POS system-Advantages/Disadvantages
Dsicuss about the Security and privacy issues in wireless sensor networks.
With the emergence of technology, the use of information technology has increased in every industry and business. Even the small businesses can realize the positive effects with the help of technology (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). Use of information technology is a necessary need in large organizations as without the use of Information communication devices, management of all the business process within the organization becomes challenge. Small businesses may not have the resources and expertise of large organizations to implement proper information technology strategies. Similar is the case of Four Seasons Greenhouse Nursery that is located in Colorado. Four Seasons is a small nursery that used manual registers in order to track and maintain the inventory. This manual record is further used to calculate which product will realize more profit. Due to this, the profits of the nursery were quite negligible or it would run on loss. These led to the adoption of a new point of sale system or POS in the year 2008. The use of POS considerably helped the organization in obtaining the robust functionality of managing the different operational processes of the nursery. The report gives an idea of the advantages and the disadvantages of the new POS system and the process by which this new system helps the organization in gaining the competitive advantage (Peppard and Ward 2016). The report further gives an idea of the different security risks associated with POS that are needed to be addressed. The following paragraphs evaluate the business operation of the new point of sales system.
In order to integrate and efficiently manage the different business process of the organization, the Four Seasons nursery adopted POS system to automate the different business processes of the nursery, which includes inventory management, record keeping, data input, data distribution and tracking. There are several advantages of using the POS system in Four seasons nursery which are as follows (Stadtler 2015)-
There is no need of the Four Seasons nursery to maintain manual registers, which was originally prone to human errors resulting in incorrect data entry. The erroneous data about the inventory sales and the profitable product was the main reason of the nursery running on a negligible profit and even loss (refer to appendix). The review reports of the new POS system proved that certain products were less profitable than they thought them to be (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The automated process of calculating the real cost of the products helped the profit margin to shoot up for the nursery.
The Competitive Advantage with POS
The new system provided a robust functionality in tracking the inventory sales, data input and distribution of the data. The detailed knowledge about the different vital process of the nursery helped in easier management of the same. The accurate information provided by the POS helped in proper decision making (Lallo 2012). The implementation of the new POS system proved that the owners did not have a proper knowledge about their business as they thought to have. The detailed cost reporting of the inventory items further helped them to understand which product in the nursery contributed to a maximum profit (Stair and Reynolds 2013).
The detailed knowledge about the profitability of the product helped the nursery in proper pricing of their products thus ensuring that the loss is negligible and the profits are higher.
The new system further helped in controlling the employee schedule in a proper manner. The management control over the employee schedules helped in proper review and allocation of the labour expenses in specific departments and functions. This furthermore helped the owners to delegate additional responsibility to the staffs and establish accountability (refer to appendix).
With the numerous advantages of using the new point of sales system, there are a number of disadvantages as well, which are as follows-
The implementation cost of the new point of sale system is higher and considering Four Seasons to be a small enterprise, the cost is high. Therefore, the initial investment is high and the maintenance cost is high as well.
With the automation of the business process, there are certain associated security risks associated with the private and confidential data of the organization.
The employees of the nursery are used to manual data keeping and therefore, it is necessary for the organization to provide proper training to the employees.
The implementation of new POS system not only helped the organization in improving their profit margins, it helps the organization in gaining competitive advantage as well. The competitive advantages that new POS system offers to Four Seasons are as follows-
The new POS system helps in integrating all the vital operations of the organization. Proper knowledge about the vital business processes helps in better management as well giving the organization a competitive advantage in business.
Since the new system helps in better identification of the products that will yield a larger profit, the price of such products were modified. The higher profit margin of the organization helped in gaining a competitive advantage in the market.
Centralized Database and its Advantages
Employees are a vital part of an organization. The POS system helped in better management of the employee schedule thus giving the organization a competitive advantage.
The new POS system of the Four Seasons nursery consists of a centralized database. The advantages of maintain a centralized database are as follows (Hall 2012)-
- The centralized database of a system has considerably lesser security risk in comparison to a decentralized database as it enforces a strong control and data monitoring.
- The operational efficiency of the stored data increases as well since the data of the organization can be managed or stored centrally (Coronel and Morris 2016). This maintains the consistency and the integrity of the stored data.
