Analysing the “good old days”

Intro
In the 1970’s the expenses for a small business were entered onto analysis paper (see Fig. 1.2.4). A date, description and amount were entered in the first three columns and that the figure was double-entered into an analysis column on the right. Individual expenses (e.g. postage, food, sundries and stationery) could then be analysed dimply by adding the columns. An automatic check was made on the accuracy of the addition as the individual columns had to sum to the same as the amount column on the left.



Around the same time one large multinational organisation with an HQ in London might employ over 100 managers in the finance area to set, manage and control the budgets for the European area. The managers used techniques similar to the small business. They entered budget figures onto A3 analysis sheets, which were typed up as required by their secretaries. These were then used as the basis for analysing what would happen given different sales performances, different commission rates, different interest rates etc. These were well-paid, well qualified and skilled accountants who were able to work quickly and efficiently to analyse potential changes using the latest calculators and replicate them quickly with only a tiny proportion of mistakes across all columns, and down all rows.

The speed at which they worked necessitates continual retyping so the secretaries were also kept very busy. When sheets were returned they had to be proofed, but as the managers were skilled and the secretaries well trained and highly efficient for the most part there were only a few occasions when the sheets had to be retyped. A dramatic change occurred in the early half of the 1980s to this organisation when microcomputer software became widely available.


Tasks
Name two different office applications that could be used by the small business to improve upon the paper-based systems employed in the 1970s.
Describe two advantages of each over the paper-based system and one advantage of each over the other.
How were secretaries’ and typists’ employment prospects affected by the advent of these office packages?
What new job opportunities were opened up by the advent of office applications?


Answer
Two different office applications that could be effective for replacing paper based products could be Micrsoft Office (word) or Open office (writer) which are basically a program which enables you to see and edit text before it is printed off, the complete benifactor of a typewriter.

Advantages of these two 'Word processors' are you have the oppertunity to type faster than you can hand write so businessw ould go alot swifter and smoother. Microsoft word has many advantages over Open office Writer, mainly because it has the mainstream usage, so files can be read no matter what, where as open office write cannot be read by word occasionally. On the other hand The Newest version of Microsoft Word costs a minimum of £99 because you have to buy it with the rest of the package, but Open Office is of course free and is smaller that word in file size, so it can be put onto a Flash disk and transfer to other computers.

Unless the employees that were currently employed were not trained in IT skills either got the sack, and replaced my a less quilified member of staff who did, or taught the essential IT skills needed. If they were replaced, it would have been with a less payed eployee as its a much simpler job, so those who were already employed would be loosing the business prophets and probibly not accept the lower pay cheque.

Job oppertunities which would creep up after the advent of office applications would be, for example the IT Guys. Thier Job would generally be to fix computers who thier employees forgot to switch on at the plug or anything that they didn't know how to do.