Impact of Digital Technologies and Global Markets on Productivity, Outsourcing and Access to Knowledge or Resources

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Syllabus

Impact of digital technologies and global markets on;             12 ATAR

  • productivity
  • access to knowledge or resources
  • outsourcing

 Background

Digital technologies have changed the way many businesses operate. The information age and the speed of networked communications means that information spreads very quickly. Excellent business ideas move quickly. But, does this increase productivity? What are the impacts of this?

Impacts of Digital Technologies and Global Markets on Productivity

  • Global markets provides more opportunities for consumers.
  • Apple’s global productivity has picked up as  result of digital technologies. Sales of the iPhone are carrying the company to record sales profits.
  • Technological improvements in farm machinery, mean that farmers can buy tractors that can be driven remotely to seed or plough a paddock. This will improve productivity for the farmer.
  • Improvements in educational opportunities via online learning improves the productivity of graduates from universities. Lessening the need for university professors.
  • Improvements in medical diagnosis equipment such as a MRI, means improved productivity for the health industry.
  • Digital analysis of business statistics can point out areas where costs can be made and where cutbacks should occur.
  • Computer analysis of production samples can assist purity for minerals such as gold and iron ore assisting productivity.  
  • Computer analysis of DNA in police forensics is advancing so that criminals can be caught and bodies identified which has improved policing productivity

Impacts of Digital Technologies and Global Markets on Access to Knowledge or Resources

Access to learning; 

  • 24/7 access to university and courses online, cheaper method of getting a degree, less travel,
  • 24/7 access to students in schools via school extranets, improved results with constant feedback for improvement opportunities
  • 24/7 access to information on a plethora of topics. Enlightened population.

Access to entertainment

  • 24/7 access to movies on demand, is there uncontrolled viewing for young kids watching the wrong thing
  • 24//7 access to online games. Will this lead to lack of concentration in class after staying up late playing games till 2.00am

Access to work

  • 24/7 access to work extranets
  • 24/7 access to work cloud storage, convenient, but is your private information still private??
  • 24/7 access to emails and work from home; great for workaholics, not so good for a great family environment

Access to online purchasing

  • 24/7 access to ebay and gumtree style of websites
  • 24/7 access to a plethora of items for purchase. Wonderful variety to choose from. But wrong size, can you return it?
  • 24/7 opportunity to spend too much.

Access to family and friends

  • 24/7 access to social networking to share news and events.
  • Improved communication for families
  • Easy access for cyber bullying

Access to online gambling

  • 24/7 access to losing money and possibly a marriage as well.

Impacts of Digital Technologies and Global Markets on Outsourcing

  • Outsourcing is getting other companies to do some of a companies normal business activity.
  • Improvements in digital technologies and availability of global markets assist this to happen.
    • For example Telstra, Optus and many other companies have outsourced a lot of customer support off shore.
    • An impact of this is that local jobs in Australia are lost. 
  • Security of company details could be lost if off shore. Privacy laws in Australia are not relevant in other countries so privacy is a large issue.
  • Quality control of services is up to the whim of the company conducting the outsourcing. The concept of trust is very important and should be based on successful past performance. The large companies are more reliable, but what of the smaller ones who are cheaper??
  • Company projects could be copied and sold on as their own causing copyright and licensing issues.
  • Hidden costs of communicating on unreliable networks depending on location of outsourcing company. Ideas could be lost in the translation of the ideas.
  • The reputation of the company is in the hands of a different company.

 

FOR YOU TO DO

 1. Summarise key points for the topics above.

 
 
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