IT Business Application Case Study

Introduction

Information technology has emerged to solve various problems in the industries. Innovation is dynamic and keeps changing to accommodate the changes in the real world. One of the applications of information technology is in the business sector. Information technology is used to automate processes, increase accuracy, and enhance efficiency and effectiveness in the control and management of businesses (Howell., van & Doorn, 2018). Businesses have evolved from physical operations of selling and buying goods and services, keeping documents, and manual operations to being automated. Information technology has ventured into the business sector to solve manual records, errors and vandalism, and data security problems.

Information technology brings management, control, and security of business operations data (AlBar & Hoque, 2019). In addition, technology enables businesses to automate processes, thus reducing errors, cost, and time used to execute them. Through business intelligence and data analytics, marketing has been improved, and user data utilized effectively.

Businesses always experience complex problems during their operation, and information technologies are a solution. Information technology uses various business applications in information systems, websites, programs, and Android apps to ensure control and management of business processes. They include document handling, communication, data security, inventory control, marketing strategies, and others involving customer interaction and data governance and management (AlBar, & Hoque, 2019).

Business Problem

Lack of Inventory Management and Control

Businesses mainly deal with selling and buying goods and services for profit. Inventory refers to the physical stock a business operates with, which may be information, items, or other resources (Shepard et al., 2019). Inventory comes from various sources, namely procurement, production, repair and maintenance, and overall supplies. Inventory is a current short-term asset of a company because it is bought and sold at any time. The number of inventories entering a business and exiting a business should be managed to ensure no liabilities (Shepard et al., 2019). Stock management is a key success metric for any operating business.

The business problem identified is businesses are unable to manage their inventories. This includes not being able to detect a shortage or an outflow of inventory (Abd, Nawawi, & Salin, 2018). Managing stock would save the business the cost associated with an unbalanced inventory flow. For example, a company may buy a lot of stock that they do not necessarily need at the moment. This would cost them a lot of money buying and keeping the stock. Inventory control is a best practice of business operation.

Accuracy, efficiency, and carefulness are the key concepts in inventory management and control. Most businesses are used to keeping inventory records manually; thus, there is no mechanism deployed to give alerts on stock changes (Abd, Nawawi, & Salin, 2018). Human beings have a weakness of forgetting and thus may fail to check if their stock is running low. Having a system that monitors your inventory is ideal for avoiding overreliance on human beings to produce alerts.

Solution: Inventory control system

Overview

The solution to lack of control would be the use of information technology business applications like an inventory control system to manage the inventory of a business. The inventory control system will help update the present, incoming, and outgoing (Jackson, Tolujevs & Kegenbekov, 2020). By performing analysis on the given parameters, it should give alerts when the minimum and maximum inventory requirements are met. The system will help reduce the limitations associated with overreliance on human beings and manual inventory processes like information lagging.

Benefits of inventory control system

Updated inventory: The inventory control system ensures that the inventory level is updated in real-time whenever any operation is done. This includes when a new inventory enters the business when an inventory is sold, or when a new inventory is created within the business. This increases accuracy by detecting if the stock is low or promising a customer.
Saving on cost: An inventory control system enables a business to save a cost that a business would incur if the inventory runs low in excess. Other saved cost includes storage and insurance, which enable a business to maximize its profit.
Reduce human errors: Relying on human beings to manage and control the inventory led to errors that led to inaccuracy. This increases the speed, efficiency, and reliability of the process. Automation also saves on time and cost.
Enable inventory tracking: every detail of an inventory when the inventory control system manages its purchase, sale, or storage. This reduces cases of inventory fraud as a log of all activities can trace who, when, and how the fraud occurred.
Customer satisfaction: the business can promise customers what they know in real time. Customers need to wait as the inventory control system offers no information or time lag.

An inventory control system enables a business to automate counting, recording, and disseminating inventory. This saves time and money. The application helps businesses operate as a real-time point of sales as customers can see what is present at the time of buying (Jackson, Tolujevs & Kegenbekov, 2020). This has been greatly adopted by online shopping businesses, which indicates if a product is in stock and out of stock when a user chooses. Inventory control systems can be combined with other technologies like cloud computing, business intelligence, and data analytics to offer real-time inventory optimization and predict inventory behavior patterns.

Cloud inventory control system

As technology advances, the business should be flexible to embrace them. Inventory systems can be hosted in the cloud to add more functionality (Muyumba & Phiri, 2017). Cloud is virtual storage that ensures that systems run in real time and can be accessed anywhere. Cloud inventory control applications would ensure that inventory lifecycle processes are run in real time. Its core benefits it’s that it’s flexible, scalable, reliable, efficient, and visible (Muyumba & Phiri, 2017).

