Telecommunications Technology Can Provide A Firm With A Competitive Advantage. Essay, Research Paper

Describe in detail the ways that telecommunications technology can provide a firm with a competitive advantage.

A competitive advantage can be achieved by enhancing the firm?s ability to deal with customers, suppliers, substitute products and services, and new entrance into its market. A firm may find it difficult to keep informed of all changes taking place within its industry, but with the proper telecommunications system a firm could easily gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. Telecommunications can be defined as a communication of information by electronic means usually over some distance and much of today?s telecommunications are in the forms of digital data that is transmitted from the location to another using computers.

In today?s society, businesses are using several forms of telecommunications such as: the information superhighway, wireless technologies (ie. cellular telephones), local and wide area networks, and more familiar forms of communications such as the faxes, voicemail and teleconferencing. These developments in the world of telecommunications are changing the way in which we work and live.

Telecommunications can provide firm competitive advantage in many different ways. The first and probably most obvious way that telecommunications provide the competitive advantage is through the amount of time saved by an organization. Telecommunications can enable a firm to transmit raw data and information quickly and accurately between remote sites. As a consequence any number of business procedures that would otherwise rely on other media such as mail with telephone may be rethought an accelerated. Or filling for example can be done rapidly if the order is transmitted from a laptop infield directly to warehouse. By reducing information flow weekend raise the quality of decision-making. For example as point-of-sale data become available to retailers executives in the form of analytic reports merchandising functions is vastly improved. The national newspaper USA is at it and composed at headquarters of its publisher Gannett Corp. in Arlington VA and transmitted over the satellite network to 36 printing plants in United States Europe and Asia. It reaches 6 million readers each weekday in a timely fashion and offers high-quality color reproduction. Since its 1982 launch the paper missed only one publication date because of the telecommunications failure due to a lightning hit.

Service excellence has been recognized as the prime source of competitive managed by tracking deliveries and selling information as part of the service Federal Express and its follower in that regard United Parcel Service race the quality of their service and use information systems strategically.

Overcoming geographical disbursement.

Telecommunications enable an organization to geographically remote sites to function to a degree as though the sites for a single unit. The farm can break benefits of scale and scope which would otherwise be unobtainable. For example Chrysler has an inventory management system that allows it to efficiently share parts located in a number of dispersed warehouses with huge cost savings. Back office functions they also be performed in locales where an inexpensive labor force is available.

Consistent management is possible throughout dispersed perhaps globally disbursed corporate subunits. The ability to exercise defective centralized control enables corporations two decentralized decision-making to local managers.

Beginning close to the customers is time hollowed business wisdom. But in eight telecommunications close this does not require the physical presence of a large corporate entity: it may need nearly a quick established field office with a skeleton staff support with telecommunications links to other parts of firm. Marrow Corp. a financial printer maintains only sales offices in the field closed with clients with its production facility located at headquarters in St. Paul MN, where an inexpensive and well-trained labor pool is on hand. This is getting the firm in decisive competitive advantage over competitors were saddled with high cost of multiple production facilities maintained at sales offices across the country. Is the globalization of business progresses QuickDraw forms of electronic presence designed to penetrate new markets may be expected to proliferate.

Restructured business relationships

Telecommunications made possible to create systems which restructured interactions of people within a firm as well as a firm?s relationship with its customers. Operational efficiency may be raised by eliminating intermediaries from various business processes. Such intermediaries include people and the paperwork now been replaced by EDI middle managers whose primary role is providing information and brokerage services are no longer needed since the firm to replace them with its own telecommunication based sales and service network.

And experts knowledge may be distributed by providing access to him or to Harvey teleconferencing facilities : eclectic knowledge may be created by setting up teleconference on an