Technology Can Help an Organisatio

The value chain analysis will help in order to perform two main activities such as primary & support activities.

The primary activities in the value chain analysis takes into consideration inbound and outbound logistics, marketing and sales & after sales service.Whereas the support activities takes into consideration, procurement of raw materials, use of up to date technology, infrastructure of the firm & managing the resources. Both the activities in the value chain analysis are interlinked to one another. It shall be taken into consideration that, technology has been referred to as one of the most important aspect within the value chain analysis. With the procurement of technology in the organization has provided competitive edge to the enterprise (Use of technology, 2012).

Technology shall take into consideration, research & development as well as various other technologies which would help to support the value chain activities. Hence, it can be concluded that various business houses make use of technology so as to provide an effective as well as efficient customer service. Technology by many organizations has been referred to as a backbone of the organization operating in the modern business environment. Each & every organization is using technology in some or the other form so as to increase the efficiency of the enterprise.

In today’s global as well as ever changing business environment, investing in technology would be referred to as one of the most important aspect to provide competitive advantage to either small scale or medium sized companies. Companies who have not yet adopted the technologies are facing many hurdles to remain competitive amongst their industry (Use of technology, 2012). Technology is a powerful tool which will help to offer wealth if used strategically. When technology is implemented in a strategic will act as a most powerful tool for the organizations to attain competitive advantage.

At one point of time, technology was regarded as a novelty to the workplace, but now in the competitive business environment technology has increased at a higher pace and has become necessity for life. Technology integration has been referred to as one of the key elements to be competitive in the modern business environment (Use of technology, 2012). Organizations who want to sustain within the highly competitive environment tend to take up various form of technologies so as to gain advantage & be up to date in the ever changing environment.It can be said that, by using the Porter’s value chain analysis technology has been regarded as one of the key components for any organization to act competitive. By focusing upon the Porter’s value chain analysis, there are three strategies which can be used to act strategically & be a step ahead of its competitors. They are differentiation, cost leadership & focus by using various types of technology.

The use of technology has helped many organizations to attain competitive advantage as compared to its competitors.The use of technology has helped many big retail chains such as Wal mart & Carrefour to reduce the cost of the products and assist in differentiation and focus strategies. For example, Wal-mart has been using an overall cost leadership strategies which has helped it to become one of the largest retail chains all across the globe. The use of technology in form of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has helped to reduce the cost of distribution drastically.One of the examples which can be discussed in this regards is that, for a subscription fee of approximately $30 a persona can download the software and get the updates for the duration of one year (Porter, 1996). Without the help of technology this cannot be made possible whereas the internet vendors will not be in a position to provide particular software at such a reasonable & cheap rate.

Many organizations these days are using various systems such as customer relation management, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management so as to provide its customers with the best customer service.The retail organizations such as Wal-mart, retail stores, Carrefour, etc has adopted two main systems such as supply chain management (SCM) & customer relationship management (CRM) which would help to create an effective as well as efficient service experience to its customers. The main goal of enterprise systems is to create a link between the suppliers & the customers (Porter, 1996). A successful customer relations management system will be beneficial to create strong bond between the supplier & retailer which will last for longer period of time.With the use of technology many enterprises are able to differentiate its products as compared to the competitor. For example, Apple has designed its computers to look in a different manner as compared to the traditional computers.

The main focus of Apple while designing the products is to provide ease to its customers in the best possible manner. Another example which has helped the organization to act in a different manner is Amazon. com. the official website of Amazon. com is different as compared to its competitors.The website provides various new technological advancements such as recommendations to the customers based upon their previous purchases, etc.

Amazon. com also uses one click system i. e. the customer is required to provide the details such as address or the credit card number once.

In the subsequent purchases, the customer will not be required to add the various details & checkout fastly (Porter, 1996). The uses of technology in big as well as small organizations have helped to increase the competitive advantage which means various alternatives available to act faster as compared to its competitors.When competition is fierce the use of technology will help to increase the competitive advantage by enhancing the levels of revenues. There are mainly three reasons as to how technology provides competitive advantage to the enterprise have been discussed in this section of the essay.

