Key Advantages of Point-of-Sale System
Discuss about the case study of a Four Season Greenhouse and Nursery which is located in Colorado.
Point of Sale system is considered as a central component or a hub of a business. It is actually a place where payment is paid by the customers for purchasing goods and services. POS is a sale system which is combination of the software and hardware and it allows business owners to make transactions and other activities properly. Four Season nursery has implemented this system to manage its inventory appropriately and for accurate measure of the profit and loss of business. Now in further sections of this report, I will focus on some essential factors of point of sale system (Harbortouchpossoftware.com, 2018).
According to the case study of Four Season Greenhouse and Nursery, some key advantages are found of point-of-sale system and those advantages are listed as below:
- The first key advantage of new POS system is that it allowed business owners to trail the useful business data from the sale transactions immediately at the time of sale. This data can be used further to perform different activities related to business inventory. This feature of POS has also resolved the problem of manual process of tracking sales.
- Another advantage of POS system is for Four Season Nursery is that while updating inventory the process of data processing and storing is done by the POS system. Due to this, now company managers no need to count on the manual entry of the sales transactions and decrement of the inventory units for the sold items (Compass.fhcrc.org, 2018).
- Next advantage of POS is that it works more than like a cash register and provides most strong functionality in inputting, tracking and distributing data to obtain the useful information that will be helpful to operate and manage business properly.
Besides advantages of POS system, there are some disadvantage of it that have not yet encountered by the business of Four Season Greenhouse and Nursery. One of the key disadvantages of POS system is that it requires periodic updates. After installing the POS system, it is essential for the managers of Four Season nursery to schedule updates for this system and these updates must download and install by the POS vendor. Furthermore, an ongoing maintenance fee is also required to cover regular updates of the POS system. Another disadvantage of the Point-of-Sale system is its security risks. In case of irregular updates of the system, the chances of data breaches will be increased considerably. Therefore, due to vulnerable security breaches, sensitive inventory information can be violated by the cyber-criminals. So, it is mandatory for Four Season nursery to be aware about these security issues while executing POS system (Chia, 2018).
For a business organization, it is essential to be competitive and agile and to achieve this goal, POS system helps business enterprises. In case of Four Season garden center, Point-of-Sale system helps this organization for enhancing its competitive advantage among its competitors. The implementation of POS system cleared many misunderstandings of owners of garden center about their business. After reviewing the reports of POS system, they got to know that some items are not less profitable for business than they thought. Moreover, they also got to know that which products are more profitable for their business. Besides this, with the help of POS system, garden center obtains detailed information about the market value of their products and now proper decision can be made regarding the actual cost of each product by the center. Additionally, the ability of the POS system to process sales, inventory and purchasing transactions immediately has reduced the need for manual data entry. Due to the reasons, the competitive advantage of Four Season garden center has increased.
Disadvantages of Point-of-Sale System
Having a centralized database is good for business organizations because it helps them to keep a single database for different processes rather than having a separate database for each process. These processes can be membership, sales, events and others. There are several advantages to use centralized database and Four Season garden center should also implement this approach for its business operations. The main advantages of centralized database are data integrity, development of the broad business reports that can show information regarding the different business processes, easy to learn and provide support by focusing on one single product (National Processing, 2018).
There is no doubt to say that POS system facilitates decision making. Four Season garden center is using POS system and obtaining accurate information that is very much helpful for better business decision making. There are some key reasons behind this effectiveness of POS system.
Point-of-Sale system works on actual facts and figures that are related to business operations. It does not consider estimated information. That is why, appropriate result is provided by this system which is very much important to run business activities effectively (Gastrofix, 2018).
No, it is not possible to track business information manually in an effective way. Manual processing of information is a cumbersome and time consuming task and it leaves several flaws into the processed information that cannot be used further for long time. Various wrong estimations are also found in manual execution of business information (Expert Market US, 2018).
With the help of Point-of-Sale system, questions regarding the real cost of the product, actual profit and loss of business in case of every single product, information regarding sales processing, business operations, inventory management and purchasing transactions can be answered easily, quickly and effectively by the Point-of-Sale system.
Information plays a vital role in the appropriate management of the business. With the availability of accurate information better decisions can be made at the business level. Moreover, detailed business information helps to understand all major activities of the business and their outcomes. An appropriate report can be generated regarding the profit and loss of business. Personnel management, inventory management and other activities can be easily performed with the help of right information (Software Advice, 2018).
POS system can be integrated with the telecommunication systems for better communication and information sharing in a business organization. This is also required in Four Season garden center. Following options must be used with POS system to get better results (Toast, 2018).
Impact of Point-of-Sale System on Business Operations
POS system can be combined with different network types such as LAN, WAN and MAN. It is based on the required of the company. If POS system is required for small geographical area like only within a single organization then LAN will be a best option. Otherwise, to cover middle or wide locations with network connection, MAN and WAN network types can be used.
