TJX Companies Powerpoint-Business Environments

Although the success of a company depends on its technology, it does not mean that companies with supper technologies are always successful and companies with dubious technologies always fail in their operations. This implies that there are companies with dubious technology that flourish and others with supper technology but they lag behind in many aspects. Soft technology companies are users of technology; this is businesses that purchase and modify software which has been developed to suit their domestic or entrepreneur environment. The hard technology company is defined as businesses whose main objective is to develop both hardware and software with the purpose of selling them (Sledgianowski, Gomaa and Tan, 2017). This essay aims at explaining some of the soft and hard technologies that are used by the TJX Companies in their operations both within the domestic and global environments. In addition, it will discuss some of the barriers to the company in both environments highlighting ways overcoming the barrier. A brief description of how the company protects its hard and soft technology will also be given.

Hard and Soft Technologies Used in TJX Domestic and Global Environments

TJX companies borrow technological expertise from TJX.com a provider of Information Technology services (George, 2007). This forms one of the major sources of soft technology for the company. TJX.com provides both domestic and global retail technology using technologies such as networking and active directory, Java oracle applications among others. TJX companies running the online retail collaborates with the IT department to employ information technology workforce that deals in resolving problems encountered by the users of the technology (TJX, 2019). Generally, the soft technology that covers the global environment provides security and compliances to the users, infrastructure, and operations, developing and delivering the solutions. TJX has used the RFID tags, a technology that helps in tracking the company’s goods remotely. This technology can be combined by the Internet of Things technology to enable domestic and global inventory keeping for the retailers. TJX companies have also invested in soft technology such as Google analytics and Bootstrap. TJ Maxx and other companies such as HomeGoods anticipate installing better technologies such as Amazon Go for visual recognitions.

Technology Barriers

In the year 2007, TJX experienced a major breach in their Information Technology systems. This poses a major barrier in technology especially for the companies that require retaining customers’ data in their systems. Such risks are combined with the high cost of the investment in ensuring that the technology is secure. For TJX, they went through high costs of installing their Information Technology systems. This can present as a barrier to many companies which might not comfortably fund their technology projects. In case of the need to upgrade their technology, more investment is required in terms of financial input, time and resources. This is exemplified by the $5 million that TJX used in trying to recover their technology after the attack (TJX, 2019). Fear of losses of the technology to intruders and hackers also presents a risk to companies with cloud source features. This requires that strong, reliable and theft-proof technologies need to be installed in order to keep customers information secure.

How to Overcome Barriers

Companies that use both soft and hard technologies to run their business operations are required to make critical considerations to ensure that their technology has a high return on investment, is feasible and is secure. Thus, a company such as TJX have various ways of overcoming the hindrances to achieving top-notch technology. In providing their own technology, there are prone to limitations in terms of the efficiency of the technology they can afford to install. They can overcome this by outsourcing technology from established companies that will provide secure and efficient technology. This will solve the cost of installation problem that the company may experience. In addition, it will provide a solution to technology security. A secure system will build trust to the customers.

Strategy Used by TJX and How it Will Protect its Technology

Since the break down in TJX customer information storage system, the company came up with various strategies to improve their technology. The company desisted from using track 2 data that was being obtained from the customers’ payment cards (Matt, 2007). It also implemented a masking tool to the cards which were a way of ensuring that the customers’ information was not stored in vulnerable systems. In addition, the customers’ information is encrypted at their point of sale hence not retained in their Watford and Framingham data cloud systems. As part of their security routine activities, the company deletes the crucial information from their systems hence protecting this information from possible compromise (George, 2007).

To ensure that their technology is protected, TJX can adopt a system of incorporating hard technology in their operations rather than solely depending on the soft-self created and maintained technology. Another strategy that hard technology uses to avoid barriers like having to take a lot of risks in developing and designing new software is by using old systems. This helps to a hard technology company to avoid risks involved in designing new software by the use of old codes or containers which are known to work. Soft Technology Company such as Ford, GM, Boeing, and Frigidaire have employed different ideas of combating few barriers that face them by deploying and buying technology from hard technology cooperation (Kurbanova, Korableva, and Kalimullina, 2018). This approach would also improve the ability of TJX to protect their information against security breaches.

Conclusion

From the brief discussion given above on TJX company hard and soft technology, it is evident that the company needs to enhance its technology. Their soft technology requires experts in developing it and to maintain both the soft and hard technologies. Creativity and innovations should be the key drivers of the company’s investment.

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