Cloud inventory control has main features like real-time inventory optimization increased security, and may offer prediction to some inventory parameters, reduce errors, and ensure that data is tracked through log files (Muyumba & Phiri, 2017). Hosting systems and applications in the cloud have an advantage in that not all sectors will be affected in case an incident happens. The cloud does not store information in one place; hence the risk is distributed, and there are always ways to retrieve data when lost in the cloud. Cloud inventory control ensures business continuity after an incident as it decentralizes its operations hence ideal for sensitive business (Muyumba & Phiri, 2017).

Adding cloud services to the inventory control systems ensures that the inventory and its related data are safe and secure. Cloud service providers offer security services to their packages. They ensure access control, and good authentication mechanisms, and encrypt data while in transit from the business to the cloud and vice versa and while on storage. Security is also enabled when the storage repository is kept remote from where the business is. Cloud inventory control application ensures a business is connected to third-party platforms securely (Muyumba & Phiri, 2017). Data can be acquired and analyzed to make decisions and predict inventory data processes like when to buy or sell from these platforms. The application enables a business to hold the historical and current data of their inventory processes which can be compared to give certain decisions, insights, and recommendations.

The cloud-based inventory application has an automated reporting module where it produces frequent reports in the form of documents that show the processes and various data analyses. The reports can be utilized during the auditing process of the inventory sector. The cloud-based inventory system can be accessed in multiple environments, including the web, computers, and even mobile phones. This efficiency and reliability make it ideal for solving inventory problems as it can be used anywhere and anytime. Consequently, this system saves the business time and money, which are utilized in other sectors hence the overall growth of the business.

Conclusion

Technology keeps changing; thus, a business should always implement a change plan. Any technological-based change should ensure that it does what it is meant to do and conforms to the business and technical requirements in the business. Technology implemented should be enforced through policies, procedures, and standards which are to be followed by everyone in the business. The security of the systems implemented should also ensure the security and privacy of the data involved.

To address the technology changes, inventory control systems should embrace new technologies like artificial intelligence, data mining, business intelligence, and data analytics to develop models that can predict and make decisions by analyzing information acquired from inventory processes.

References

Abd Karim, N., Nawawi, A., & Salin, A. S. A. P. (2018). Inventory control weaknesses–a case study of a lubricant manufacturing company. Journal of Financial Crime.

AlBar, A. M., & Hoque, M. R. (2019). Factors affecting the adoption of information and communication technology in small and medium enterprises: A perspective from rural Saudi Arabia. Information Technology for Development, 25(4), 715-738.

Howell, R., van Beers, C., & Doorn, N. (2018). Value capture and value creation: The role of information technology in business models for frugal innovations in Africa. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 131, 227-239.

Jackson, I., Tolujevs, J., & Kegenbekov, Z. (2020). Review of inventory control models: A classification based on obtaining optimal control parameters. Transport and Telecommunication Journal, 21(3), 191-202.

Muyumba, T., & Phiri, J. (2017). A Web-based Inventory Control System using Cloud Architecture and Barcode Technology for Zambia Air Force. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 8(11), 132-142.

Shepard, J. P., Brady, S. J., Cost, N. D., & Storrs, C. G. (2019). Classification and inventory. In Southern Forested Wetlands (pp. 3-28). Routledge.

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Question

IT Business Application Case Study

Share an Onboarding ExperienceThis assignment will provide you with IT consultant experience to investigate a business process operation.

For instance, a company encourages employees to work remotely and tries to identify a free or affordable application that enables all employees to communicate virtually. What are the IT options available to enable the team?

You will think outside the box to develop a practical solution for a real-life problem or application.

IT Business Application Case Study

Discuss a business problem with an IT solution from your work or personal experience. Are there any specific artificial intelligence (AI) applications that can be considered as part of the solution? If you don’t have specific personal experience, select 1 management enterprise system (MIS) solution with a specific use case. For this project, you are going to write a five (5) page technical report discussing the following:

Identify the business and the problem.
Discuss the expectations of the deliverables in the business process.
Explain the specific application you chose to provide an effective solution.
Describe the specific features and benefits of the new IT application.
State how the new application provides long-term support to the business process through maintaining data integrity in cases of disaster recovery and continuity planning.
Submit your Five (5) page technical report in APA format with at least 3 references. Please note that the title page and reference page do not count as part of the five (5) page total.

1 Title page (remember the running heading should be abbreviated and all caps) – This proposal does not require an abstract.
3 paragraphs identifying the business and the problem
3 paragraphs discussing the expectations of the deliverables in the business process
3 paragraphs explaining the specific application chosen to provide a defective solution
3 paragraphs describing the specific features and benefits of the new IT application
3 paragraphs stating how the new application provides long-term support to the business process through maintaining data integrity in cases of disaster recovery and continuity planning.
Reference page minimum of 3 references