Kiosk Technology - Research Paper Example

Kiosk point-of-sale systems provide 24 x 7 availability to the customers where they can make transactions in an easy, user-friendly manner (Silicon Landmark, n.d.). The ease, with which transactions can be made, provides an important element towards an organization's ability to attract customers; as the customers look for user-friendly and always available systems that can take care of their needs. Kiosk promises to be the technological advancement that can take care of this need. In addition, kiosks provide customers with product information and interactive features that improves the overall image of the company in customers' minds.

Kiosks are available in various types and for various purposes. Ranging from a simple cash register to a complex and integrated ATM (Automated Teller Machine), kiosks are believed to improve customer relationships, reduce headcounts for manual/ traditional operations, to take benefit of technology boom, to achieve accuracy and efficiency in operations and to improve customers' perception about the company by providing various marketing and product/ services information on the kiosk terminals.

However, as yet no study has been conducted to verify the above claims of kiosk vendors. Whitech Solution (n.d.) has explained the process through which the customers are relieved from standing in the queue for getting a product or service; rather they can use the self service feature that is provided by the kiosk system at POS sites to reduce the response time that is otherwise on a higher side in traditional systems.The kiosk software communicates directly with organization's database systems from where it fetches information to the customer at the kiosk site. 1.2 Implementing a Kiosk at POSA company needs to adopt an organized approach for implementing a kiosk system at its POS sites.

This strategic IT decision should be taken after careful analysis of costs and the perceived expected benefits of the implementation. The site, technology, type of kiosk to implement the hardware and software requirements, the vendors and strategic partners for the implementation are needed to be identified well before the actual implementation gets underway. As with any strategic IT implementation, the Return On Investment (ROI) must be calculated for this decision as well. However, since a number of qualitative factors are involved in this scenario, it is relatively a bit difficult to do a quantitative analysis to determine the degree of effectiveness and efficiency that a kiosk will provide to the business.

This inherent limitation requires the organization to apply a focused effort to carefully examine and evaluate different criteria that it believes will have an impact on the overall implementation.1.3 Managing the ChangeAlthough it is believed that kiosks add value to the business, yet the implementation needs to be monitored and supervised. The importance of using the right technology for the business can not be undermined; however, Mitra (2007) has pointed out the importance of employees' and customers' support towards introduction of new technology.