1. a) Information Technology is used within Business to help gain, manage, measure and store specific data within an organisation. It provides Businesses with a clear overview of specific information regarding the business. This information is vital to a businesses success as it is an enabler assisting in the decision making process, allowing accurate and positive decisions to be made helping support the overall stratedgy and future direction of the business.
b) Success is measured by a range of practices. KPI or Key Performance Indicators are quintifiable measurements which help to determine if a business is meeting their pre-determined goals. Also Businesses look at their IT systems themselves to determine the efficency and effectiveness of its performance.
b) Success is measured by a range of practices. KPI or Key Performance Indicators are quintifiable measurements which help to determine if a business is meeting their pre-determined goals. Also Businesses look at their IT systems themselves to determine the efficency and effectiveness of its performance.
Efficency IT Metric looks at the IT system and its performance e.g. the throughput (quality and amount of information), speed, and availability of the information gathered. Is the Business getting the most up to date accurate information? Benchmark tests are also used to see how each individual computer system is operating (e.g. Response times) and enables its performance to be compared with the other computer systems operating under similar conditions.
Effectiveness IT Metric looks more on the positive or negative impact these systems have on the Business. It helps to make important decisions and set important goals and then allows organisations to view if their goals are being met.
2. Porter’s Five Forces Model helps a Business to determine the larger, environmental factors which, in time, may influence the Business. If a Business is able to understand these forces they can develop strategic practices to create opportunities from these changes.
The factors named in Porter’s Five Forces Model include;
- Buyer Power: Knowing your customer, their needs and wants and working to keep a relationship with them e.g. a rewards program
- Supplier Power: Know your supplier and maintain a good relationship with them.
- Threat of substitute products or services: If a product is common e.g. shoes then the threat of subsitiute products is high. If you do not provide the best service or your pricing is too high then your customer will happily move on the the cheaper pair of shoes next door.
- Threat of new entrants: Depending on your product or service it may be easier or in other cases harder for competition to arise e.g. the ‘tour guide’ business is easier to break into than setting up a cancer clinic.
- Rivalry among existing competitors: There is a large amount of competition around. By finding ways to stand out or be different, seem better you will be able to gain customers.
Below is a diagram of Porter's Five Focus Model
Below is a diagram of Porter's Five Focus Model
3. Business processes and value chains both help to add and determine the value of a Business. The Business processes are the sequence of activities which must be undertaken to create or provide the businesses specific product or service.
Value chains are the series of processes where the product passes through each step gaining more and more value as it advances.
4. Porter’s three generic strategies include Cost Leadership, Differentation and Focus. Cost Leadership is the process of lowering the business costs in order to provide a product or service at a cheaper price e.g. Sourcing cheaper materials to build a quality assured product at a lower production cost the technologies which are implemented within an organisation must support its future goals.
Differentation strategies is the creation of a product which will stand out from the rest e.g. blackberry creating the ‘white’ version of their mobile handhelds.
Differentation strategies is the creation of a product which will stand out from the rest e.g. blackberry creating the ‘white’ version of their mobile handhelds.
Focus Strategies concentrates the Marketing of a product to a ‘focus group’ allowing the business to focus directly on the needs of their specific group allowing them to more accurately meet these very specific needs thus creating a much greater relationship with their customers.
http://www.nd.edu.au/
No comments:
Post a Comment