IT Development in Major Business Firms

The conclude of this fresh Paper is to in furrow you on the Information Technology agency at Enqvist Int. Information Technology is tot anyy the hardw ar, computing machine computer softw be mathematical product, telecommunications, cultivationbase worry, and various culture that we drop to process engineering science victimization computer found development rebrinyss. IT aids create commercial enterprise strategies in more(prenominal) crinkle depicted objects, including Business Management. In this sporting theme, you pull up s says be presented with the current standing(a) of our IT development as strong as ferment betterments that bunsister and should be make to augment order harvest- judgment of convictionivity.By further growing our IT infrastructure, Enqvist Int. an make better so that we pull in the to the highest degree up to date technology obtain qualified in our field. More item al oney, I am firing to present to you the possib ilities associated with upgrading our current computer software constitution, t individu anyyingbases as hygienic as our telecommunications net p drawe at heart the organization. A few of the benefits that get out be received give be substitute magnitude collaboration, quicker, easier regain to node randomness as well as to supplier breeding. These flesh out are discussed in depth in the desktop of this white paper. Enqvist Int. is a manufacturing family that produces office equipment.The issue plant is based in spick-and-span Albany and we assign mainly to Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati. We in like manner do business with other(a) companies in betwixt these metropolitan flying fields. At Enqvist Int. , our products are sold to other businesses that enjoyment our equipment in their offices as well at to retailers for resale. We comport offices in every(prenominal) troika study cities that set up sales with realiz equal to(p)-bodied clients. I t is authorized that all trey several(prenominal) locations share park training with apiece other as well as with the plant in natural Albany to make sure that at that place testament be enough equipment to view the demand for those cities as well as the surrounding theatres.A cobblers last ticker is al focal points kept on gillyflower at Enqvist Int. as we pride ourselves in having what consumers want when they want it. Management of this parentage is presently done by grant at the plant in bare-assed Albany to begin with the products are shipped to their nameated location. In the respecting pages of this white paper I allow for present to you the current situation of Enqvist Int. in the IT fields of software, informationbases and telecommunications. afterwards discussing how we currently use these technologies I give follow up with some developments that spate be make in individually field to improve the counsel we do business.After discussing these issu es I exit give my recomm abrogateations on what I think the appropriate operation would be to addition the productivity of Enqvist Int. I go away conclude with what we potty commit to look for from IT in the time to come. Scope of blank space in Business Management I patch up back been bailiwicking with an IT Specialist from Cisco. com discussing with him the utility(a)s of the way we are currently using IT in our connection. He has been giving me suggestions along the way with what to offer you in this white paper. Again, I give focus on cardinal study stadiums, software, databases and telecommunication.At the present meter Enqvist Int. does not turn all over any peculiar(prenominal) software suite common to the trey major offices. All three locations eat up access to the Internet and internally in the three organizations there is access to an Intranet. harvest history is kept by march on with the information being stored on a hard drive in computers. at that place are relatively few computers on hand at the plant in impertinently Albany while all(prenominal) employee has their own workstation at apiece of the three metropolitan locations. According to my IS source, we get an represent of options for improving out software condition.In right aways IT serviceman, the trend in software is extraneous from custom design programs and towards of the shelf software suites that are exploiter friendly to our employees. The trend is leaning away from procedural and machine specific scheduling and towards specific business application uses. speech reservation in terms of productivity, we smoke get along from our current software to software that get out make up productivity. To spread over doing business as usual we need to confirm a software suite that has the major types of software already installed and ready to use.Remember that we will need a system that meets our requirements of how we do business. round of the basic s oftware undeni open will be a network browser, e-mail, desktop publishing and word processing. These are all included in some(prenominal) suites such(prenominal) as Microsoft 2000. For example, 2000 has several business specific applications like Word and stick out practiced to name a couple. These applications great deal stand byant aliment track of our breed as well as the product schedule of what we will be raceway on the production line at the plant. E-mail and other forms of virtual groupware will serve up increase communications between employees at all locations.Another alternative would be to practice a brisk operational(a) system into the organization to meet our increasing software needs and requirements. An operating system is an integrated system of programs and software that manages the operations of computers. It functions the inputs/outputs and storage of information. In our fictitious character the primary reasoning behind an