Introduction to the importance of technology in the modern world
Discuss about the Point of Sale System In Business.
Technology is an irreplaceable part of the modern world. It is very important for everyone to be aware about varied technology and ICT information in their respective fields to ensure competitive sustainability. Through the daily use of technology one can always enhance their growth and innovate at one point. At another, through the use of technology, one can substantially reduce the operating time, and in essence utilize the tangible organizational resources effectively. Furthermore, through the use of this offshoot of a cash register, the company gains standardization and transparency which increases their trust quotient among the vendors, distributors as well as the consumers (Orr et al., 2015).
The POS system saves time as it allows entering of the sale transaction data straight away at the time of sale. The system has proven very effective for saving data from sale in the business as well, since the system stores all data while updating the records and compiling the data of sales history. This in return reduces the time which was getting wasted at the time of entering data manually in register, and other aspects of book keeping. While using the POS systems, there very few chances of mistakes while entering the data as it has facility to read barcodes too. One more helpful attribute of the POS systems is that it provides well-built performance for entering, tracking and categorizing data for some useful business task, and bring forth standardization in the operations (Laplante, 2017). This system also reduces the tedious task of guesswork in order to know how much stock should be ordered and when. In addition, POS systems also provide a detailed report for the transaction history, about how much stock got sold, how much was bought and so on. In short; the POS system is very helpful in enhancing the efficiency of stock management.
As compared to its advantage, there are very limited disadvantage of the POS system. Foremost critical thing with the POS system is that, it is dependent on continues internet connection and ISP that are web based services. Secondly, POS systems needs regular software updating which can be expensive and can also be time consuming. Lastly, the use of the technology can be risky when it comes to the card payment, where sometimes details of card users might be revealed, and hence security concerns might arise.
Advantages of using a POS system in small and medium enterprises
The POS frameworks have more advantages when contrasted with manual frameworks utilized as a part of the small and medium-sized ventures.. The system helps entrepreneurs in understanding their real potential of business and also in knowing their establishments better. It also makes the realization that entrepreneur lacks in considering their own business’s loss and profits which is very significant in the competitive market. The POS system also generates detailed cost report of the product which helps in understanding about the product and adds to the profit margin of the stores. In this process by keeping that stock more in order a POS ensures that the business is effective, standard, and approachable.
The opportune and effective management of the system helps owner to become more productive in comparison to other business that are not using POS systems in their store. Time saving factor of the POS system in addition to the management opportunities is further recognized as a positive amongst the employees. As a result of which, the employees can spend time on other tasks, rather than daily routine of entering data manually, which is otherwise an important but time consuming aspect in their handling responsibilities. Lastly, through the use of a technical tool man made error in the transaction are substantially reduced.
It is constantly vital to have brought together database in order to comprehend the proficiency of the ventures. The centralized database helps in understanding about the stock of the products such as which products to order, how many got sold, and which gives benefits to the store. It also helps in better understanding about the marketing strategy and also about the profitable business as it shows which product gives more profit the store, thus by pricing the products within the profit margin. It also helps in better analyzing the products and stocks from the detailed report about the sales transaction. Therefore, it is always advantageous to have centralized data.
It is imperative for representatives and proprietors to comprehend and accurate about everything occurring in their store with respect to their items, deals and requests. It gets exceptionally troublesome for proprietor to direct, when these everything is overseen by manual register and manual entering of information, which is extremely dreary and convoluted. Accordingly it gets troublesome for proprietor to achieve the level of basic leadership process in the store. Hence POS frameworks take care of this issue effectively by giving each conceivable answer for making decisions.
Disadvantages of using a POS system
It gets very simple to track and update the records for easy understanding of availability of products, costing and pricing of products and also understanding the schedule of employees, which is then useful for making decision about the products as well as employees. The decision includes what kind of responsibility will be assigned to which employee, what types of changes needs to be done in order to make business profitable, what variety of products needs to be continue for selling etc.
