Six months after the new till
Hill Road Sports is a made-up shop. Six months ago it bought a new online shop and till system. The owner asks: did it work?
Sales went up. But staff say the system is hard to use, and one email sent a customer's address to the wrong person. How does the owner judge fairly? This lesson shows how.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can judge whether technology met an organisation's need by weighing its benefits and risks.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Benefit | a good result that the technology brings |
| Risk | something that could go wrong |
| Change management | helping people move to a new way of working |
| Personal data | facts about a person who can be identified |
| Ethics | thinking about what is right and fair |
| Stakeholder | a person or group affected by a decision |
| Data protection law | the law on how personal data must be handled |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter: what you already know
Have a go
Starter: what you already know
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Measure the benefits
To judge technology, an organisation compares what happened with what it hoped for.
A benefit is a good result. It might be better efficiency, higher profit or higher productivity. It might be less wasted time or lower cost. The owner should use numbers where she can, such as orders per week or hours of work saved.
Benefits and how to see them
| Benefit | A way to measure it | Hill Road Sports example |
|---|---|---|
| Improved efficiency | Time taken for one job | An order is packed in fewer minutes |
| Increased profit | Money in, minus money out | More sales, with the same costs |
| Increased productivity | Work done in a set time | More orders handled each day |
| Less wasted time | Hours spent on repeat work | No more typing orders twice |
| Lower cost | The bill before and after | Less paper and fewer mistakes to fix |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.