The report aims at analysing how implementation of different technology can help to achieve productivity gains and a better management of the store in Mark and Spencer. Now a day business implement technology for their different operations. Technologies help to solve problems in different business areas. In this report, application of Microsoft office to increases productivity of business is analysed. Microsoft office provides application like word processor, spreadsheets, presentation through graphics and others. All these have different application for business. The financial position of the company is viewed from its revenue trend particularly that is left after paying specific tax. In order to overcome challenges the company employs some advanced technology and use software that make business operation easier. These technological advancements intend to provide a better quality service to the customer and gives Mark & Spencer an additional edge over its competitor.
The table above represent monthly revenues of Mark and Spencer in 2016. Both normal view and formula view are given. The objective is to evaluate the financial position of the company. A rising trend in revenues implies strong financial position while declining revenues mean weak financial position. The value added tax (VAT) of 17% is imposed on the revenue of the company. Therefore, the final status of the revenue depends on the amount left. In April, the company earned maximum revenue with revenue being £312,000. From February to April. After that, revenue starts falling. If the after VAT revenue is greater than £200000, then it is noted as profit and otherwise it is considered as loss. The data shows there are five months in which the company earns a profit while the number of months having loss is seven. The month January is the least profitable month for Mark & Spencer.
Microsoft office is known as a software package compatible with different operating system. It is complete package having application like word processing, graphics presentation, communication of emails, spreadsheets and other that are suitably used in running business office and for personal usage (Copeland et al. 2015). The upgraded versions of Microsoft office come with some added features and makes doing any task easier than before.
Microsoft word provides functionality of word processing. Word provides a menu interface to the users. Any business reports can be made perfectly word features and templates. There are specific templates design in forms of sales letter, invoices, mailing label format and such others (Jansen and Cusumano 2013). Report can be made incorporating graphics, video and sound for preparing multimedia reports.
Microsoft Power Point offers presentation graphics and helps to prepare attractive presentations that include text, sound, graphics and video. The presentations are prepared with slides and presented in slide show with the help of projection screen and computer. Presentations are used by business to present their business plan a more convenient way.
Microsoft excel provides spreadsheet solution in home and business use. The spreadsheets contain rows and columns to input data, formally organize it and make calculation as per requirements. Entering formula in cells calculations can be done easily. Different functions available in excels makes mathematical operation easy. The industrial and business data are usually large and needs to be arranged properly. Excel provide features of linking different spreadsheets having consolidated data categorized according to time, location or function (Selene Xia and Gong 2014). The program featured with default templates of balance sheet, expense report and income statement. Microsoft excel allows the business to handle large amount of industries data quickly and making and making report.
Benefits of Microsoft Office in Business Productivity
The office application allows sharing information between programs. The spread documents prepared in excel can be easily embedded with word documents or can be emailed to others with the use of outlook. There are web services and severs platforms in Microsoft office enabling collaboration between users (Chong, Wong and Wang 2014). By using programming language and applications like Visual basic custom application can be developed.
Mark & Spencer has employed office 365 for enabling customers a better service and make their employees forward thinking. M&S has gone for digital transformation and uses office 2016. Office 365 enable one drive for storing, accessing and sharing information among workers spread globally. The company intends to eliminate geographic and time barriers to yield global productivity. The retail company uses Skype for video conferencing and conduct meeting and business planning online. The use of office 365 is successful in making significant difference in productivity of Mark & Spencer. The employees can make changes to any document with a less time and collaborate making business process more responsive and fast. The ability to process information quickly make the work environment smarter giving benefits to the business (Shaffer et al. 2016). Office 365 enables the company tools that help employees at all the level of hierarchy to success in their work and make them more efficient.
