Information Technology

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

Virtually every business, nonprofit and government agency is going hi-tech these days. Many businesses expect everyone to know the basics of information and communications.

Information technology is best described as the use of computer hardware and software to gather, transfer or store information. Communications technology refers to systems used for communication, which includes telephone, radio, fax, television, email, cell phones and instant messaging. Together, both fields are simply referred to as "ICT" or Information and Communications Technology.

ICT is often broken into two major groups: "traditional computer-based technologies" and "digital communication technologies." Examples of traditional computer-based technologies are accounting programs and word processors. Digital communication technology covers everything from the Internet to satellite linkups.

Organizations rely on ICT systems to boost productivity, reduce costs and make better decisions. One example is a database software allowing companies to quickly process massive amounts of information about their customers. They can then use data on the customers' shopping habits to design a better marketing plan. This is just one of the many justifications online shopping stores can offer to business establishments who patronizes these technologies.

Before the advent of the foregoing computer-based and digital communication technologies, business establishments who sell products and the likes solely rely on the works of business experts to interpret customer shopping trends occurring in their stores. In turn, these experts, or even the owners themselves heavily depend on loads of paper works such as those that detail periodic sales, inventories among others for them to analyze and arrive at some sales pattern or customers' shopping habits. Evidently, these tedious processes of identifying trends, set aside, carefully skimming through all the necessary documents, are very prone to sluggish outputs, if not miscalculations. The onset of online shopping or e-commerce not only resolved most, if not all, of the predicaments of the classic shopping scheme but also widened the scope of shoppers from one localized physical store to "cloned", "distributed stores" that can easily be accessed by most of its customers over the Internet. Gone are the long queues of lines and the need to travel just to avail one's needed shopping items.

The site http://www.marieclaire.com/fashion/trends/best-online-shopping-sites lists the forty (40) best online beauty-related shopping sites over the Internet. The shopping sites sell beauty items, customer services on health and fitness, jewelries, clothes among others. The two most popular e-Commerce sites in the Internet world are the http://www.Amazon.com and http://www.eBay.com. Almost all the things needed by a normal individual, or even the norm-defying ones, are available in these sites.

The Philippines has its own share of Internet-wide popular e-Commerce sites like the http://www.ayosdito.ph/ and http://sulit.com/. Other e-Commerce sites that originated in the Philippines include those that buy and/or sell or render customer service such as Yellow Pages, Online Closet, Baubles and Trinkets, Gadgets and Gizmos, Web Design/Development, Fitness, RTWs and Bags, Gifts and Goodies, Sari-Sari and Bidding and Auction.

a. Background of the Study

Eastern Visayas with its three island groups of Leyte, Samar and Biliran, is endowed with abundant and wide selection of raw materials. For the past sixteen (16) years, aggressive product development clinics have been initiated by public and private entities to harness these resources into globally competitive manufactured goods.

In tandem with product development clinics is the marketing of products, offering it to a wider market base. This gave birth to the conduct of regional exhibit of Eastern Visayas aptly dubbed "Treasures". Initially organized by the Department of Trade and Industry in 1989, Bahandi is now a major annual marketing event for the manufacturing sector of non-traditional goods.

By year 2000, the 79 active exhibitor-producers of Bahandi were organized into an association now known as the Bahandi Producers Association of Eastern Visayas (BPAEV). This move of the Department of Trade and Industry to relinquish the conduct of trade exhibit to BPAEV was to empower producers to collectively charter their own marketing activities. Bahandi has carved a niche in the calendar of national trade events and BPAEV, as an association, only need to strengthen and nurture the advantage established in the past.

However, Bahandi as a marketing event is conducted only once a year and there is a need to sustain the presence of the manufacturers in the local and national market. The setting-up of a "pasalubong" center or souvenir and gift shop in the premier gateway of Eastern Visayas responds to the need for a continuous showcase and marketing of the products created by the BPAEV producers.

The project mainly aims to strengthen and sustain the presence of BPAEV producers in the local and domestic market all year round.

The Shop shall effect a continuous product development on the part of the producers to be consistent with the quality of goods sold. This will also encourage producers how to utilize of indigenous raw materials prodigiously taking into consideration the ecological impact of operating the enterprise. This marketing activity shall secure income and employment in the rural communities and its contribution to the poverty alleviation program of the government.

Initially, BPAEV planned to have the soft opening of the pasalubong center in October 2005, however, due to financial constraints and the busy schedule of producers who were joining a couple of trade fairs, it was moved to November which was again postponed to December 27, 2005. Grand opening was then scheduled on January 26, 2006 to fit in the availability of expected guests. Prior to the opening of the pasalubong center which was from December 27, 2005 to January 25, 2005, the center gathered a sales amounting to Php66,219.00. The amount exceededs its targeted 2,000 average daily sales.

As scheduled, the grand opening of the pasalubong center was held on January 26, 2006. The grand opening was made possible in cooperation with the Department of Trade and Industry, Office of the Hon. Congresswoman Remedios L. Petilla and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Despite the support of numerous government agencies and influential government officials, the pasalubong center seemed