011). The digital business applications will help in uncovering and forming partnership (Moore, 2016).
For a successful implementation of the digital business application, there is need for a clear understanding of the application and how they relate to the current operations. The employees need to be trained on how to effectively use the digital business application. The digital business applications are used to enhance efficiency, productivity, profit, customer experiences collaboration and reduce cost and time. The organization will provide quality services with the help of the digital business applications (I-scoop.eu, 2018).
Identify and evaluate digital business applications and their place in the internal value chain
The internal value chain involves relationship of the activities that are performed within the firms’ premises. These activities involve acquisition of finance, making purchases of raw materials, productions of goods, accounting and human resources. There are a number of digital business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, computer-aided design (CAD) systems and manufacturing execution systems (MES). These are the application used in the internal value chain. They are hard to learn and there training to all the users is necessary as they got many modules. The systems are also slow to evolve and adapt. Once the users adapt in using these digital business applications the process within the business are done efficiently. There a number of ERP systems such as Sage, NetSuite ERP, Brightpearl, Intacct, PeopleSofT, Stafiz among other applications. The ERP play a very important role in the internal value chain (Agarwal, 2018).
AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action
The digital business operations help in reducing the cost and add value in the entire process in an organization’s lifecycle. The integrating of the internal applications and services has been challenging due to the organizational silos. Innovation has brought about digital business applications that has modules to integrate all the silos in an organization. The modules include financial management, customer relationship management, human resource management, manufacturing, and inventory, purchasing and supply chain management. Today the ERP systems tend to include business intelligence, asset management and e-commerce (Financesonline.com, 2018). These applications have a number of advantages such as financial management, manufacturing and inventory. The financial management module manages the capital inflow and out flow. This module tends to cover the standard accounting and the financial transactions such as the expenditures, balance sheet, tax management, bank reconciliation and the payments. The manufacturing module covers the production process. The digital business application helps in making production more efficient in areas such as product planning, daily production planning, product forecasting among other activities. The inventory module helps in measuring stock targets, standardizing the replenishments and help in other inventory objectives. Each products uses a unique serial number to track and locate items in the organizations (Jurevicius, 2018).
Identify and evaluate digital business applications and their place in the external supply chain
The external value chain involves the activities performed with the organization’s suppliers, customers and distributors. These external value chains are conducted by other companies. The activities include marketing, advertising, sales promotion, appointing of sales agents and selling of products and distribution of products. The digital business application such as the ERP systems, CAD system among other systems. The application have modules that increase efficiency in external supply chain. The modules include the SCM and purchasing module.
The SCM module is used in the supply chain management and the order management. The module helps in managing the product flow from the production process to the consumer and vice versa in case a product is returned. The process is automated and helps in streamlining the supply chain. The purchasing module helps in the entire procurement process. The processes include supplier listings, quotation requests, receipts, book keeping and stock updates. The purchasing module works closely with the inventory module. The integration of the module makes the supply process more effective (Thomas J. Kull, 2018).
Evaluate critically the operational and strategic implications arising from new technology applications challenged with rapid changes and the need for a responsible approach
Demonstrating Critical Awareness of Digital Business Applications
There is a rapid technological change today in most organizations. Most of the operational processes and the strategic process have been automated and machine learning is necessary in order to improve the quality of the businesses. The new technologies have brought about new approaches in performing the operations in organizations. Most people are entitled for training and those who don’t want change have lost their jobs. Technology has enables people to be more responsive to change and enhance interactions with most of the natural world and the effects. Technology demands people to be more responsible in the management duties in the organization and the resources.
There are a number of impacts as a result of the new technology applications. The digital revolution has changed the way people consume things. Most organizations have much data in cloud thereby storing more information. There is also more power consumption and the desire of consumerism. The organization should ensure that new technology application investments tend to make the process efficient and reduce the costs on the other hand (World Economic Forum, 2018).
The technology demands more responsible in the consequences. The society is changing fast and there is need for leaders to be responsible and ensure that the changes benefit everyone. There is much data consumption in most organizations. People should ensure that the data in the cloud is secure. This is to prevent the hackers from access confidential data. The customer loyalty should be considered when storing data in cloud. The responsible approach ensures integrity and veracity of the factors involved in the operations using the new technology applications. The data in the systems need to be monitored frequently to ensure that data stored in the systems is correct and there is no illegal intrusion into the system.
Critically appraise existing innovative technologies to fit operation requirements and meet strategic needs
The use of mobile applications has enhance mobility in businesses. Today business can be handled from remote location using devices such as personal computers, tablets, smart phones with connection to the internet. Using the e-commerce websites, sales have been made possible all the time. There is also wide reach of customers. The shipping of products has been made easier as the invoicing are done on the click of a button (Modus Engagement, Inc., 2018).
Cloud computing is another aspect that has allowed the small scale and large scale business move some of their operations to third-party servers to ensure there is data back up in case of data lose in companies’ premises. Cloud computing has offered less costly data storage servers that are reliable and accessible from any place as long there is internet connection (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2018).
Identifying Digital Business Applications in the Internal Value Chain
The new technologies have offered extreme customer segmentation and it has become easier to access potential customers. The analytic services such as Google Analytic tool can help a company identify their customer preference, location, the device being use and can tell how long they stay in the websites (Use of Technology, 2018).
