Information and Communication Technology in Business Operations

Question: Discuss about the Use of Information and Communication Technology in Business Operations. Answer: Introduction Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become useful within the organizations of business all over the world. With the advancement of technology and more solutions for communication, different companies are discovering that their levels of production have increased. The efficiency of business is being benefited and the satisfaction of the customers have improved rapidly (Vaishnavi Kuechler, 2015). Overview of Courier Services The system of couriers could be distinguished from ordinary mail services. The courier services can provide many additional services such as security, speed, signature, specialization, tracking and many others. Courier services are usually expensive than normal mail services. Their use is generally limited to packages. The trend of courier services have been introduced to override the existing problems of the manual system of delivering packages, letters and many other items (Ducret Delaitre, 2013). Information and Communication Technology in Business Operations ICT refers to all kinds of technology that are used to handle broadcast media, telecommunications, audiovisual processing, smart building management systems and functions of monitoring. Recently, ICT has been used to describe the combination of several kinds of technologies. It also implies the use of common lines of transmission. The Growing Impact of ICT on the Courier Services The growth in the emerging technologies in ICT networks, has massively changed the effectiveness and the role of the postal sector. As compared to the manual system of delivering letters and packages, the trend of courier services has increased the effectiveness of the business operations in the courier sector. The most important innovations in the field of technology that have impacted the postal sector are robotics, drones, big data, the Internet of Things and many others. The ever increasing struggle and the rapid demand from customers have been a major forcing factor for the parcel and the postal operators to use advanced technologies for several purposes of delivery. The use of ICT in courier services should ensure the improvement in the efficiency of operations so as to provide newer and efficient services (Visser, Nemoto Browne, 2014). The centralism of parcel operations and automated sorting of packages are the foremost developments in the sector. In the business operations of parcels, the system of delivery have been improved with new technologies such as PDAs. They are used for the purpose of scanning of signatures, which have also been added for the security of the customers. Use of E-Commerce for Services in Courier ICT has changed the change in the services of the courier industry. The home delivery of packages and letters have been the most preferable option for the delivery companies. The demand for postal services have shown a major rise in the recent time. Thus several companies in the parcel industry are moving towards better systems of online payment in order to reduce the costs of burden (Chiu et al., 2014). Conclusion The above discussion comes with a conclusion that the impact of ICT on the consumers of courier services have been massive. Information and Communication Technology has empowered consumers. This has transformed the market of courier services. ICT has acted as a better driving force for the betterment of the consumers. In the future, technology would become much more important for the courier services, which would provide positive benefits for the consumers. References Chiu, C. M., Wang, E. T., Fang, Y. H., Huang, H. Y. (2014). Understanding customers' repeat purchase intentions in B2C e?commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic value and perceived risk.Information Systems Journal,24(1), 85-114. Ducret, R., Delatre, L. (2013). Parcel delivery and urban logistics-changes in urban courier, express and parcel services: the French case. In13th World Conference on Transport Research, July 15-18, 2013-Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Vaishnavi, V. K., Kuechler, W. (2015).Design science research methods and patterns: innovating information and communication technology. Crc Press. Visser, J., Nemoto, T., Browne, M. (2014). Home delivery and the impacts on urban freight transport: A review.Procedia-social and behavioral sciences,125, 15-27.