THE CHANGING TECHNOLOGY OF DATA CAPTURE : PART II Improving the quality of management information

This is the second part of an article previewing the results of a research programme aimed at studying the effect of recent developments in data capture and data transmission on management information in retailing. The results are to be published in full later this year by the National Computing Centre in a report entitled “Data Capture in the Retail Environment”. In Part I Dr Jones looked at the various technical options open to retail managers for both data capture and data transmission, and the ways in which such data may be used in a management information context. He also touched upon the differing data handling needs of various types of retail organisation. In Part II, he covers the cost and economic aspects of computer aided systems, provides some examples of user experiences, and draws together his main conclusions and recommendations from both parts of the article.