The implication of the web for the future of the business
It is very surprising and difficult to imagine how a business can run and survive in the competition arena without the use of web, especially in the 21st century. The use of web in the business field has transformed many aspects of the business and especially communication. This is because the use of internet has assisted to reduce the time applied to transmit information over short distance and long distances. Not just a website that is required to enhance business, but graphic design skills and extensive programing are needed for a successful website. Therefore, it is very important for Bartlett Controls (BC) Company to embrace the internet technology and develop an enhanced website that can assist it in its operations. The SWOT analysis on using web in the future is discussed below.
Strengths
In this area, strengths are considered as the characteristics, developed by the use of web, to help the business achieve its goal. If the BC Company is able to develop an effective website in the future, there are various benefit that the company is anticipated to enjoy. One of the benefits includes the effective communication because through the web the company is able to communicate with its suppliers, customers and the other stakeholders. Internet is used with more than a million users daily and the significant of establishing the website for communication is to net some of the users (Moran, & Hunt, 2006). Web also facilitates innovation and online growth. An effective website is believed to help the company to be innovative by undertaking the inventive measures with the aid of the internet. With the interactive website, the employees are able to improve their skills and hence be able to develop and invent new ideas that are beneficial to the growth of the business.
In addition, the use of web for a business helps the company to attain unique products, wide range of products, growing volume of users, growing markets and cheaper technology. Through the innovative that is associated with the use of web, the BC Company is able to produce product with the unique features in the market. According to Samtani (2002), the packaging, branding and grading of the natural gas is enhanced through the interactive website. Bartlett Controls Company, in future, will be able to produce and sale wide range of the products since they are able to identify the needs and wants of the consumers through the web. The company will be in a position to enter in the market with related products such as gas cookers, generators and motorcycles among others. The use of the website in a business also helps in expanding markets since the company can reach more customers online.
Weaknesses
However, the use of the web is associated with the characteristics that generate conflicts in the business operations. One of the main characteristics is the conflict in the human resources department. The use of the website result to performing jobs that are performed by many workers. For instant, role played by ten researchers and ten consultants can be done by only two workers online. This forces the company to lay down its employees in order to reduce its operation cost. If this case is not addressed in the correct manner, it ends up bringing conflict in the HR department hence weakness of the company (Reedy & Schullo, 2004).
Other weaknesses that are associated with the use of the website includes inefficiency in the Information and technology department, late deliveries, lack of proper evaluation system and scheduling problems. There is inefficiency in the IT department when the IT team is not coordinating and trained in a manner to handle all the comments and resourceful information retrieved from the website. When the website controllers do not quickly respond to the online orders made by the consumers, it may become difficult to deliver goods on time. The various and complex process that are involved in the online sources could result into late delivery if the task is not carried out by experienced personnel or professionals. The company may not have an effective system to evaluate the online supplier and this may result into poor supply of the raw material/products or lateness in the supply of their products.
Opportunities
When Bartlett Controls embraces the use of the internet technology through website; it becomes exposed to anticipated benefits that can enable the company to rise above its competitors. The anticipated benefits include the emerging markets and the expansion globally. The use of the website can enable the company top identify and reach the demographics or the markets that the competitors has neglected. The company is also in a position to identify the customers’ needs and wants hence the market niche (Samtani, 2002). Through this revelation, the company is anticipated to produce innovative products in the market.
In other words, the use of website is anticipated to help the company to identify opportunities that other competitors are not seeing. In other areas, an effective website helps the company to achieve the product exposure, cost reduction and product and services expansion. Since, the website is accessed by numerous customers around the globe, the natural gas product could be posted on the website hence attain a global exposure. The products are accompanied by their detailed information and their images that can enable customers to obtain relevant information before purchase of an item. Tedious work of manual transaction is reduced since customers can search for their desired products and make order online hence reducing the cost of promotion and advertisement.