Both wired and wireless media technologies are available for POS system connectivity in a business company. But it would be preferred to use wireless media connection which is more reliable and easy to establish than wired connection where a bunch of wires are required for connecting different departments and systems in a company. But if a business owner wants to use wired connection for telecommunication purpose with POS system then optical fiber cable is considered best for establishing wired connections. On flip side, in case of wireless connection, there is no need to use wires because it works with wireless signals such as Wi-Fi. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi both can be used in case of wireless connectivity with POS system to achieve purpose of effective communication modes (It Still Works, 2018).
The risk of security is one of disadvantages of Point-of-Sale system. Due to centralized approach of POS system, the risk of security breaches is higher. Besides this, the risks of privacy and confidentiality are also found in POS system (corruption, risks and information, 2018).
POS system is a centralized system and many other computers are connected with it and using single database. In this case, hackers can try to hack a connected system and can access information from the main POS system without permission and knowledge of authorized users. It is done by hacking and in this process login credentials such as username and password are stolen to access POS system (Effective Database Management, 2018).
POS system of a business corporation contains enormous amount of private information in it. If this system will be hacked then that important business information will be leaked and whole privacy will be violated. This is mostly happened when crucial information like login credentials are not kept private properly by the authorized person or weak credentials are used for POS system (WhatIs.com, 2018).
The issues of confidentiality violation is also a big risk factor of POS system. It is related to breaches of data which is stored into the database of POS system. This information must not be accessible to an unauthorized person. But if an unknown user is successful to do this then it is known as damage of confidentiality of business data. Network intruders are mainly responsible for confidentiality violation of data (JUX Law Firm, 2018).
Centralized Database and its Advantages
To protect the POS system from the risks of security, privacy and confidentiality of data, some key prevention methods can be used such as cryptography, advanced anti-virus, network monitoring software to which POS system is connected and firewall.
Conclusion
To sum up, it can be said that Point-of-Sale system is really an effective and good solution for managing business operations and for maintaining business inventory. The case study of garden center clearly defines the usefulness of POS system. But it is also mandatory for this center to be aware about the security concerns of this system and must implement potential solutions to control security risk factors.
References
Harbortouchpossoftware.com. (2018). What is POS? Definition of Point of Sale (POS) Systems with Examples. [online] Available at: https://www.harbortouchpossoftware.com/what-is-pos/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Bizfluent.com. (2018). The Advantages & Disadvantages of Point of Sale System. [online] Available at: https://bizfluent.com/info-11369852-advantages-disadvantages-point-sale-system.html [Accessed 9 May 2018].
National Processing. (2018). The Key Disadvantages Of POS Systems – National Processing. [online] Available at: https://nationalprocessing.com/blog/key-disadvantages-pos-systems/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Software Advice. (2018). What Is a Point of Sale System? A Guide to POS Features. [online] Available at: https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/what-is-a-point-of-sale-system/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Corruption, P., risks, K. and information, C. (2018). Knowing your risks – Independent Commission against Corruption Website. [online] Icac.nsw.gov.au. Available at: https://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/preventing-corruption/knowing-your-risks/confidential-information/4913 [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Toast, I. (2018). What is a POS System? | Point of Sale [Definition]. [online] Toast, Inc. Available at: https://pos.toasttab.com/what-is-pos [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Effective Database Management. (2018). Why Should You Have a Centralized System?. [online] Available at: https://effectivedatabase.com/why-should-you-have-a-centralized-system/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
It Still Works. (2018). The Advantages of Centralized Database Storage. [online] Available at: https://itstillworks.com/info-8623828-advantages-centralized-database-storage.html [Accessed 9 May 2018].
WhatIs.com. (2018). What is confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA triad)? – Definition from WhatIs.com. [online] Available at: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Confidentiality-integrity-and-availability-CIA [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Chia, T. (2018). Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: The three components of the CIA Triad « Stack Exchange Security Blog. [online] Security.blogoverflow.com. Available at: https://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/08/confidentiality-integrity-availability-the-three-components-of-the-cia-triad/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
JUX Law Firm. (2018). The Top 4 Risks to Your Company’s Confidential Information. [online] Available at: https://jux.law/top-4-risks-to-your-companys-confidential-information/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Gastrofix. (2018). Network: This is how your POS System from GASTROFIX works. [online] Available at: https://www.gastrofix.com/en/pos-network/ [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Expert Market US. (2018). How To Install A Point Of Sale Machine. [online] Available at: https://www.expertmarket.com/pos/how-to-install-a-pos-system [Accessed 9 May 2018].
Compass.fhcrc.org. (2018). Advantages to Centralized Data Management. [online] Available at: https://www.compass.fhcrc.org/compass/bin/tech/centraldata.aspx [Accessed 9 May 2018
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