Discussion
You are required to provide any two suitable business process or solution that could be employed to enhance this model. Substantiate this process or solution with relevant references to literature.
Information technology or IT is the use of several computers or systems to subsequently store, retrieve, transmit or manipulate data or information in the significant context of a business or enterprise (Dahlstrom, Walker & Dziuban, 2013). This information technology can be termed as a subset of information and communication technology or ICT. All of those devices, which are properly utilized for the purpose of all type of operations of information, are collectively known as devices of information technology. Each and every such information technology device could be significantly used by the organizations to properly execute or complete any data operation or business process. The entire management of any type of data or information within any organization is easily done only if that organization has implemented information technology (Galegher, Kraut & Egido, 2014). Proper management of information technology is the particular discipline or rule by which all the resources of IT within an organization is controlled or managed according to priorities or requirements.
This following report is outlining the popular World University case study. The management of the university has subsequently undertaken four important decisions within their business. All of these four decisions are associated with information technology. This business report has highlighted the entire case study with relevant details. Two business processes are recommended to the organization and even the role of social media is provided for enhancing the business model.
Case Study
World University is a university that is providing various online courses to their student (Bardhan & Thouin, 2013). It is the collection of few popular universities worldwide and the lecturers are from those popular universities. The students can take their classes from any corner of the world and thus would have the ability to select their own choice of university. The interactions would be done online.
Various Decisions Taken Senior Management
The senior management of World University has undertaken four distinct decisions for their business. The very first decision is the incorporation of customer loyalty scheme, called Study Together for the students who will be referring another student to the university (Kellermann & Jones, 2013). It would be a fixed credit fee and would be given either by credit card or PayPal. Hence, the students would be happier with the entire process. Moreover, the applications would be extremely faster than in any other university.
Case Study
The next decision taken by World University is to provide laptops to each and every student. The students need not buy E-books or laptops separately. The university will be providing a pre configured laptop with all of their required software within it (Holtshouse, 2013). The cost will be incurred within the course fees and thus students cannot avoid this facility. This would be helpful for them and their education.
Two Business Process for Enhancement of Business Model
The two business processes for the enhancement of business model are given below:
Compliance: The most significant business process which must be incorporated in the business model of this World University is the incorporation of compliance. Compliance solely refers to all types of legal checking or safety audit. Compliance is the type of certification or confirmation, which an organization uses for the purpose of fulfilling each and every requirement of their specified standards, rules, legislations and regulations (Lloyd, 2017). All of these standards or laws are mandatory and hence must be strictly followed by the organizational employees or students. World University should incorporate the compliance business process for the purpose of enhancing their business model and thus reducing the chances of illegal activities or illegal actions in their business. The most important advantage is that the students would be feeling safe and secured with this.
Risks Management: The next significant business process to enhance the business model of this particular World University is the proper incorporation of the process of risk management (Schwalbe, 2015). This process is defined as a process to identify, calculate and lastly prioritize several significant risks that is being followed by the proper resource application to simply minimize as well as control any type of unfortunate event. This would eventually maximize all the situational opportunities. The major goal of the process of risk management is to assure the fact that uncertainty is not at all deflecting on the organizational objectives and goals (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). Since, this typical organization of World University is one of the newest universities; risk management process is vital for them. There are various advantages of risk management process.
These above-mentioned two significant business processes would be vital for the World University to successfully enhance their basic business model. The proper incorporation of all these business processes will be helping World University in achieving their business goals and objectives.
Social media is the particular computer oriented technology that is responsible for facilitating sharing and even creation of any data or information, interests of careers, similar ideologies, several expression forms and many more within the virtualized communication or virtualized networks (Schnoll, 2015). Providing modes for communications are the most significant feature of this social media platform. All the users are benefitted for this technology.
Various Decisions Taken Senior Management
World University is a group of various private universities that are located worldwide. This particular university is the online university providing online courses to all of its students (Wagner, Beimborn & Weitzel, 2014). The classes are taken by the respective lectures from any part of the world. There is no restriction for places in the organization. Since, this typical organization of World University is one of the newest universities; marketing should be kept on first priority for them. Social media is responsible for providing maximum utility to the marketing of any organization. Thus, the platform of social media should be undertaken by the World University for the sole purpose of advertising or marketing their university worldwide to the all the available students. The business model of World University is properly promoted with the help of social media platform (Sun & Jeyaraj, 2013). There are various important roles of social media in any business. These roles of social media are given below:
Interaction with the Target Audience: The most significant advantage of the social media is that it helps in the perfect interaction of the target audiences or target market (Luftman et al., 2013). The target audiences in this particular case are the various students worldwide, who are willing to take admissions in the World University. Each and every student of this university will be having a specific ability for easily commenting as well as providing important feedbacks to the services of the university within their official and registered social media page. After getting the various responses or feedbacks from the students, this university can change their business processes and thus can bring more popularity for the students (Jones et al., 2014). Apart from this, due to the constant interactions, the university will also be able to solve all the problems or issues for the students. Thus, the needs of the students are eventually addressed,
Improvement in Responsiveness: The next significant advantage of the social media is that it helps to improve the responsiveness of the organization. The platform of social media is solely used to make the significant procedure of providing or receiving various feedbacks (Bloom et al., 2014). These feedbacks are extremely less than all the other feedbacks. When any student is suffering through any kind of issue or problem about the various services of World University, he or she share this problem on the platform of social media with the hope of getting justice. The university does not have to search the details of the student; social media will be doing that properly.
