Telecommunications, which is essential to today’s smooth business operations, is the transmittal of data and information from one point to another. Telephoning, faxing, e-mail, the World Wide Web – none of these essential business services would be available without fast and reliable telecommunications and so, the concept of electronic commerce, popularly called “e-commerce” would be impossible. In this article we will help you understand the technical foundations of telecommunications, an essential ingredient to managing its role in business. It is equally, if not more, important to understand how telecommunications affects the way businesses run and how managers can use technology to do a better job. Telecommunications has brought three basic improvements to business processes:
1. Better communication. When no physical objects need to be transferred from one place to another, telecommunications technology can reduce geographical distance to an irrelevant factor. E-mail, voice mail, faxing, file transfer, cellular telephony, and teleconferencing allow for full communication, whether among managers, between managers and their staffs, or among different organizations Telecommunications can also be used by one person to monitor another person’s performance in real time. Telecommunications is used to communicate directions and receive feedback without requiring people to coordinate their schedules to hold a meeting. And the use of e-mail has brought some secondary benefits to business communications, by establishing a permanent written record of, and accountability for, ideas. The result is more accurate business communications.
2. Higher efficiency. Telecommunications has allowed a number of business processes to become more efficient. Many business processes are serial in nature – one department must have the input of another department to act and must then produce its own information, which in turn serves as input for a third department, and so on. For example, when the sales department receives a purchase order from a customer, it must communicate the order to the warehouse, which needs the information to prepare the package. The warehouse workers must then forward shipping documents to the accounts receivable department for billing, and so forth. With telecommunications, all documents can be accessed electronically by many different departments at the same time. Processes that used to take place one after another can take place in parallel (at the same time) or at greatly shortened time intervals.
3. Better distribution of data. Organizations with the means to quickly transmit vital data from one computer to another no longer need to have databases centralized in one location. Business units that need certain data frequently may store it locally, while others can access it remotely. Only fast, reliable transfer of data makes this efficient arrangement possible.