Threats
There are various threats that are related to the use of the website in the business arena. These threats include an edge that the competitors have on Bartlett Controls Company. The competitors in the natural gas industry may have the new and innovative products that excel more in the market. In addition, the competitors may be holding government licensing to access the channels of distributions that Bartlett Controls cannot access. Those competitors may also have an added advantage of the operating under low cost.
Ethical questions
What Leaders Should Consider in Ethical Implications of Employee Monitoring?
The employers and employees must applied good ethical values since they govern virtuous behavior. This aids the company to maintain a good business reputation. Ethics can also be the decision making of actions based on a set of values, morals, and beliefs that a person possesses. There has been widespread of employee monitoring due to the increase in cyber loafing and lawsuits. This is caused by new and cheaper technologies. Cyber loafing and cyber slacking are voluntary action of employees using the company’s internet access for nonworking-related purposes during working hours. Web browsing and sending personal e-mails while at work might be viewed by most managers as a misuse of time and company resources.
What You Need to Know?
The cost and productivity loss associated with cyber loafing may be an obvious concern for companies. Employee monitoring has emerged as a necessity and a very controversial issue due to the widespread and complexity use of technology. According to Downing (2010), the employees must be governed by the set code of conducts compliance in relation to the company they are working for the have proper employee behavior. Employee monitoring has become an ethical issue because there is emergence and introduction of new technology which is available to both the employers and employees that can be misused and abused.
In conclusion, ethical values should be applied in work environment since cyber loafing has become a problem and should be monitored. The company should set policies that control the cyber loafing activities. The filtering and blocking solutions can control employees in accessing to internet content based on name, address or content. The first outcome of workers spending time on the Internet indulging in non-work related activity is loss of productivity. In order the company to keep the competition and make the best use of the stockholder’s investment it should monitor cyber loaf.
Strategy for a company's future use of the Web
The Web is one of the most revolutionary technologies that changes the business environment and has a dramatic impact on the future of electronic commerce. Some are the benefits associated with use of web in business; Production promotion, cost saving, information consistency, better customer service, better customer relation and customization of products (Beer, 2000). A company may use the web for; market awareness, sales, electronic information services, customer support and advertising.
The Web Site Design strategy that a company can use in its future is on-line/transactional strategy. The strategy invariably provides an electronic catalog of products for sale. The web site strategy allows the visitors to browse via catalog and other products on-line. In information/communication design also provides electronic catalog in ordering information as well. However, it does not support online transactions. Without online ordering Web database capability, it hardly exploits the potential of the Web as an interactive medium. The on-line/transactional strategy is what most proponents of marketing on the Web expect (Beer, 2000).
The online/transactional processing (OLTP) system its environment is characterized by; the system requires short response times in order the users to remain productive. The system manipulates and read highly selective and small data. In most cases data processing is simple and complex joins are relatively unusual. OLTP system allows large user population where different users are trying to access the same data at the same time. The OLTP can become very large depending on the user population or application type (Guy, 1990).
The performance of online/transition processing system depends on efficient index access. They include non-partitioned indexes and partition indexes, thus the choice of the most fitted index strategy becomes crucial. In addition to the performance benefits, partitioning also enables the optimal data management for large objects in an OLTP environment.
References
Beer, V. (2000). The Web learning fieldbook: Using the World Wide Web to build workplace learning environments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer
Downing, C. E. (2010). Is web-based supply chain integration right for your company? Communications of the ACM, 53(5), 134-137.
Guy, M. E. (1990). Ethical decision making in everyday work situations. New York: Quorum Books
Moran, M., & Hunt, B. (2006). Search engine marketing, Inc: Driving search traffic to your company's web site. Upper Saddle River, NJ: IBM Press
Reedy, J., & Schullo, S. (2004). Electronic marketing: Integrating electronic resources into the marketing process. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western.
Samtani, G. (2002). B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-Commerce. London, England: Imperial College Press.