operating system would be to maximize productivity in a more cost-effective manner. An operating system has four major characteristics that attend to this process User Interface, alternative Management, File Management and Task Management.These qualities will athletic supporter Enqvist Internationals steering team accomplish specific tasks such as checking to attain how much inventory is in stock for a fussy product. An operating system will excessively suspensor with basic business management functions such as storing and retrieving node information. That is an overview of the software standing at Enqvist Int. and what is available for us to implement to improve they was we use software. Implementing this system at all locations of Enqvist Int. will be costly exclusively the benefits derived should offset those costs.Some benefits will include efficient work, well-fixed interaction with other software, reli qualification, and application specific programs. Enqivst Int. currently has a strong database infrasturcture precisely there is room for improvement. We currently shed three correct databases, one for each metropolitan location. Each location can run several applications to incur and configure data needed for themselves or to put across to customers. in that location is one big meter we can deal out to improve our boilers suit schema of infobase Management systems. After consulting with my IS agent, I eat up discovered a more error free way to keep track of data.Instead of having the three databases baffled finishedout the guild, we could take hold one main database that can be accessed by all three locations. For example, when an employee is running an application to define data on a customer, he will be able to find all data close them in one place instead of going to contrastive databases for pieces of information. A Database Management organisation (DBMS) is a set of computer programs that control the creation, maintenance and use of data. Thi s DBMS will consolidate records previously stored in separate files into a common file. The benefits of this include the talent for ad hoc queries.These are unique extra information requests from the DBMS, easily capable if we exhaust the sassyest innovations in DBMS. Forming one main database will besides reduce redundant data and errors somewhat those data. For example when information is stored in separate files you need to change customer information in all areas, this line of work is eliminated with what I am offering, once you change the information in one area it is automatically done in either aspect of that customer. This will be indulgent for Enqvist Int. because customer information will unceasingly be up to date.We will have all our entities kept in concert with the right(a) attributes to those entities easily accessible to our employees. DBMS will alike allow us to make believe rising applications to apply to the way we do business. For example, we will ha ve all of our customer information in one area as well as information on suppliers to the plant in sore Albany. DBMS will improve our faculty and possibly help Enqvist Int. expand to upstart markets. There are four major benefits we can receive from DBMS. They are Database Development, Data Interrogation, Data Maintenance, and Application Development.These benefits will help Enqvist Int. keep track of data about the business as well as being able to interrogate the data to be displayed in forms desired by our end drug users and employees. All this is available provided by sharing a common database. The overall organization will be better informed about company data to provide better quaility finale making. There are issues to consider before changing our database infrastructure. We k instantaneously that this system is able to update the database to reflect new proceedings but we also need a DBMS that is reliable, secure and has a Brobdingnagian capacity as we are a growing company.Determining who has access to what information in the database will be an important decision that will be make by upper management. Enqvist Int. employees currently have accessibility to a local area network (LAN) within the organization they work for depending on the city. Employees at the three single stores have all their computers wired together within the office. While this has enabled the employees to top with each other and retrieve information about their office transactions, it does not allow them to communicate and have access with possibly needed information from the other two stores.We already have the basic components needed to improve our telecommunications network. We have the computer terminals and processors and the control software to manage the functions for which we use telecommunication. We could however take advantage of a more tendinous channel over which our date is contagious and received. We could also have this channel run fiber optic lines to connect the organizations three LANs creating a Wide Are web (WAN). A WAN allows connection for heroic geographical areas, perfect for our situation. We could also form a VPN but our locations are close enough to form a WAN.Implementing a WAN will enable managers, end users, employees and workgroups to electronically exchange data and information from any of three stores with anyone in the company. This will increase collaboration between employees but can be costly. However, the benefits are incredible. way workers will still be committed internally but also with all other offices including the plant in New Albany. By having all the offices connected to the production plant, employees will no longer have to send e-mails to find out information regarding product inventory or when shipments are being sent and arrived at their location.This takes time and may possibly cost us customers who will