Mark & Spencer facing are facing challenges for handling their self-service data and want their employees to use the data confidently and provide solution to key business requirements. TIBCO Spotfire is installed to find a way out for this problem. The Company needed to make their analysts handling data from data warehouse, spreadsheets and other database without assistance from IT. The company need to understand the present situation and share information to their analysts quickly. Here, data visualization plays an important role as before interpreting the data it is required to have a clear understanding of the data. The Spotfire software enable this facility to the analyst (www.tibco.com 2017). The software enables access to self-service data and better explain the relationship between IT and business. The main goal of Mark & Spencer is to make business data at the central of any decision making. The employees now attain any business with more knowledge about the business and hence take right decision. It provides greater productivity with improved experience of customers. The Spotfire gives customers confidence of spotting the product that customers willing to buy as they come to stores. The installed software improves performance of the suppliers with a greater collaboration and information sharing.
An inventory management system is recently used for forecast and manage demand at the individual stores. The food division of Mark and Spencer will use software designed Quantum Retail Technologies. This division will manage the end-to-end forecasting of inventory and helps to design future business plan accordingly. The new system called Q is planned to be used in place of previously used software called Nest, which is an in house technology, developed in 1998 and used to manage stocks in different stores (www.computerweekly.com 2017). With the new software, the mangers are allowed to modify stocks in line with local customers’ demand need. The software will be used for analysing volume of sales and behaviour of local customers to design sales strategy. The record of last few years indicate that the company should give more focus on increasing profitability from sales rather than expanding sales only. Q magnifies the aspect of profitability and indicates how profit can be increased.
The Digital Signage facility provides all outlets of Mark & Spencer globally with HD screens, interactive displays that face both staff and customers. The technology is featured with a CMS modular, diagnostic modules and management of hardware. The protocol is scheduled to make deployment of content efficient and manageable. The high level of integration enable Mark and Spencer to monitor the entire system using least amount of resources. A customized data centre hosts the system. There is a cloud hosting option as well that users can use as per their requirement. The ‘In store media’ technology does not depend largely on hardware (insm.co.uk 2017). This feature of flexibility gives Mark & Spencer option of choosing hardware separated from software.
Conclusion
One of the top retailers of UK Mark & Spencer business operation is discussed in the report. The financial data reveals data Mark & Spencer earns a lower revenue in most of the months in 2016. To increase profitability the company focuses on the technological advancement. Microsoft office is a software package that helps in business in different ways. Use of Microsoft word, excel, power point are used in business for preparing business report, presentation and other purposes. Mark & Spencer uses office 365 to help their employees in various operation. The paper discussed three technological developments adapted by the company. These include use of TIBSO Spotfire, forecasting management technology and digital signage. The TIBCO Spotfire helps the customer for spot identification of the any desired product. Forecasting management is done using Q technology that replaces earlier technology called Nest. Finally, the digital signage uses a digital platform for promoting products. The stores are equipped with HD screen and interactive displays between customers and staff.
Reference List
Copeland, M., Soh, J., Puca, A., Manning, M. and Gollob, D., 2015. Microsoft azure and cloud computing. In Microsoft Azure (pp. 3-26). Apress.
Jansen, S. and Cusumano, M.A., 2013. Defining software ecosystems: a survey of software platforms and business network governance. Software ecosystems: analyzing and managing business networks in the software industry, 13.
Selene Xia, B. and Gong, P., 2014. Review of business intelligence through data analysis. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 21(2), pp.300-311.
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.
Shaffer, A., Carey, P., Parsons, J.J., Oja, D. and Finnegan, K.T., 2016. Bundle: New Perspectives Microsoft Office 365 & Access 2016: Comprehensive, Loose-leaf Version+ SAM 365 & 2016 Assessments, Trainings, and Projects… MindTap Reader Multi-Term Printed Access Card.
ComputerWeekly.com. (2017). M&S rolls out smart forecasting system. [online] Available at: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280091780/MS-rolls-out-smart-forecasting-system [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
INSM. (2017). Instoremedia supplies Digital Signage to Marks & Spencer globally. [online] Available at: https://insm.co.uk/instoremedia-portfolio/marks-and-spencer-digital-signage/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Tibco.com. (2017). Marks and Spencer | TIBCO Software. [online] Available at: https://www.tibco.com/customers/marks-and-spencer [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
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