The existing technologies have also reduced the operational costs but increasing the functionality of the systems. The software are cheap to afford and they have many solution is business operation such as financial management, customer management, production management, sales management among other functionalities.
Identify and utilize appropriate methods for collecting, analyzing and presenting data related to digital business.
The collecting data using PDAs, tablets or mobile phones. The methods of collecting data interviews, questionnaires, surveys, observations and focus groups. Interviews can be formally structured questions or informally structured question. The interview questions should be clear, focused and should encourage open-ended responses. Questionnaires should be ensure the responses are analyzed with quantitative methods. The survey should be compared and analyzed. The observations involves the study of a dynamic situation (Link, Tosaka and Weng, 2015). The observation method can be used to produce both qualitative and quantitative data. Focus groups involves collecting data from a group of people who have a common characteristic. Once the data is collected it is store in the digital storage such as servers. Analytic tools such as Google Analytics are used in the analyzing the customer information such as the location, the device, the landing page to a website, how many session the customer had and much more information. Data is presented in form of graphs which are easy and quick to understand. The many types of graph presentation. They include: bar charts, histograms, pie charts, pictograph and line graphs. The data can be tabulated or in textual form. The textual form involves data that is presented in paragraph form. It involves a combination of texts and figures. Tabular data presentation involves using a statistical table. A statistical table includes the table heading, stubs, box head, body, footnotes and the source note.
Demonstrate an ability to work effectively as an individual and group member in order to carry out tasks linking theory to practice so developing new skills to a high level
For one to effectively work as an individual or a group member, the one must have some core skills. This skills include: communication, inspired thinking and fulfilled self. Having a purposeful communication means that one has the ability to communicate clearly, concisely and openly. The individual should always have a purpose while communicating. Communication makes a positive relationship with the rest of the team. Before communicating and individuals have a forethought communication. The individual should ensure that they listen and pay attention to what the other parties are communicating. The second core skill is inspired thinking. For an individual to work effective inspired thinking is very important. One must have the ability to collect data, understand the data, analyze the data, find solutions, make decisions and solve the problem. The third core skill is fulfilled self. As an individual the personal characteristics and the sense of purpose that an effective individual bring into their life define self-fulfillment. Some individuals in an organization are more engaged to their activities and tend to achieve higher performance levels (Wilson, 2018). How one performs their daily tasks really matters on the effectiveness. An individual should have a work plan and ensure that he/she finishes the planned tasks on time. Also individuals who treat others with respect tend to know how to manage their own emptions. The fulfilled self tend to act in the interest of others. When and individual has the three skill then they can work effectively and an individual level or as a team. These kind of individual tend to improve the skills as they rely on themselves.
Evaluating Operational and Strategic Implications of New Digital Technologies
Students will be able to review and diagnose knowledge (tacit and explicit) sharing in organizations to build critical thinking skills and digital literacy skill
In an organization students should be in a position which knowledge is tactic and which is explicit. For the explicit knowledge, the students should be in a position to research, collaborate with others on the value on the information found. The students should share the knowledge of what they researched and should document the knowledge. The students should share the explicit knowledge based on the digital literacy. The digital literacy is used but the student to create new content on the organizations. Once the students build on their digital literacy skills, they will be in a position to help organization efficiency (O’Brien, 2013). They will also need to have critical thinking skills to help in making rational decisions. The students should always be future focused as the new technologies are rapidly growing. For an organization to fit in the market, they have to adapt the new technologies in the daily operations. An organization tend to depend on the younger generation in the implementation of the new technology. In this case the students should prove that they got great critical thinking skills and digital literacy skills
Communicate the solutions arrived at, and the theory underlying them, in verbal and written form to specialists and non-specialist audiences
It is necessary for organizations to adapt to new technologies so as to thrive in the market. There are a number of factors to consider in adapting new technologies in business. The organization has to choose the new technical applications and tools carefully. In business, there are many application designed for different purposes. Some may seem similar but the may not fit all the business process (Boer, 2010). Before choosing any business application one may evaluate the benefit it will bring to the organization. The resources should also be considers for the application to be fully implemented. Secondly, the organization should clearly identify the stakeholder and the users of the system (Boroughs and Rickard, 2009). Thirdly, they should build a roll-out plan. The roll-out plan should involve the following elements: key dates, deployment tiers, training sessions and expectations. Finally the organization should make a follow-up and ensure that the roll-up plan is recognized in the implementation process.
Locate, summarize and synthesize a range of information from published literature and electronic sources on digital business, innovative and disruptive technologies
Business tend to ignore the disruptive technologies as they may lead to the fall of an organization. Some of the new technologies such as the file sharing in the music industry have deteriorated the industry. The music industry has loses an estimate of 13 billion annually due to piracy (Patki, 2009). Most people no longer buy the music copies from the artists. Some of the technologies tend to change the way people interact with entities in an organization. The real time public communications can be disruptive. The negative comments on company product can destroy the reputation of a company (Coccia, 2017). On the other hand digital business can be implement innovative technologies that will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness in a company. Most of the new technologies are developed to solve business problems such as to reduce the cost of production, reach a more customers globally, and increase the revenue of a business, tract the inventory among other benefits. The organization should evaluate any technology before implementing it.
References
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