There are various kinds of telecommunication components which affect the POS system operations, such as: telecommunication networks, telecommunication equipment, software etc. These instruments supports, and helps the process of gaining and using information that are connected with the network. The geographical scope of telecommunication network can be categorized in two network, i.e. local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), metropolitan area network (MAN). As the name suggest, local area plan consists of all information from smaller geographical area with a high speed, and can be privately owned in microphones or on top of the buildings. It also has large storage backups that can be used for storing lot of information (Bemmel and Mian, 2014).
Wide area network, on the other hand is used for comparatively larger geographic area, but sometimes its application has been seen in the lower speed areas as well, in comparison to local area plan telecommunication system. Metropolitan area network is combination of all small local area network and possess same high speed of local area network. Depending about the number of footfalls in the store or small enterprises, one can decide which telecommunication network needs to be selected for their small and medium enterprises. The awareness of these attributes allows the effective selection of the instrumentation for the process based on the individual needs of the company.
The risk generated by the POS system are associated in the sense of money laundering, and exposure of the detail of card and cards holder when credit or debit card are used by POS systems. This risk has been recognized as a serious problem among many customers, and can ruin the reputation of the stores in a long run, while reducing its profit margin. The second problem that can be generated through POS systems is that is limited in terms of presence of the internet connectivity, and can be unmanageable when there is a rush in a store like restaurants, malls , grocery shops etc, or when the network unavailability persist due to weather issues or such. Thus it is advisable to use high speed continuous internet connection while using POS systems to avoid obstructions. This will eventually provide for total availability of the system.
Telecommunication components in POS system operations
It is also recommended to receive payment mostly through cash of other money transfer apps such as paytm, paypal etc to avoid hacking problems related to credit cards and debit cards for the business operations. Other solution can be to install high security software’s to lock private database in order to ensure privacy. This will further allow the credit card and debit card payment to be easily accepted amongst the customers which is now a day’s highly used system of transferring money in all major establishments (Abelson, Anderson, Bellovin, Benaloh, Blaze, Diffie & Rivest, 2015). Technology is irreplaceable in the digital era, and today’s information and technology systems has its negative side as well as the positives. Therefore, preventing those issues which can compromise its acceptance becomes vital for the success of the POS systems.
The present report defines all the criteria that are required for selecting the POS system, its benefits and requirements. After understanding all the aspects and criteria regarding the POS system, it is advisable that everyone in the small and medium enterprises should have POS system to enhance the competitive business cycle. This will also help someone to better engage with customers, as time can be saved from continues data entry manually while selling or introducing products. However, it is also argued that everyone should take care about the risk of the technology, and try to use the latest technology while considering risk such as high security alarm during transaction and while performing any other important task through POS systems (White & Mobility Ii Llc, 2015). It is said that prevention is always better than cure. With this in mind, it is recommended that the technology should be adopted, however, it must be carefully analyzed and managed as well. The present report in sense focuses about the POS system, and suggests insights into the world of information and technology, and the continuous advantages.
References
Abel, E. E., & Obeten, E. (2015). Restaurant Customer Self-Ordering System: A Solution to Reduce Customer/Guest Waiting Time at the Point of Sale. International Journal of Computer Applications, 111(11).
Abelson, H., Anderson, R., Bellovin, S. M., Benaloh, J., Blaze, M., Diffie, W., … & Rivest, R. L. (2015). Keys under doormats: mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications. Journal of Cybersecurity, 1(1), 69-79.
Bemmel, V. and Mian, S., Open Invention Network LLC, 2014. Method and system for providing biometric authentication at a point-of-sale via a mobile device. U.S. Patent 8,880,434.
Laplante, P.A., 2017. Requirements engineering for software and systems. Auerbach Publications.
Orr, R.N., Lemley, D., Hotchkies, C.J. and Dehoux, J.L., Atx Innovation Inc, 2015. System and method for interfacing a client device with a point of sale system. U.S. Patent 9,195,982.
White, S.N., At&T Mobility Ii Llc, 2015. Devices, systems and methods for wireless point-of-sale. U.S. Patent 8,955,747.