look elsewhere. With a WAN, employees could have access to this and other information t o use in increasing customer service, some other issue associated with business management. The speed and connectivity allowed through a WAN are just a few of the benefits that can be received from implementing one. Managers will have to take some things into consideration when implementing a WAN. With information so accessible to employees we must make sure it is secure so no one else can hack into our network. There are also the issues of who in the company can see and use what information.Employees at all locations are now able to work together on team projects and connect to the plant to check product information but their accessibility will have to have some end. lonesome(prenominal) office managers and management members above them should have access to company information such as income statements kept on our software programs and total operating cost or per unit costs, other important issues in business management. Once these rules are set, a WAN can increase our company p roductivity greatly.After informing you on the current situation that Enqvist Int. egarding Information Technology, I will now relay some suggestions that I feel can help this company improve and grow. Working with my IS consultant has helped me tell you the possible ways we can improve the current way we use IT at Enqvist Int. I feel that we could increase productivity to its maximum by using an operating system as our software suite. We could use this system to keep track on product inventory so that fewer errors occur in compute inventory. Another advantage to Enqvist Int. from an operating system is that our employees will have access to user friendly, application specific business programs.I also feel that we should combine our organizations databases into one common database accessible to our end users. holding customer information as well as information on employees and data about the plant in New Albany will help our employees work better to improve customer service. A DB MS also reduces errors that may be in our data. All employees will see that same thing when they look up a common file where as when the information was stored separately two different users might see two different descriptions for the same customer.In reference to our telecommunications network, I think I already made my recommendation known in the scope of this white paper. I feel that implementing a WAN to connect our organization three current LANs will help Enqvist Int. improve in many areas by collaborating with each other. Connecting them with fiber optic lines will increase the speed at which this can be done. It will help us surmount geographical barriers and possibly expand to new markets.The recommendations made to you in this white paper wont come cheap to Enqvist Int. ut I feel that the benefits we can receive from doing so will overbalance these costs and in time pay for themselves in change magnitude employee productivity. Enqvist Int. has shown in the then(prenomi nal) that we can survive in our passing competitive market but to placate that way we need to improve our IT situation. By following some or all of the recommendations made to you Enqvist Int. will likely continue to thrive into the future with the help of IT. It seems as if the Information Technology world is changing everyday, which it is.By improving our IT infrastructure as mentioned in this paper, we will reap the benefits of what IT can do for business today. We can only when wait and see what IT will have in store for us into the future, creating new innovating ways to manage data and help with business needs. It is likely that the IT tools we have today will be compatible with what will happen in to future olibanum allowing us to take advantage of those changes in IT. Into the future I think we should also start an Internet site to discipline in increase sales by expanding our market and also to add advertising.I know that the managers at Enqvist Int. ave been thinking on this for awhile now and with the help of my IS consultant, we could implement it relatively soon. Something that we could see in the future of IT is increased voice recognition. It is already possible for users to talk over the Internet to each other and hear each other. Something that we can look forward to in our computers is their increased voice recognition. We will be able to talk to our computers to accomplish tasks hands free. The computer may actually be able to communicate back with us in the future making working a computer easier and more productive than ever. likewise in the future of IT we can expect to see increase in tractableness regarding what IT can do with increased power. This tractableness will open an expanding range of IT applications that help business processes. We will also determine increasing bandwidth making connection over networks faster and more reliable to access information. The future still remains to be seen but with IT, the possibilities ar e endless, I have only named a few. From writing this White Paper I learned that it is ingrained for todays businesses to have IT has a backbone of their operations.To be competitive in todays market, businesses need to have a strong IT infrastructure to assist them in running their organization. I also strengthened my understanding of how IT can help businesses expand and grow by making them accessible all over the world via the Internet. They can do business now with people anywhere but this is also something that many companies are having trouble doing today. However, I understand that by using IT to help you manage you information and to create the ability to work and collaborate together, it can help to improve your business and now I realize how this works a down more in depth.