The Computer Revolution/Effect on society/Business

Business

[[1]] Corporate

Advances

The Computer Revolution as a Business Tool Computers are an indispensable tool for doing business. This is the plain truth that all businesses large or small must understand.

When I was a kid, on allowance day, I'd cycle over to Mr. Lee's candy store and buy 25 cents of mixed candy. Mr. Lee knowing how much I preferred the sugar coated strawberries to those mini-tootsie rolls would fill the order (a little brown bag) top heavy with those delicious strawberries, a smattering of other sweets, and at the most one or two tootsie rolls. Unlike the competition up the street at the Blue Jeans candy store where no matter how you protested the order was always filled with goodies in equal amounts, Mr. Lee understood the business principle of customization. In fact, I'm sure that if Mr. Lee were doing business today, he would be keeping track of his customers buying habits with a computer like so many successful businesses are doing.

Consider this: When you shop at retailers like Superstore, Home Depot, Staples and so on, virtually all of the products on the shelf are there in an attempt to fit the shopper’s tastes. How do these retailers know the shopping habits of thousands people? Simple, they are tracking and recording purchases at the check out counter with a computer. More sophisticated software programs will record demographics like age, address, sex, occupation, and how much money you spend.

But computers don't just help record customer purchases. They are critical in managing inventories of literally thousands of products. This aids retailers in deciding how much and when to replenish there stocks; what is selling like hotcakes and what isn’t moving.

Perhaps most important of all, computers can track the flow of money. Accounting applications like Excel and Quicken allow retailers to keep record of debits and credits, profits and losses, charitable donations, and theft. They are useful for keeping the all important tax records too. Computers streamline business and keep costs down while enabling faster and more efficient service.

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Drawbacks

It is easy to get carried away with the advances taking place in the world of business and technology, but for every leap forward there is an inevitable downside. Perhaps the upside to the increasingly global and technological nature of business far outweighs the negatives, however they should be considered none the less. Stop talking about candy!

Future

The Changing Workplace--

The changes in the office setting will be similar to those in the home. Computers will control more things and have more power. Businesses will utilize this to be more productive. Computers will take over more jobs. The biggest change will be in where people work. Actually traveling to a physical office will be unneeded. Faster networks will allow high quality instantaneous video. People will work from the home and be able to accomplish everything they did before. There will still be a need to travel to work for face to face meetings, but this will be a rarity. Personally meeting with people will still be necessary to understand and connect with other people. Technology will play a greater role in the office as it becomes more powerful. Humans will still do the creative thinking, but will play a smaller role in manual labor tasks.

Computers in Factories--

Computers will play a larger role in factories of the future. Increasing computing power will allow for greater automation. This will reduce the number of jobs available, but people will always be needed. The amount of tasks done by computer will continue to increase.