IT in Business

It just so happen that businesses perceive IT as a main instrument in organizing their resources so that efficiently doing theirs activities. As businesses becoming competitively among each others due to the availability in deriving needed resources, they started equipping with the best IT solution without take into consideration the cost that going to bear.

IT may expedite the way businesses doing thing. As before this, a company is doing thing manually in processing the orders and has to wait for the dispatching order to be received by the production department concern. Now, using the IT solution, company can conduct theirs operation through an online basis without the need of hiring a person in charge for the order and furthermore can connecting people throughout the world without to bear a higher cost. A company can also derived immediately all the necessary report which expedite the decision making process such as accounting report, production report, sales report, human resource report etc.

IT also may reduce the use of human resources in handling the task concern. What is usually done by more than 4 staffs is needed only 1 staff now, if using the IT technology. For example in receiving the orders of customers, at least 2 staff in charge in handling the orders, documenting it and also reporting to the person concern. By using the IT as a way in managing the tasks, the orders may be directed automatically to the production dept. without needed a department that received the order to handling it. The same goes in preparing the accounting report. Even though the purchasing and sales activities would not involved the accounting people directly but still because the transaction is recorded by the department concern, they can recognize what activities that happening and can monitor the report that being input without having to have a people checking and going to the department concern.

Even though the gains is clear when businesses using IT as a main instrument to running the activities, but it seem that much of companies that apply this so called IT system is not able to capture the initial expectation. Some companies even had to bear a burden in paying their liability that they used when installing the IT system. The reason why this thing happening is that;
a) High Research & Development cost; this mean that businesses has to spend a huge amount of investment for the system that not necessarily can perform with the needed expectation. If let say the company outsourcing the implementation of their IT system, it is not necessarily can become successful as they may not or able to cope the company vision and mission and furthermore, the paid is quit high. If let say the company developed internally, it may not able to meet the expectation of the management as the person in charge with this IT implementation may be inexperience and not well verse with the technology itself. Even though internally is cheaper but if let say the problem arise, the cost can be higher that using the outsourcing.
b) Timing of implementation; usually during the R & D period, the system will undergo several testing to check the compatibility and effectiveness of the system. For that, a lot of time losses in given a way the system to functioning. Loss of time is in term of staff normal working time which they have to be idle for a while every time the testing is running. When testing period is conducting, I create such behavior that staffs existence is no longer needed. The level of motivation would certainly drop and surely affecting the business activities as a whole.

As a conclusion, for the IT development in business, in my opinion, human resource is the main factor for the successfulness of the businesses. We should treat them as an asset rather than liabilities or burden that the company has to bear. Staff training and motivation should be emphasized and at the same time planting in their mind the company reason for the existence which also the outcome that the staff could derived. Regardless the businesses using the IT system or not, if there is a full support by the staff, the success of the company can surely be gained.