Presentation and Explanation of the Business Data
Using the technology for the purpose of business will definitely contribute to the productivity and strategic goals of the business. Business organizations can use various tools like Microsoft office to overcome various challenges. The main objective of this report is to focus on the usages of the Microsoft office and how it can be used to increase the productivity of Marks & Spencer (Kolluri, Panik and Singamsetti 2016). This report will also state about the technological advancement that is currently taking place at the company with regard to the software and the hardware. Finally the report will summarise the conclusion based on the report.
Financial position – Normal view
Financial position – Formula view
Looking at the above tables for the profitability of the company for the year 2016, it can be identified that the 17% VAT is applicable on the revenue of the company. Further, the highest amount of profit was earned during the month of April and the amount was £ 258, 960 after charging the VAT and the lowest amount of profit generated from the month of January and the amount was £ 129,480. Further, it is identified that after till the month of April the profit after VAT for the company was in increasing trend and till august it was in decreasing trend. However, the company was able to recover from the position and again increases its profit during November and December. It was found from the revenue report that the out of the total 12 months, for 5 months the company could earned profit more than £ 200,000 and for the rest 7 months the profit after VAT were less than £ 200,000 (Marksandspencer.com 2017).
Microsoft office is the desktop suite for productivity application specially designed for using in the business purposes. It includes Power point, Word, Excel and OneDrive 365TM. The companies like Marks & Spencer face continuous challenges to increase their productivity and develop the competitive advantages (Campbell et al. 2016). New technologies present the opportunities for improving the key business procedures and earn greater amount of revenue. Microsoft developed various advanced innovations that can be used to improve the security, collaboration and communication of the data. Apart from this, the emerging solutions of Microsoft enhance the integration that helps the company to realize higher efficiency levels. Other uses of Microsoft office for increasing the productivity are as follows –
Marks & Spencer can implement the solutions for extensive technologies for restricting the external access to the environment. However, only this will not assist in keeping the internal employees from leaking the information inadvertently. The Microsoft Office 365TM scans the sensitive data of the company that are transmitted and involves the protective measures which can decrease the chances of the sensitive information to fall in the wrong hands. Apart from this, the solutions from Microsoft assist the company to understand the location where the intellectual property and the data reside. Apart from this, the employees can utilise the OneDrive for the purpose of business in conjunction with the Excel for the purpose of business collaboration on the project or document from various geographic locations.
The Benefits of Microsoft Office to Business Productivity
The companies generally face difficulties while managing different employee platforms that are used for various types of communications. Various organizations use the Skype from Microsoft to message instantly, sharing the screen, audio and video conferencing over internet for the purpose of business. However, Skype also provides the traditional form of PSTN (public switched telephone network) calling as the add-on to existing platform which in turn creates the comprehensive suits to encompass all the communication requirement of the organization. Calls over Skype for the purpose of business no longer require the internet connection and for using the conventional phone numbers enhances the call reliability and quality. This platform also involves the routing of calls, for instance, Skype can be used to direct the calls to the cell phones of the employees, if required. Newly introduced OneDrive and SharePoint help in managing the information and Business scan in an organization (Larson and Gray 2013). On the other hand, Azure Management Management Solutions assists the companies tagging the corporate data within OneDrive and SharePoint. Further, the software has the capability to restrict the access to the files to a certain locations and track where and when the document files are opened.
Adopting the emerging technologies of Microsoft like Power Point enhances the efficiencies through improved visibility and integration. For instance, a dynamics power point presentation and Microsoft Outlook deployment significantly enhance the efficiencies and integration. Further, through the power point presentation the user can include the charts, videos, graphs, animations, pictures, shapes and much more to present their power point slides (Chong, Wong and Wang 2014). However, the organizations shall evaluate the technology solutions periodically for determining the location where they can improve the efficiencies and the find the way in which the Microsoft Solutions can help.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology – Recently, the company started the largest in-store trial for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in UK. RFID uses the microchips for transmitting the serial numbers to the reading device wirelessly without the human intervention. This allows the tracking of goods electronically with the supply chain to the sales point from the warehouse. The 4 weeks trial for RFID started by the company in their High Wycombe store will involve 15000 suits for men, ties and shirts with high level of frequency at RFID devices that the retailers call as the intelligent labels. A similar gateway like the device of metal detector is installed at distribution centre and in loading bay of store that allows the hanging garments trolleys and rails to contain the packaged garments to push through and read (Sharda et al. 2017). Through electronic check of the merchandise before its loading in the lorry while it is entered in the shop floor and store, Marks & Spencer gets the accurate picture for the stock levels.
