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Beginners
How To Guide
The Basics of Information Technology
How will IT affect your Business?
IT can give your company a significant competitive
advantage; the other side of this coin is that if you
fail to embrace technology in your business, your competitors
will get ahead. Moreover an eBusiness approach consolidates
a company's position in the market, opening up new business
opportunities and improving profit margins.
Competitiveness:
- eBusiness
offers a reliable, cost effective and involuntary means of doing business. Routine
tasks can be automated and customers, if they wish, can avail of a 24-hour service.
- More
players will enter the market as technology enables firms to penetrate overseas,
this represents both an opportunity and a threat.
- New
technologies can change the face of your business;
look at the Irish airline industry and consider
how the Internet has changed the entire business
model in this market.
Security:
- Information
Technology can give companies a competitive advantage. However, this can mean
that customers, suppliers, contractors, and business partners are routinely allowed
access to critical business data and to the systems that process and store the
information. Consequently, companies must have a security program.
- The
three fundamentals of a security program are
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Confidentiality -- only authorised parties can
read the details of the transaction
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Integrity -- unauthorised modifications of the
transaction will be detected
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Availability -- systems are reliable and recoverable
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There are many areas that a company may address as part of a security program
and these include:
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Regular Backups and Recovery;
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Anti Virus Protection;
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Disaster Recovery;
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Audit Logs and Monitoring of unusual activity
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Authorised User Access utilising password control.
Cost
Benefits
- Lower
transaction expenses are a reality and labour costs
associated with administration can be slashed.
- Supply
costs can be reduced. The extensive availability
of Internet -based information means that companies
have a wider choice of suppliers and by extension,
there is more competitive pricing.
-
Publication and distribution fees fall. Publishing
a brochure online enables a vast number of people
to access it, while also allowing the company to
update the information on an ongoing basis.
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The role of the Middleman becomes less important
as companies can sell direct to the customer.
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