To perform these activities, organisations rely on a wide range of technology systems. Each department will use different IT systems to help them perform their tasks efficiently and accurately to help to business achieve its aims.
In this lesson, we’ll learn about:
As the lesson introduction says, most businesses exist to make money. To do this, they provide some form of product or service to a client or customer. In recent years the line between a digital product and a service has become less clear, as we shall see.
A product is usually defined as a tangible item that can be seen, touched and felt. This is made slightly more complicated in the modern world, as there are digital goods, which of course cannot be touched or felt. However, we still typically use the definition that they are “tangible items”. Examples of products could be anything from clothing to electronics to furniture.
For example, within the technology sector a business could provide a hardware product, such as a laptop, mobile phone or printer. Alternatively, it could be a software product such as a film purchased on Blu-Ray or 4KUHD disc or a video game purchased through an online store.
The idea is that the customer has bought the product and owns it outright. If there are any problems, they have to buy another one.
Some other sectors and example products they provide include:
A service is an action or task that is performed by a business for its customers. Services can be either physical or intangible. Physical services are things like haircuts, car repairs, massages, etc. Intangible services are things like consulting, coaching, or teaching.
For example, within the technology sector, this could be a network engineer that might repair or fix something for a client. Alternatively, it could be an online service like cloud computing or storage.
A business that provides a service will usually have a list of customers that they support and will make small amounts of money regularly.
Some other sectors and example services they provide include:
Think about how many services you are subscribed to? Would any of these be better as a single product you could purchase?
All businesses will be broken up into different areas (or departments).
Each area will have a different role within the business and will therefore have different IT systems that will help the area carry out its tasks more effectively. Common business areas include:
This department deals with all information regarding the day-to-day management of employees. Typical HR data recorded could include:
To manage this, HR departments could make use of IT systems that record information about each employee. Such systems could include:
This area is used by companies that are building physical or digital products for sale. This department will be responsible for:
Depending on the type of product, there could be a range of software tools available including:
Logistics is the department responsible for making sure that the product ordered actually gets to the customer.
Logistics department responsibilities might include:
Logistic software could include:
This might use a custom software solution e.g. SAP Supply Chain Logistic Software.
Marketing is the business area responsible for making the product, service or business itself visible to the public so that they can purchase the product or service or identify the business.
Marketing department responsibilities might include:
IT systems to help with this could include:
This is the department responsible for handling everything to do with the money a business makes and spends.
Finance department responsibilities might include:
IT systems to help with this could include:
Management departments will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the business.
Management department responsibilities might include:
Typical IT systems used by management include:
Look at each of these key areas again. Can you think of any other ways they might use technology to complete their tasks?
So to summarise what we’ve learnt in this lesson: