The role of information systems in airlines industry

British Airways is one of the most popular airlines worldwide. It is a large airline of United Kingdom and serving people with its airline services for many years. Every year, millions of passengers travel through this airline and every important information about passengers from their arrival to departure is stored in database of British Airways. This amount of information is not easy to store manually into files and folders and access of information is also difficult. Therefore, there is requirement to use strong information systems that can store bulk of records of information, schedule or reschedule bookings of passengers and can also handle cancellation of passengers’ tickets. By using information system or other IT storage technique, access of information will be easier from remote or local locations. Without IT, the management of flights and passengers of airlines will be difficult and complex. That is why to avoid this type of issues of airlines industry, Information Technology should be used.

It is an important segment of this report and here we will discuss that how Information Technology puts influence on British Airways.

According to literature review there are various factors exist that are required to make a business successful. Information Technology is also considered one of them and in airlines industry, it will be better to have IT (ITC Infotech, 2017). In business of British Airways, IT refers to selection of appropriate technology, making of a proper communication, proper use of required resources and accurate analysis about goals and objectives of British Airways, its current benefits and future revenue of company. Besides this, for better communication and information sharing to local and remote locations by British Airways, IT is required. With the rapid growth of information technology, ticketing system, online booking system and other functionalities of airlines industry have become easier to use and access information. Due to these reasons, there is requirement to use IT in British Airways and it will also provide help to British Airways to maintain good position in competitive market.

Information Technology is important for British Airlines for various reasons. The competition in airlines industry is increasing and some new entrants are giving challenges to British Airways. These new companies are based on IT techniques and giving tough competition to BA. In this case to sustain in competitive market, British Airways must use Information Technology applications. It will help to enhance customer support of company and 24×7 hours service can be provided to customers when required by them (Czerny and Zhang, 2014). BA should focus on this key feature of IT and must do efforts to implement this into business. The management of passengers will be improved by business organizations. Besides this, resource management is also an IT based technology that can be used in British Airlines for managing every single resource. As we know that British Airways is one of the largest airlines of United Kingdom and there are various small or large resources are required to maintain. In this case, IT plays a vital role in survival of business of British Airways. IT also has potential to manage complex issues of automating that includes financial resources and human resources of British Airways. An another importance of Information Technology is that it has introduced cloud platform to airlines industry and due to this, resource can be managed of British Airlines by using enterprise cloud solutions.

Factors contributing to a successful business

The successful implementation of Information Technology can be achieved by fulfilling its all requirements (vivianmeril, 2017). Multiple factors contribute in implementation of IT in British Airways and Information Technology is one of those factors that is why without knowing about its requirements, it will be difficult to run this technology in BA (Britishairways.com, 2017). The first essential requirement of IT is to have knowledge about particular technology, it means British Airways needs to organize skilled and qualified employees who have knowledge about information technology. Besides this, experienced employees are also required for implementing IT application because IT applications for airlines industry are not easier to use. Only those people can work with these IT applications who have appropriate knowledge and experience in field of IT. Besides this, proper installation and training about IT applications is also necessary for employees of British Ways. The installation of IT applications should be done by IT experts because if installation process will not be implemented properly then applications will not work properly and will give error messages. It is possible that some employees in BA who will work IT application, may have less knowledge about IT. In this case, training is required for non-IT users and also for IT users who will work with new technology. Proper installation and training of an IT application will help to reduce error rate. A latest IT system is required to implement ticketing system properly in British Airways.

IT is an essential part of airlines industry and it is used to fulfill various purposes in British Airways. For better communication with passengers, to make ticket reservation system easier and to make simple the process of information storage and access from local and remote locations (Eun-Song Bae and Daecheol Kim, 2014). The software solutions and applications of IT enhance overall business performance of BA that puts influence over revenue and profit of company as well (Google Books, 2017). After implementing IT applications, more customers are attracting towards BA and impress by its customer management system. Mobile and smartphone applications are also part of IT and use of android, iPhone and Windows applications is very much useful for British Airways to schedule and reschedule of its flights automatically. Besides this, ticket booking and cancellation of passengers can also be done easily by implementing IT applications. IT applications are also considered useful in British Airways to get latest updates and process of automation can also be done through IT. For better communication and information sharing in secured way IT communication modes are also considered effective.

Importance of IT in British Airways

From information technology (IT) various benefits are got by British Airways. Among essential factors of a business, IT is also considered. Today, without implementing Information Technology applications, it is difficult to work quick and accurate way. In British Airways, IT has scope to analyze particular data regarding the business and to plan business according to available information (Escobari and Jindapon, 2014). Many latest and advanced tools are provided by Information Technology to British Airways that will help this airlines to manage its ticketing system, booking system and other important operations and functionalities (Tracy, 2017). The information collected by using IT applications can be used further for decision making. Besides this, Information Technology provides speedy and accurate information to British Airways. Due to these benefits, Information Technology has become popular among whole airline industry (Google Books, 2017).

The main risk factors that are associated with IT are of security and privacy of data and failure of hardware and software components of IT system. Security and privacy issues can occur due to hacking and phishing attacks (Arjomandi and Seufert, 2014). These attacks are conducted by hackers to hack information database that stores confidential information of customers and other essential information (Harvard Business Review, 2017). British Airways database also consists of huge amount of important information, if this information will not secured properly then hackers can hack this information easily and can misuse it. On other side, failure of hardware and software can occur due to abnormal shut down of system or breakage of server.  If system failure will occur then whole information of British Airways can lost. These are big risk factors of implementing IT in British Airways and in any other company. Besides this, malware attack, DDoS attacks etc. also put influence over IT applications and it is happened due to lack of using security tools and programming algorithms at developers end (ComputerWeekly, 2017).

Above discussed risk factors of IT are necessary to control by business organizations that are using these applications (Escobari, 2017). To do this, monitoring and maintenance of IT is required. By using monitoring and scanning tools, monitoring of IT applications can be done easily. These tools are helpful to detect and remove bugs or errors from system. Besides this, use of anti-virus, firewalls, encryption techniques and other intelligent software solutions can be used for maintaining long term security and privacy of information. With manual monitoring systems it is hard to identify security issues from systems and database. Here Information Technology applications will be useful for British Airways system to eliminate security issues and other problems of automatic systems. Now various latest software solutions are also available that can be used for maintaining and monitoring of IT (Business-standard.com, 2017).

Conclusion

At last we conclude that British Airways and other airlines industry should implement Information Technology services to perform their different operations in appropriate and quick way. Today IT is used everywhere and people are highly satisfied with IT services. That is why to attract more customers towards business, IT implementation is necessary.  The awareness about latest updates in IT field and its challenges should be in knowledge of every business organization. In this way, various benefits can get by British Airways from IT. The risk factors are also required to consider while using IT and must do all efforts to resolve these risk factors.

References

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