Firstly, technology helps the enterprise to attain high amounts of web presence which will help the organization in the long run. For example, in case of food industry if the food joint or the restaurant has a website then it will be able to mark its presence online as well. This will help the food joint to book more orders & increase the levels of sales.It shall be kept in mind that by the food joint that, a click – mortar information technology approach shall be adopted (Greenan, 2005).

This will help the restaurant to have competitive advantage as compared to the other food joints available over the web. Secondly, technology helps to increase the levels of productivity at a reduced operating cost. As mentioned above the example of a food joint, there is more than one employee working in the restaurant. In order to book the orders with a faster pace, the restaurant shall try & link the computers with one another. This will help the processing of the orders at a much faster rate.Another example to understand how information technology helps to increase the productivity at a reduced cost can be seen in case of the customer feedback department at a BPO.

In a BPO, there more than one employee who needs to share files, applications, documents as well as internet connection with the help of a single network. There are multiple work stations available in a BPO, inter linking all the work stations together will help in order to increase the productivity at a reduced cost. When a person buys a product online and is not satisfied with product, the customer will call to discuss its issue regarding the same.Since all the computers are linked together, the call will automatically be diverted to the customer feedback department (Greenan, 2005). This will help to save time as well as resources. With the help of technology, the customer’s issue will be resolved within a stipulated time period.

This will enhance the competitive advantage of the organization thereby providing the customer with the best of the feedback. The use of automatic software within the enterprise will act as an added for the organization. For example, in an office of Chartered Accountant (CA) initially all the transactions were done in MS Excel.A clerk was hired to plug in the transaction in MS Excel & take out the financial statements (Use of technology, 2012).

Whereas now, with the availability of enormous automatic software available in the market the scenario has changed completely. Now-a-days, CA’s use various types of automatic software's to make the spreadsheets ; keep a note of the financial statements. The uses of new technology by the organizations today are not prone to high amount of risks. It takes minutes to make spreadsheet which initially used to take hours ; allows the management to increase its level of business.Such type of changes within the working of any organization could not be possible without the application of technology. The use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can be highly beneficial in case of organization taking into consideration the logistics.

For example, in case of big retail chains such as Wal-mart or carrefour availability of the goods is required so as to meet the needs of the customers. With the help of technology, the owner of the retail chain will be able to know whether a particular product is available or not (Use of technology, 2012).The use of enterprise resource planning will act as highly beneficial for the organization as a whole. This will help to provide smooth functioning of the enterprise which wold help to rise above its competitors. Thirdly, implementation of technology will help in the enhancement of the existing operations. Technology can be used to enhance the current business operations by streamlining the process using various automatic technologies.

Use of technology within an organization will help to eliminate some man hours and increase the productivity of the enterprise as a whole.Reduction in the man hours is directly proportional to the efficinacy as well as the speed of the person (Greenan, 2005). With the implementation of technology a person will be able to perform the various important tasks with a click of a button. Lastly, technology will help to attain competitive within the value chain analysis by securing the privacy of the customers along with the employees. The network security shall be taken into consideration by the enterprise as if someone hacks the server, all the details of the customer credit card will be stolen which will lead to a decrease in the reputation of the organization.

The use of technology in this regards will be achieved behind the scenes under the name of customer and employees loyalty. The main focus of technology is to increase the competitive advantage so as to sustain in the ever changing environment (Porter, 1996). Hence, it can be concluded that various business houses make use of technology so as to provide an effective as well as efficient customer service. In today’s global as well as ever changing business environment, investing in technology would be referred to as one of the most important aspect to provide competitive advantage to either small scale or medium sized companies (Goessl, 2010).Technologies by many organizations have been referred to as a backbone of the organization operating in the modern business environment. Each ; every organization is using technology in some or the other form so as to increase the efficiency of the enterprise.

Companies who have not yet adopted the technologies are facing many hurdles to remain competitive amongst their industry. Technology is a powerful tool which will help to offer wealth if used strategically. When technology is implemented in a strategic will act as a most powerful tool for the organizations to attain competitive advantage (Goessl, 2009).