Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system
Evalute the implementation of new POS system which is commonly used in many organizations.
The new POS system is one of the most advanced option which is used by several companies that will benefit them to create a competitive advantages and also gain huge amount of business profits. The implementation of new POS system in any organization helps to take wise decisions and it is most commonly used system in current scenario.
There are several advantages and disadvantages of POS system. According to the case study given, the new POS was entered in 2008. It helped the business to keep the record of data from the sales contracts, reduce the manual work of sales transactions and compile the sales history. It delivers a lot more than a cash register. The new POS system offers more vigorous functionality which includes inputting, tracking and distribution of data in order to provide necessary information to function and control the business activities. POS system helps to create an accurate and reliable inventory counts which will reduce the guessing on in what quantity to order. It supports business to function on leaner inventory units. This system also helps in offering a detailed description of the items which were procured, rejected and sold. With the help of new POS system, the owners had no much ideas about their business activities and they also stated that there were few products which were less profitable as they expected to be. Therefore, a new idea of the “real costs” was delivered by this system (Coffing and Bonfiglio, 2017).
The disadvantages of using POS system is that it reduces the owner’s establishing goals and objectives rather than depending on the system’s data. As a result, it may be costly to purchase the new POS system majorly for small business because it costs nearly £2000 or higher in the UK. A part from this, the maintenance of such system is very difficult and complex. However, there are many suppliers who offer free maintenance for a limited period of time but regular maintenance has proved to be time consuming and disruptive in nature. It also includes training costs and sometimes power failure can also be an issue as well (Hall, 2012).
According to the given case study, POS helps business in various methods and it also aims at supporting the business by reducing the manual work. Information and knowledge of the product in any business helps to quote the actual price of the product so that they can earn good profit income. Changes in the price of the product can be done both temporarily as well as permanent. It all depends on the demand of the specific product. When changes in the price of the product are implemented on a temporary basis, it night gain acceptable product margins. Apart from this, managers tend to work more effectively and they are supposed to generate more output and results. The reliable and timely reporting of the messages and information helps the managers in the business to work more efficiently to manage their business operations. The system has the ability to process sales, inventory stock and buy transactions which instantly minimizes the requirements of the data entry and also reduces the paper work as well. The saved which has been saved to control the operations of the business can easily be used in other activities of the business (Tukker, 2015). Consequently, the knowledge and information system generate a solid infrastructure in order to process and report the operations of the business activities for the whole enterprise to remain competitive in the market. For an instance, Garden Centre is one of the best example that shows hoe technology are used to gain huge amount of profit for the business because it is very difficult to remain competitive in the market in the recent scenario. Thus, POS helps small as well as large organizations to leverage the data in order to be more competitive and operate more efficiently (Zikmund, Babin, Carr and Griffin, 2013).
POS system help the business gain competitive advantages
There are many organizations that fight with their management information systems and membership databases. One of the major struggle is the scarcity of the centralized database information. Usually, associations and business maintain separate databases for membership, events, sales, and additional processes. These databases must be combined together into one centralized database. Centralized database is defined as a single hub where a user can find his/her name, address and all the business activities. The major advantages of having a centralized database is mentioned below.
- Data Integrity: One of the major advantage of centralized database is the data integrity. One of the basic rules is that no repetition is required i.e. no single piece if data is repeated within the entire database system. When any business is managing and operating a multiple database for a similar group of people, then they break the rule. For an instance, a membership database with a dissimilar meeting registration database. This tends to create the issues related to integrity (Stevens, 2013).
- Valuable broad marketing information: With all the necessary information centralized, it becomes easy to create reports and evaluate a huge range of operations. In case of multiple databases, records must be matched and duplication may take place.
- Ease of Training: Another advantage of centralized database is that the learning curve for the users is highly minimized. If all the processes such as membership, meetings and product are in a similar database, then user must learn single system rather than learning multiple systems.
- Support: With the help of centralized database, support is primarily focused on a single product. But in case of multiple databases, though they are made on a similar platform, separate support is needed for every product (Paton, 2012).
POS system helps to take an effective decision in order to run all the business activities in an organization. POS helps to perform all the operations of the business more effectively because it majorly focuses on the managers who manages and controls all the necessary information. POS system helps to minimize the manual work and all the required information are found at a single place. It also saves the time which is usually invested in getting involved in the manual works. All the necessary information can easily be tracked using a central database. Central Database holds all the important information at a single place which aims at avoiding the redundancy of data. All the primary records of the employees related to business operations are kept at single location so that it can easily be found and tracked (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). In addition to this, POS system helps to keep the record of all the products that are kept in the inventory. Similarly, the number of product sold, purchased and all the necessary information related to inventory are generally managed by the POS system. It basically aims at providing multiple advantages which include inputting, tracking and distribution of data. Thus, managers are able to take better decisions based on the accurate inventory data (Armentrout et al., 2011).
