IT can produce goods and services ?!!

Information technology and systems have been very much improving to the extent that nowadays business processes are carried out by automated devices.

But the question is what's a business process ?

Its defined as a set of activities and tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal. The process must involve clearly defined inputs and a single output. These inputs are made up of all of the factors which contribute (either directly or indirectly) to the added value of a service or product. These factors can be categorized into management processes, operational processes and supporting processes. Usually in medium sized organization you would find more than one function is involved in the process , this is called as cross-functional business process.

A very important term to be mentioned in this context is Business process management (BPM) .
Its Defined as a systematic approach to making an organization's workflow more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment.

The following link a a video that explains a Business Process Sample using a Flow Chart.

Every Business is surrounded by an environment that consist of a social, legal, economic, physical, and political factors that affect business activities. Significant changes in any of these factor are likely to create business pressure on the organization.
The three types of business pressures faced are: market, technology, and societal pressures.

1-Market Pressure : They comprise of the global economy , competitiveness customer power and changing nature of the workforce. Customer power influence business activity because they can always buy elsewhere , the wide variety of products and their prices over the internet forms a tangible threat to the businesses.
Workforce also impose risk on the companies as people with disabilities needed to be employed, mothers when giving birth , diversified employee platform. These are all pressures that effect the business work process.

Globalization a very common term that we hear now a days and its said that it helps at the same time effects the businesses negatively. Its defined as the shift toward a more integrated and interdependent world economy.

According to Thomas Fried Man globalization was divided into three stages/ages.

Stage one (1492 to 1800) here every country tried to excelle and deploy steam power,muscle power and horse power

Stage two (from 1800 to 2000) The driver of globalization was multinational companies and reduced transportation cost in addition more improved telecommunication methods , smart phones , fiber optics and such innovations evolved.

Stage three (from 2000 to the present) markets became more economically free and away from planned economies , net access became free in 1995 , BPM was developed , outsourcing and offshoring activities started to appear.

2- Technology Pressures which consisted of the rapid technological Innovation and Obsolescence which enforces businesses to constantly update their products. Another technological pressure is the Information Overload on the internet to the consumers and managers.

3-Societal Pressures comprise of corporate social responsibility , code of ethics and un environmental friendly activities. Political crisis and terrorism.

The following are some of the responses organizations performed towards the above pressures :

• Strategic Systems provide advantages that enable organizations to increase market share and/or profits.
• Customer Focus is the difference between attracting and keeping customers by providing superb customer service to losing them to competitors. 
• Make-to-Order is a strategy of producing customized products and services. 
• Mass Customization is producing a large quantity of items, but customizing them to fit the desire of each customer. 
• E-business and E-commerce Buying and selling products and services electronically. 

 Every Business needs to have an advantage over competitors in some measure such as cost, quality, or speed, leads to control of a market and to larger- than average profits , this is called Competitive Advantage.

Micheal Porter a scientist that developed a model of the threats to competitivness of an organization. The picture here shows of of these forces.