Role of Technology Paper

Role of Technology Paper

University of Phoenix

Jose A. Garcia Jr.

BIS/318

03/26/2012

Role of Technology Paper.

Technology? How would one define technology? Accourding to Dictionary.com Technology is a noun which is "the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interration with life, society, and the enviroment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science." I personally would define it as evolution, such as Dictionary.com does when it defines it as "any process of formation or growth; development". What I mean by this is that as technology advances, society as a whole does as well. With its subnets, society will evolve such as its economy, which in the business world, retailers are required to utilize technology in a retail environment to be successful. Technology used in retail impacts the business and its customers as a whole. In this paper I will address the most critical technologies in retail today.

First we will understand how technology is utilized in the retail environment. But before we understand how technology is utilized, we have to take a brief look into the past and see how retailers did without the utilization to technology. An example of this is how in the past businesses would have to utilize a lot of manpower as well as resources just to keep its books up to date. For example if a retailer would sell something, they would have to track what items were sold, how much they were sold for, keep inventory of the product sold, and have information of the product on hand to forecast the probability of the item being sold again to increase profits, etc. Now organization much like retailers use technology such as Point of sale systems, that use both SKU and bar code technology to properly keep track of all its data, which turns it into information and combined gives the retailers management knowledge on how to better manage and run their business to have the competitive advantage over the rest of the competition.

This knowledge is achieved by the invention of customer relationship management systems, which allowed retailers to overcome market pressures, have global economic and strong competitive advantages. This technology has changed the nature of the workforce, allowing for organizations to manage its resources appropriately and accurately. With that being said, technology pressures were established primarily by the market and consumer demands and expectation demands in the evolution of the retail industry. With technological innovation, obsolescence,