Discussion 3 - Question 1

Do you think that it is possible for a TPS to provide a firm with a competitive advantage? Why or why not?

I think TPS won't give much competitive advantage. Though it is good for the database stability and data hiding data. Other systems can just avoid with the system crashes by taking precautious steps.

The reason why TPS can't give a decent advantage is because of these reason:

there are a lot of small-scale business compared to successful ones. When the business goes well, large transactions of the system needs better ways to handle them. TPS can't efficiently coordinate all transactions simultaneously.

With large amount of business and customer data, the system is prone to viral security breach which might disrupt important information in the system. Advanced security and backups are required to safely store the data, although it would prove costly. This problem can worsen with online transactions where hackers are good at what they do best, taking advantage for themselves by messing with the data kept in the system.

Another problem is too much consolidation. Technicians are needed to maintain the system at all times. And more departments(eg.IT department) are needed for this system to run. No all businesses can afford the changes.

Online transactions includes shipping. Products can take weeks to send the goods. Not many consumers have the patience to wait. Especially when the sent product is defective and the buyer needs to wait more. This shows a bad impression to potential customers.