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Essay / How Software Development Can Help Organizations Achieve Their Strategic Goals
Table of ContentsIntroductionMain BodyConclusionIntroductionSoftware development is becoming an essential tool to achieve greater efficiency and improve business productivity. This assignment aims to explain the main trends in which technology is used and developed to help many organizations achieve their strategic goals. The industrial environment is evolving towards better technologies as there is a need to “produce more with less” due to limitations in resource availability and increasing demand for products and services. With these changes in the industrial landscape, the need for new products as well as new ways of producing them with a sustainable approach arises. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essaySoftware development influences many industries, take the advancement of artificial intelligence in the automobile industry as an example, there are a lot of development aimed at automating the driving experience. AI is at the origin of a new industrial revolution; “Industries 4.0” in which pull models are initiated by the customer. This assignment considers 3 examples of how many organizations are using IT technological advances to reduce their impact on the environment. First, the SAP company, which is the largest enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company, second, the PUMA company, known worldwide because of the shoes and clothing it produces, and The Heineken Company, a global brewery present on all continents. Software development is a key factor in disrupting innovation in many industries, for example in the automotive value chain, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are creating new opportunities to create business value through connected electric and autonomous vehicles (Corporate Innovation 2015). In addition to this, software innovation has successfully reduced carbon emissions from many modes of transportation through test automation (Shaw 1990). On the other hand, with the technological environment of recent years, a new type of industry has emerged, “Industries 4.0”. . The term “Industries 4.0” was coined in Germany and refers to the fourth industrial revolution. The first revolution took place in the 18th century with the invention of the steam engine, the second in the mid-19th century with the creation of the assembly line and the third at the end of the 20th century via the control of operation by a programmed system. computer. (Drath 2014) A key technology used in many organizations to automate and increase the efficiency of operations is enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. The ERP system helps companies integrate their operations throughout the supply chain and product life cycle, from the design phase to the end-of-life process, from resource management to final delivery. ERP solutions (Finance, HR, production assets, inventory, manufactured products) automate business processes, customer relationship management (Brand, customers, campaigns), product life cycle management (Products, nomenclature), supplier relationship management (contracts, suppliers). ) and supply chain management (Logistics, transportation assets) (Monk 2012). One of the advantages of this software is that it makes it possible to measure and control the pollution generated,which can be used to establish strategic objectives. By setting a relative target, the company could reduce carbon emissions per turnover, per production, per employee or even per year. On the other hand, by setting absolute objectives, the company could reduce its emissions according to defined criteria taking into account a temporal scenario. (Moine 2012). With this in mind, organizations use software development to monitor the impact of their operations on their environment. These initiatives are framed within the framework of the term “Green IT”. By definition, “Green IT” involves managing data centers, customer infrastructure, networks, storage and communications with minimal environmental impact and ensuring a socially responsible supply chain. In other words, it aims to increase energy efficiency throughout the life of the product and power IT in a renewable way, embrace recyclability, reduce waste and reduce the use of Hazardous Material. One of the advantages of this approach is to significantly reduce IT costs (Murugesan 2008). Another “Green IT” initiative concerns the “green software development model”. A 2012 study discusses changes in the existing software development life cycle (SDLC) and suggests some processes to reduce carbon emissions, energy and paper consumption, "thus helping organizations move towards software development more ecological and sustainable. (Shenoy 2011)Regarding energy efficiency, IT advancements, which include the transition to the cloud, site selection, and reduction of power consumption, aim to use low-power hardware, server virtualization and adaptive computing to reduce environmental impact, for example, better utilization of hardware and applications and reduction of CO2 emissions (Murugesan 2008) Another way to reduce the environmental impact of Green IT is dematerialization , which consists of virtual collaboration. Trends in this area include changing travel culture, organizational complexity and customer relations, collaboration tools, applications and usage reporting. The immediate impact of these initiatives is reduced theft, gas emissions and costs, faster response times and a better work-life balance for the hired workforce (Murugesan 2008). IT has helped organizations reduce their emissions through teleworking and teleconferencing. both approaches can replace travel. The results of a 2011 study indicate that an organization can "significantly reduce its environmental impact and costs, by actively using applications as tools to reduce travel." (Arnfalk 1999) Another major trend in IT development involves sustainable enterprise resource planning (S-ERP), as this initiative addresses the problem that sustainability data is not "sufficiently integrated and used to decision-making”. In a 2014 study, the Sustainable Enterprise Resource Planning (S-ERP) system was proposed as a holistic solution to support organizations' sustainability goals. The S-ERP systems life cycle and the six key areas identified include: concept, system design, pre-implementation, implementation, post-implementation and similar system expansion to the previously mentioned business processes and the proposed S-ERP system appears as a “promising solution to solveintegration issues in sustainability” (Chofreh 2014). The sustainable approach to reducing pollution from operations by applying new technologies is not new, as a 1999 study from the Academy of Management Journal suggests, "managing the natural environment is becoming a problem of increasingly important for manufacturing companies”, they proposed “The Environmental Technology Portfolio” as a construct based on a resource-based view of the company and manufacturing strategy. The authors found that technology had a significant impact on the manufacturing and environmental performance of the sample of manufacturing plants (Klassen, 1999). These initiatives are part of developments in the industrial environment; As resources and energy are limited, there is a need to improve business productivity through new technologies that enable organizations to produce “more with less”. (Chryssolouris 2008) An example of this can be seen in one of the ERP software companies, SAP, the market leader in enterprise application software, which helps organizations streamline their processes, giving them the ability to 'use live data to predict customer trends. According to the 2015 Integrated Report, they “have made significant progress towards our greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets,” using trends in digitalization and green technologies. They reduce their energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Their goal is to reduce net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from operations to year 2000 levels by 2020. They work to reduce emissions through three main approaches: increasing operational efficiency combined with innovative approaches; purchase high-quality renewable electricity certificates; and invest in high-quality carbon credits. Their total net emissions decreased to 455 kilotons of CO2 (2014: 500 kilotons). This drop mainly comes from a reduction in business flights and compensation through carbon emissions offsetting. (SAP2015). Since 2007, they have managed to reduce these emissions per € of turnover by 50% and 20% in global terms. Another example of implementing technologies to reduce pollution is PUMA. According to the Environmental Profit and Loss Account, they state: “Our operations and supply chain depend on nature for services such as fresh water, clean air, healthy biodiversity and productive land. The PUMA E P&L is the first attempt to measure the immense value of these services to our business, as well as the true costs of our business's impacts on nature, by assigning a monetary value to them throughout our value chain. (Puma 2011)By taking into account the environmental impact of their operations, they can use the technologies developed to reduce water consumption, for example. In Figure 2, a representation of resource usage is estimated in monetary value. (Puma 2011) A third good example is the Heineken company, which, using Green IT, managed to reduce its refrigerator emissions by 45% by purchasing “green refrigerators”. Another goal achieved was to reduce its emissions by 36% compared to 2008 and they planned to reduce CO2 emissions linked to distribution (transport via a fleet of trucks to end customers) by 20% in Europe and in America. (The Heineken Company 2015) According to Forbes, BMW is the most sustainable company of 2015 because it develops new software technologies that enable it to achieve "efficient use of water, energy and).”