Capabilities and Limitations of ICT

ICT has become an integral part of almost all commercial and other enterprises:

· Very fast processing (essential in banking)
· Vast storage capacity
· Rapid search and combination of data in many ways.
· Instant response
· Accurate results
· Rapid communication between individuals and organisations
· Improves a company image.

All of these provide organisations and individuals with rapid access to high quality information that they can use in planning and decision making. Twenty years ago, it might well take a fortnight to make an enquiry and get an answer. Now it can be done in a few minutes.

ICT is very effective in allowing instant feedback on levels on commodities, e.g.

· Funds in bank accounts
· Availability of seats in aeroplanes
· Stock levels in a chain of supermarkets
· Keeping track of books borrowed from a library.

The diagram below shows the instant feedback available from an on-line booking system. In this example there is one seat left on the flight. It is booked instantly by a customer. Shortly after (it could be a fraction of a second later), a request for the seat comes for another customer. The computer has filled the seat and the customer is told that the flight is fully booked. Then the computer can allocate our second customer a seat on the next flight. There is a slight possibility that the two requests come in at exactly the same time. This is unlikely, but there are mechanisms to prevent double-booking.

In a library, the system can provide information on:

· Borrowers names and addresses
· What books they have
· Which are overdue
· Location in other libraries of books that readers order.

The computer can also:

· Issue overdue notices
· Provide information for borrower enquiries.
· Provide the necessary information for auditing, planning, and purchasing.
· Provide better security.
· Save staff time by releasing them from repetitive paper based tasks.

ICT systems also have drawbacks:

· Introduction of ICT systems can lead to a lot of extra work, especially if the system is none-too-reliable (as in the early days), and manual back up records have to be kept.
· Employees find themselves redundant
· New or redesigned accommodation.
· Faults in the software can lead to chaos, which can bring the organisation to a halt. This is often a problem in bespoke or specialist software written for the particular organisation by a software house.
· Inadequate hardware can cause communication logjams.
· Failure of a computer system means a catastrophic loss of investment, i.e., it’s a damned waste of money!

Major failures of ICT hardware and software have damaged the public image of the organisations and led to not a few scandals.

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