Operations department is the part that is responsible for the core of the business. It is the things that the company does to make its money. E.g. selling a product made by someone else or manufacturing a product to sell.
Types of ICT used and their purposes
The hardware in the sales department consists of a graphics tablet to draw or customize leaflets any body uses this, also a colour ink jet printer prints the adverts out and checks them to make sure that they are okay to be published. When they are published they are sent all over the Internet. Any person in the sales department can use those hardware devices. The software in the sales department consists of Microsoft word this is used for typing up notes or letters, leaflets and flyers. Most adverts are created in a graphics package or Photoshop. Their website was designed by using dream weaver. Most people in the sales department use all of their software.
The hardware in the finance department includes non-ultra power computer, as they are not required. High quality laser printer because anything they send to customers must look good. The software the finance department uses includes sage instant accounts to keep trick of all their finances, their customers, their bank accounts and money coming into and out of the company.
The hardware in the purchasing department includes each member having a computer linked up to the Internet so they can order things. The software in the purchasing department includes a web browser.
The hardware in the operations department consists of very powerful computers with good-sized monitors so they can produce good graphics and see the whole program as it develops. They also use graphics to draw things, video camera’s to record the video footage, microphones and sound cards to record sound for the material. The software in the operations department consists of Author ware (materials are written in it) Macromedia, visual base to write some of the back end software that looks after the database tracking on the materials, graphics packages such as Photoshop are used to prepare the graphics for the materials, sound ford which is a recording program from sonic foundry to record all the voices.
This is all the ICT used in all four departments.
How do these ICT systems help people to do their job more efficiently?
In the sales department ICT helps the workers access the internet to get on their website, they then find out more about the product or products and then they sell their products to the customer. ICT also helps them to create leaflets. If they dint have ICT writing letters would be very difficult as would addressing them to the 3,5000 schools in the U.K. to use the system they need to be trained as it is a very complex system. That is the only downfall of using ICT in the sales department.
ICT makes life a lot easier for the Varndean E- Learning Company as it is used in all departments. Using ICT in small companies gives more flexibility and freedom.
How does ICT help individuals
to communicate more effectively?
ICT helps all individuals to communicate each other more efficiently mainly in the use of the internet and e-mail.
The e-mail is a system that helps friends and family talk a lot quicker, free and also more personnel.
In the four departments the workers need to communicate fast and they need a fast response time and e-mail provides this.
With the use of ICT, communicating between computers can be done making the process quicker and saving money. Adverts, leaflets etc can be processed and then sent to another computer via e-mail to be printed out which leaves the first computer free for more work to be made and printed. In the Purchasing department there are no internal communications made, but externally websites are used to sell and buy products.
Conclusion
The overall use of the Varndean system is extremely good. There is some parts that could be improved such as the video interview, this could be put in note form next to it as it was very hard to make out what he was saying.
Work can be produced quicker and to more substantial standard.
