Introduction
In the contemporary business world, technology is imperative for business operations. With the alarming speed of globalization, a business has to advance its technology for survival in the market. Other than infrastructure, the internet is a key component of technology.
The level of the technology that a company has impacts the profitability and the going concern of the business. In most business, spending on technology (both capital and operating expenses) takes a large proportion of the expenses reported in the statement of income and expenditure.
Therefore, this necessitates a company to do a cost-benefit analysis of such expenses. Conventionally, the benefits should surpass costs. Besides, a company should ensure that it fully utilizes the resources available in order to improve efficiency. Expenses related to the internal and external communication of the organization should be reviewed from time to time in order to establish if benefits outweigh the costs incurred, or if the technology is not obsolete at the end of payback period of such investment.
Management of Dirt Bikes, a company trading in motorcycles of different types, is concerned with the amount of money that has been spent on communication. This paper explores various internet tools that can be utilized by employees of Dirt Bikes to communicate and obtain information efficiently.
The Intranet
The Intranet is a secured internal or private network of an organization that connects all computers to ingress that access the internet. Development of intranet is based on the internet technology such as use of htp protocols.
The intranet is restricted to an organization and its associates (customers, employees, members and suppliers among others), and is protected from unauthorized access with security systems and firewalls. Such security encryption puts a stop to abuses of the system like social networking, inapt use of web, among others. A major benefit that arises from use of the intranet is reduction in costs as a result of paperless environment.
For instance, Dirt Bikes can put out most of the company’s documents such as policies, procedure manuals for the shops, and new rules through the intranet Web pages. This saves the company costs relating to printing, maintaining and circulating such documents. Also, the intranet makes it easy for communication across departments, for instance, manufacturing and production departments can rely on increased level of outputs to sales and marketing department so that they can clear stock items in anticipation of new products.
The Intranet can aid in improving coordination, conveying information relating to maintenance and giving information relating to production schedules by production department. Sales and marketing departments can get reports on sales and market surveys from the intranet.
In human resources department, use of forms is made easy as they can be done paper free and transmitted quickly. Furthermore, information such as payroll documents, expense report requests, vacancies, staff benefits, employees’ handbooks among others can be posted for easy access by all employees (Laudon and Laudon, 2007).
The intranet allows saving much time in Dirt Bikes because manual procedure of processing information is limited. Besides, it enhances collaboration across all departments as it ensures sharing corporate knowledge and support in the entire company.
Finally, there is an overall improvement in productivity and effectiveness through faster, easier, more flexible and offers an open communication through rapid transmission and feedback and one-to-one, many-to-many dialogs. Productivity increase results in better learning and knowledge management facilities the intranet provides (Laudon and Laudon, 2007).
Internet Tools for Dirt Bikes
The Internet comes with numerous tools, applications and utilities which company can utilize in a day-to-day operations for communication, information exchange and interaction. Internet tools enable users who have client software to access storage of information on servers for a range of purposes which are more complex than just utility tasks.
Some of the tools include; Server watch (avail information about the internet servers includes news, downloads, mail among others), FTP RFC, Telnet RFC, FTP planet, FTP Clients, World Wide Web, HTML Station, Usenet, RSS, VoIP, Groupware and VPN among others (Laudon and Laudon, 2007). The table below summarizes the internet tools that can be utilized in various departments of an organization.
Table 1.0 Internet tool by department
From the table presented above, we can deduce that the entire company will benefit from VoIP and Groupware. First, everybody uses e-mail. Besides, there can be savings in time and money when using electronic conferencing across departments.
Sales teams can stay in touch with each other easily and cheaply using the instant messaging or chats. Also, production department will benefit from the wiki as designers or service department could collaborate by sharing new maintenance directives. Therefore, VoIP and Groupware make it easy and cost effective to communicate in and out of the business.
The business can also consider using LISTSERV application which is mailing list management software. It allows users to create and maintain e-mail on their intranet or internet, including newsletter, discussion groups and direct marketing campaigns. This tool can be very important for marketing as the employees would have an easy access to the contacts of the customers (Laudon and Laudon, 2007).
Wireless Network
Wireless network allows for access to the internet without using net cable. Since security is a threat to this type of connection, passwords and firewalls are normally used. This connection is convenient as an employee do not need a cable connection.
In the modern world, “there are numerous portable and pocketable devises used for voice and data processing or data transfer via wireless transmission media can connect to each other and communicate directly without the need for a cable” (Sikora, 2002). The wireless network is important in this aspect as it connects all these devices. Further, it leads to reduction in cost of cabling and efficient utilization of the office space (Sikora, 2002)
Conclusion
Technology is paramount in the current global business world. The Internet is a major platform for conducting businesses. Businesses are compelled to adjust their operations to match with the changing technologies due to fear they face. Generally, use of the internet and intranet is beneficial to business as it leads to reduction in cost of operation that arises from manual operation. Besides, it leads to time saving.
The end results are improved efficiency and productivity of the employees of an organization. An organization should look for best internet tool which would best suite its organization. Dirt Bikes should consider using VoIP and Groupware as they would lead to a reduction in cost of communication both internal and external. In future, businesses will be bound to use wireless network which is convenient and uses office space economically.
References
Laudon, K. C. and Laudon, J. P. (2007). Using internet tools to increase efficiency and productivity. Essentials of Management Information System, (8), 300-410.
Sikora A. (2002). Definition and restrictions. Wireless Personal and Local Area Networks, 2-3.