There are many other options of telecommunications for the POS system. The other network permits all the computers to connect and communicate with all the other computers using any medium of communication. Basically, there are three major types of network which are widely used and designed. It includes LAN, MAN and WAN. They operate in different geographical areas. Majorly, LAN operates in small location, MAN operates in larger areas as compared to LAN and WAN is one of the largest networks of all the three. There are additional computer networks which are also widely used. It includes networks such as PAN (Personal area network), SAN (Storage area network), EPN (Enterprise area network) and VAN (Virtual area network) (Perrig and Tygar, 2012).
Advantages of having a centralized database
A LAN is a combination of computers and network which are connected generally within the similar building. According to the definition, the connections should be high speed and it is not so expensive.
A MAN is a larger network as compared to the LAN which generally spans various buildings in the similar city or town. The IUB network is the best example of a MAN.
A WAN generally do not have the limitations to the geographical area though it limited to specific state or a country. It helps to connect huge number of LAN and it might be restricted to a corporation or an organization. Usually, WAN is expensive with highest speed range and internet is the best example of WAN (Pahlavan and Krishnamurthy, 2011).
Apart from this, there are wired as well as wireless technologies which are also widely used. Some of the common examples of wireless technologies includes GPS units, garage door openers, wireless computer mice, keyboards and headsets, headphones, radio receivers, satellite television, broadcast television and cordless telephones. Similarly, there are various cables that can be used for wired technologies (Ramamurthy, 2012). It includes cables such as
- Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cable.
- Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cable.
- Coaxial Cable.
- Fibre Optic Cable.
- Cable Installation Guides.
- Wireless LANs.
There are huge number of risk involved in the POS system. Some of the risks involves:
- Security: Security is one of the prime risk involved in the POS system. The record of all the data for the operation of business activities and maintaining it is really a difficult and complex task. There must eb high security to protect all the recorded data from being hacked. The business must have cyber experts and innovative technicians who will be able to manage all the activities very effectively.
- Privacy: Privacy is the second risk factor involved in POS system. The Privacy of all the recorded data must be taken into highest priority because once the information is leaked, it will create a huge loss to the business and this risk can be easily be reduced when a unique identification code in maintained and avoidance of multiple databases (Xu, Teo, Tan and Agarwal, 2012).
- Confidentiality: Confidentiality is also a risk factor that is widely seen in many businesses. All the business must maintain confidential records of data which cannot be easily extracted by anyone. Only authorized person must be given an authority to access the necessary information (Joinson, Reips, Buchanan and Schofield, 2010).
Conclusion
Thus, from the above report it can be concluded that POS system helps the business to take the better decisions and work effectively to gain the competitive advantages in the market. Additionally, it also aims at reducing the manual work and increasing the knowledge of all the business operations.
Apart from this, the few suggestions must be followed by the company to gain more profits. The company must train every employees to work using the new POS system and the company must be liable to secure all the confidential records data in a single platform.
References
Armentrout, G.H., Do, P.K., Hargett Jr, B.R. and Maximilien, E.M., International Business Machines Corp, 2011. Method for more efficiently managing complex payloads in a point of sale system. U.S. Patent 7,889,384.
Coffing, D. and Bonfiglio, L., 2017. Transaction system for business and social networking. U.S. Patent 9,600,674.
Hall, J.A., 2012. Accounting information systems. Cengage Learning.
Joinson, A.N., Reips, U.D., Buchanan, T. and Schofield, C.B.P., 2010. Privacy, trust, and self-disclosure online. Human–Computer Interaction, 25(1), pp.1-24.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.
Pahlavan, K. and Krishnamurthy, P., 2011. Principles of wireless networks: A unified approach. Prentice Hall PTR.
Paton, N.W. ed., 2012. Active rules in database systems. Springer Science & Business Media.
Perrig, A. and Tygar, J.D., 2012. Secure Broadcast Communication: In Wired and Wireless Networks. Springer Science & Business Media.
Ramamurthy, B., 2012. Design of optical WDM networks: LAN, MAN and WAN architectures (Vol. 603). Springer Science & Business Media.
Stevens, D., 2013. Personal business service system and method. U.S. Patent 8,494,878.
Tukker, A., 2015. Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy–a review. Journal of cleaner production, 97, pp.76-91.
Xu, H., Teo, H.H., Tan, B.C. and Agarwal, R., 2012. Research note—effects of individual self-protection, industry self-regulation, and government regulation on privacy concerns: a study of location-based services. Information Systems Research, 23(4), pp.1342-1363.
Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. and Griffin, M., 2013. Business research methods. Cengage Learning.
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