Two Business Process for Enhancement of Business Model
Position of Market and Competition: Any business becomes successful only when they are aware of the competition of their markets and know the position of the market. Social media is responsible for demonstrating a proper position or structure of the business within the market and also the fact that how well all the competitors of this organization are performing in the market (Bilbao-Osorio, Dutta & Lanvin, 2013). Since, this typical organization of World University is one of the newest universities; it comprises of several important competitors within the market. This particular organization should have the significant ideology about all the businesses.
Efficient and Effective Marketing: The fourth advantage or role of social media within the organization of World University is the efficient as well as effective marketing (Galegher, Kraut & Egido, 2014). This type of platform helps to generate the interests within all the followers of the page. These followers had been extremely responsive towards this organization and are not only a blatant marketing approach. Moreover, the inherent creativity of the platform of social media is utilized for helping the organization in properly advertising all the services and hence notifying the students in the entire world. All of these advertisements or marketing are extremely mandatory for any business or organization and especially for the World University (Han & Mithas, 2013). They would be gaining maximum students from this social media platform. Moreover, awareness is eventually spread by the presence of social media and hence the university will be ethically absolutely correct and also will be reminded on the various services they are offering to all the students.
Searching for Students: The next significant role of social media for the organization of World University is the searching for various students (Mishra, Akman & Mishra, 2014). Social media is responsible for searching out all of their students effective immediately and efficiently. Social media has the core capability of locating any student, no matter where he or she is residing.
Easy Affordability: Another significant advantage of the social media is that it is extremely cost effective and thus could be easily afforded by all organizations irrespective of its size (Sun & Jeyaraj, 2013). Since, this typical organization of World University is one of the newest universities; the budget is not as high as other organizations. Marketing campaigns often take up huge money and with the presence of social media; this cost is reduced to a greater extent.
Role of Social Media for Promotion of Business Model
Maintaining Databases: The maintenance or management of database is much easier with the help of social media (Holtshouse, 2013). These platforms comprise of in built databases and thus storing of all types of information is much easier than the rest of the platforms.
All the above mentioned features clearly define the role of social media for the promoting the model of World University.
World University is one of the most popular universities that are providing online courses to the students. Although, they would be widely accepted by all the students, there are some of the major changes that are required in their business processes. The first and the foremost recommendation for this particular university is to incorporate the process of risk management within their business. With the presence of risk management process, they would be able to solve or mitigate all the risks within their business easily and promptly. Moreover, they will be able to find out the risk probability within their business. This would be extremely important for them. The next recommendation is to include various laws and regulations within their business. This incorporation of laws and regulations will be extremely important for them as it will be responsible for reducing the various illegal activities within their business. Furthermore, the students will be feeling extremely safe and secured with the incorporation of compliance. The third recommendation to the World University is to implement the information systems within their business. Various significant data and information will be stored within the system. Since, they are a university, they need to store bulk amount of data within their database. Thus, information system would be extremely important for them. These above mentioned recommendations will be extremely vital for them to make their business processes for active and gain more popularity than all the rest of the universities.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it is concluded that the information technology or IT can be defined as the significant utilization of several systems, computers, processes, physical devices, networking devices and infrastructure to properly create, process, store, secure and finally exchange data or information in all forms. The utilization of information technology is not restricted to various operations of information in a business and rather for personal as well as entertainment purposes. The use of information technology commercially is responsible for encompassing both the technology and the telephony. Information technology is implemented in every organization in today’s world with the sole purpose of maximizing the profit and also gaining competitive advantages within the business. There are several layers for physical equipments of information technology. Moreover, the hardware, software, virtualization techniques, operating systems, automation tools and applications are also parts of this information technology. All the business applications of any business majorly includes various databases such as SQL Server, web server like Apache, ERP or enterprise resource planning systems, customer relationship management or CRM systems, real time order entry transactional systems and Exchange email server. These business applications are responsible for executing several programmed instructions to do any type of data operation. This business report has subsequently explained the World University case study and has also provided the role of social media in the promotion of the business model
References
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