Microsoft Excel
Modernize the diverse applications and provides the Single-point HR solutions – the rich domain expertise in the technology and retail sector, partnered with TCS, Marks & Spencer deploy the host of the new features of HR. They upgraded the Oracle People Soft human Capital Management System and installed the dynamic portal that is known as People Soft Interaction Hub that acted as the gateway for various HR applications (Anderson, Sweeney and Williams 2014). All the HR functionalities were implemented through user-friendly and convenient features of single sign-on. The employees from Marks & Spencer now are able to manage and view the relevant information of HR and the personal data related to HR easily. Through incorporation of the reporting features of Oracle Business Intelligence, the company can publish the reports related to HR data directly on the standardized portal. The company y was also able to remove the cost-prohibitive and complex customization through mapping the business requirements and applying the best practices in the industry. This solution assisted the company’s HR operations to evolve with efficient, faster systems and improvements of the data processing (Andrews, West and Dark 2014). It further improved the experience of the users and enabled decision making at the high level with comprehensive and dynamic intelligence reports of the business.
Digital signage – the installation of digital signage allowed the encompassing of all the outlets throughout the world that features the 4K video walls, HD screens and the interactive displays that face both the staffs and customers. The Instoremedia powered digital signage assist in the interface of digital signage and its features includes the modular CMS with Meta-data rules and playlists based scheduling, remote management of hardware (Vermaat et al. 2016). Further, the scheduling protocol deploys the content to make it exceptionally efficient and manage it easily. High system integration level enables the company to monitor the system from one to another end within the interface of the use using the minimal resources. Further, the system hosted in the customers data centre and as this was a crucial feature, the Instoremedia also has the option of cloud hosting for those who are in need (Parsons et al. 2016).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above analysis that till the month of April the profit after VAT for the company was in increasing trend and till august it was in decreasing trend. However, the company was able to increases its profits again during November and December. Further, it was found that the out of the total 12 months in 2016, the company could earned profit for 5 months amounting to more than £ 200,000 and for the rest 7 months the profit after VAT were less than £ 200,000. Further, the MS Excel, MS Skype and MS Power Point can be used by the company to solve various data related issues and increase the profitability. During the recent period the company implement various technological advancements like Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, Single-point HR solutions and Digital signage to improve the business processes.
Reference list
Anderson, D., Sweeney, D. and Williams, T., 2014. Modern business statistics with Microsoft Excel. Nelson Education.
Andrews, J., West, J. and Dark, J., 2014. myitlab with Pearson eText–Access Card–for Jump Right In: Essential Computer Skills Using Microsoft Office 2013. Prentice Hall Press.
Campbell, J.T., Freund, S.M., Frydenberg, M., Last, M.Z. and Pratt, P.J., 2016. Shelly Cashman Series Discovering Computers & Microsoft Office 365 & Office 2016: A Fundamental Combined Approach, Loose-leaf Version.
Chong, H.Y., Wong, J.S. and Wang, X., 2014. An explanatory case study on cloud computing applications in the built environment. Automation in construction, 44, pp.152-162.
Kolluri, B., Panik, M.J. and Singamsetti, R.N., 2016. Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Business: With Applications Using Microsoft Office Excel.
Larson, E.W. and Gray, C., 2013. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project. McGraw-Hill.
Marksandspencer.com. 2017. Welcome to Marks & Spencer. [online] Available at: https://www.marksandspencer.com/ [Accessed 6 Nov. 2017].
Parsons, J.J., Oja, D., Carey, P. and DesJardins, C., 2016. Bundle: New Perspectives Microsoft Office 365 & Excel 2016 Comprehensive, Loose-leaf Version+ New Perspectives Microsoft Office 365 & Access 2016… Trainings, and Projects with 1 MindTap Re.
Sharda, R., Delen, D., Turban, E. and King, D., 2017. Business intelligence: A managerial approach. Pearson Higher Ed.
Vermaat, M.E., Sebok, S.L., Freund, S.M., Frydenberg, M. and Campbell, J.T., 2016. Bundle: Enhanced Discovering Computers 2017, Loose-leaf Version+ Shelly Cashman Series Microsoft Office 365 & Office 2016 Introductory, Loose-leaf… and Projects with 2 MindTap Reader Prin.