Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery
Introduction
A Case study on Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery has been provided for assessing the report. In the report, the various advantages and disadvantages of the point of sale system that was installed in the mentioned organisation has been provided. To help the business in gaining competitive advantage, the methods have been evaluated and enlisted. In the report, the advantages of a central database has been emphasized. For facilitating decision making purposes by the POS system, different criteria has been assessed. The report discusses about the ways that POS systems use to process the business processes effectively and how it can manually track data. Proper telecommunication options has been provided for the new implemented technology. Different networks has been discussed and the wireless and wired technologies has been assessed. The risks associated with the new system has been evaluated in the report.
Pros and Cons of the new POS System
A POS system can provide any organisation like Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery with a number of benefits as well as drawbacks. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the mentioned organisation are written as follows:-
The accounting process of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can be improved with the new POS system. Previously, the accountant of the mentioned organisation had to go through thousands of receipts which was not only time-consuming but also inefficient. The new POS system will allow Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to utilize the inbuilt reporting system that will be able to organize the various departments of organization (Frisby et al. 2013).
The new POS system will allow the mentioned organisation to expand their management control over the schedules of employees to allocate and review their salaries to different functions and departments. It will allow better accountability functions and provide the owner with the power to provide more access controls to their subordinates (Rese, Schreiber and Baier 2014). They can now ask their personnel to provide the next goal of their sales for the next year with the help of the data analytics of the new POS system.
The new POS system will allow Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to have a proper infrastructure for reporting and processing the business operations of the mentioned organisation.
Pros and Cons of the new POS System
Figure 1: POS system homescreen
(Source: Rese, Schreiber and Baier 2014)
The new POS system will allow the organisation to have a centralized system but the benefit has its own set of disadvantages. Cyber-attacks on the system is possible if the inventories are not set up in their latest inventory list. The centralized system can although provide the prospective organisation can keeping the personal information of customers and employees safe if the proper security measures are taken into account (Profeta, Balling and Roosen 2013).
POS System for gaining competitive advantage
The point of sale system can be used for number of reason in a prospective organisation like Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The organisation can gain competitive advantage with the new technology in the following ways.
Point of sales system are often cheaper, easier and faster to install than other alternatives present in the current market. The deployment of the new system is often simple and allows the organisation to retain its business process during the installation phase. The system can provide the organisation with competitive analysis by allowing it to save on money and human errors in the long term. The customers can save on tie as well as the transaction efficiency increases due to the peripheral bar code scanner present in the system. Moreover, the installation of a web based POS system is negligible almost. As the installation is managed by a third party, the mentioned company will not have to invest on extra costs to use the system efficiently. The owners have to pay the entire cost of the system upfront without the need to worry about later additional costs like technical support charges, maintenance and software updates. It will allow the prospective company to manage and track the inventories properly in real time and can allow the company to assess how much inventory is left and how quickly they need to dispose the stock to achieve the monthly target (Nikolova and Inman 2015). By generating reports, it allows the company to reduce their paper works and become efficient in the way providing the company with a competitive benefit. The volume of the stock and the daily transaction report could be produced accurately with the new system. It will allow the company to provide better CRM services.
POS System for Gaining Competitive Advantage
Advantages of a centralised database
The advantages of a central database are provided in the next section.
The centralized database in Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery will help the organisation to gain more security of data as the system will be accessed by a handful of people. Extracting information from a single centralized database is more secure than collecting the information from a number of databases.
The data from a centralized data base will help the mentioned comay in properly handling the data handling and storing processes
The centralized database will help the company to properly handle data preservation. Most often system s crumble when it goes through a hardware failure. The absence of a fault tolerant system is the main reason for the loss of valuable information (Polasik et al. 2013). In centralized storage systems, the data is stored in a setup that is fault tolerant and provides a redundant storage. The data in the centralised database remains secure even in the case of a disaster or catastrophic failure.
Most of the organisations maintain a huge number of personal information of employees and consumers whose security is a major concern for every organisation (Gomzin 2014). The centralised data base can be linked with password protection, firewalls and encrypted VPNs to provide enhanced security.
Figure 2: POS system by Quickbooks
(Source: Rese, Schreiber and Baier 2014)
With the centralised database, the reliability on data increases considerably. The redundancy and use of high quality components, the data becomes much moe reliable thn storing it in a physical drive. It provides the company with advanced featires like comprehensive data acess and virtualization
Morever, the centralized system updates reaches all the end users unlike a loca strage update which only applies to the PC being used on.
Advantages of a centralized database
POS System and Decision making
Successful integration of POS system with the mentioned organisation will allow it to create reports and analysis mechanism of the services that they are providing. This will allow the business to make decisions in an effective way which will benefit all the departments of the mentioned organisation. The POS systems are simple, quick and easy to install. A proper installation of the POS system will allow the organisation to streamline their business processes and free up the time of the additional members to coordinate them effectively.
Figure 3: POS system
(Source: Gomzin 2014)
The POS system will allow the company to reach the targeted sales figure with real time analysis. Proper POS systems can prove benefit to the company by providing information about what the customers are wanting and a proper market analysis. A central database needs to be present in the POS system to take continuous feedback. The new system will provide the organization with netter decision making capabilities that will enable it to settle for better business prospects. It can enhance the inventory system management. Proper monitoring system and inventory information is analysed by the POS system to analyse the business environment in real time.
Risks
Figure 4: POS system handled by a user
(Source: Rese, Schreiber and Baier 2014)
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery should be aware that in the modern digital era nothing is secure from the hands of cyber criminals. Spoof software and trackers can be implanted in the system to extract customer information and credit card details. The devices may not be secure enough with the one verification password. The system needs to be have an inherent security measures or lese it can fall prey to phishing attacks. Devices which do not have the latest system updates are more vulnerable to the threats. Credit card skimming is another risk that is related to this technology.
Recommendation
A number of recommendations and information related to communication technology has been mentioned for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery in the following section:-.
- LAN is referred to the network of computers that spreads across a small area. It is normally present in a group of buildings or a single room. The different LAN systems are interconnected with radio waves or telephone lines. They are normally used to connect personal computers and workstations. Every individual nodes that are present in the LAN have its own central processing unit that it can use to run certain programs (Ståhlberg and Maila 2013). But it can also access information from any devices that is connected within the LAN network. Users of this network are able to engage in chat sessions or send emails.
Figure 5: Internet
(Source: Ståhlberg and Maila 2013)
- WAN is also known as wide area network and connects a bunch of LANs. The only difference between both of them is the size of the geographical area that it covers. Normally it covers more than two LAN network and are linked through public networks.
- MAN is also known as Metropolitan area network and is more or less similar to local area networks. The only difference is that it spans across an entire campus or a city. MAN network are smaller than WAN but larger than LAN. Normally they are formed by connecting a bunch of LANs.
Wireless as well as wired technologies can be implemented in Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery as well. A Wired communication medium is used in wired networks whereas a wireless networks use remote communication systems to facilitate information between various devices.
Figure 6: Wireless technology
(Source: Ståhlberg and Maila 2013)
Conclusion
To conclude the report, it can be stated that imposed new point of sale system in the mentioned company will help it to make better decisions in the future. The integration of the nw system will allow the company to streamline its inventory and analyse customer information efficiently. For proper decision making purposes by the POS system, different criteria has been assessed. The report analyses about the methods that POS systems utilize to process the business processes properly and how it can manually track data. The new technology comes with its own share of risks and flaws too. But with proper recommendation it will be able to counter those disadvantages and make its business process more efficient.References
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