- The cost of data storage is considerably less in centralized database in comparison to a decentralized database as the data management cost is considerably reduced as well.
- The speed of data processing is high in a centralized database.
The above discussed points are the significant advantages of using a centralized database system.
The use of new point of sales system has considerably helped the Four Seasons nursery in managing the different business operations of the organization. The automatic reports generated by the POS system have helped the management of the organization in better decision making. The new system helps in managing the business activities more effectively as the important information can be tracked in an effective manner. The new POS system helps in proper management of all the vital business operations of the organization.
The business activities are effectively managed with the help of new POS system as it accurately manages the different business activities. The accurate estimation of the different business needs helps in proper decision making.
Manual tracking of the vital information is a troublesome work as it is prone to human errors (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The use of the new POS system eliminates the need of manual record keeping. The automatic report generation and record keeping is helping the organization in proper decision making.
The new POS system effectively answers certain vital questions associated with the business, which is associated with the different inventory items such as number of goods purchased, sold or discarded (Diallo et al. 2014). This helps in proper decision making associated with the inventory management.
The information that is provided by the new POS system helps in easier management of all the business processes within the organization. This includes review of the labour expenses and the employees’ schedule which is used to properly establish their responsibilities within the organization.
These above discussed points are the different processes by which the new point of sales system helps in effective management of the business activities of Four Seasons nursery.
The new POS system should have a suitable telecommunication system that will facilitate the information flow within the organization. The organization has to choose from LAN, WAN or MAN network as a suitable network for their telecommunication system. For choosing the appropriate network, it is essential to understand the business process of all the three networks. The Local area network or LAN is used to interconnect the different digital devices that are present within a particular area. Wide area network on the other hand interconnects all the digital devices that are present in a particular geographical area (Wang et al. 2014). The metropolitan Area Network is able to connect the digital devices of a large geographical area.
POS in facilitating decision-making
Since Four Seasons nursery is a small sized enterprise, it recommended using LAN as the backbone network of POS. The cost of implementation is low as well and the organization does not need to make use of WAN or MAN that is associated with a larger geographical area.
LAN being the backbone of the new POS system that is implemented in Four Seasons nursery, it is recommended for the organization to make use of wired technology (Ghosh et al. 2014). The wireless technology is easy to operate and access. It furthermore reduces the need and cost of implementation of wired network in the organization. However, the security risk is higher in wireless network and therefore it is essential to address the security risks of wireless network as well. Since the organization is a small sized enterprise, WI-FI communication and infrared communication is recommended for Four Seasons nursery (Lu et al. 2015). This is the suggested wireless technology that the Four Seasons can make use to.
Along with the numerous advantages, the POS system gives rise to the different security risks as well. These security risks are needed to be addressed so that the confidentiality of the stored information is maintained. The storage of the inventory data of the POS system is prone to certain cyber security attacks that are needed to be addressed (Barakah and Ammad-uddin 2012). The cyber security issues results in certain privacy risks as well. In order to maintain the confidentiality of the data, it is essential protect the data privacy as well (Moreno-Vozmediano, Montero and Llorente 2013). The confidentiality and the security risks mainly arise because the data stored in the POS system can be accessed by a number of employees of the organization. It is therefore essential to eliminate the data security risk associated with the use of the POS in order to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of the stored data (Al Ameen, Liu and Kwak 2012). This can be achieved by access control that will limit the use of the data only to the authorized members or employees of the organization. Furthermore, the enforcement of authorization levels will define which employees are allowed to access how much data.
Conclusion
The report gives an overview of the new point of sales system that is implemented in Four Seasons nursery. The manual record keeping process that was followed in Four Seasons resulted in severe human errors and the loss for the organization. The nursery was in need of a technology bloom that was provided by the point of sales system. The report discusses the advantages and the disadvantages of the new POS system. The advantage is that, it automates the vital business process of the organization while the disadvantage is that, the cost of implementation and maintenance of such system is very high. The report further discusses the advantages of a centralized database and the security risks associated with the use of the new point of sales system. The use of POS has provided the Four Seasons nursery with a number of competitive advantages that are discussed in the report. The report generated by the new POS system helps in easier management of the inventory sales and data input.
- In order to maximize the benefits of implementation of the POS system, it is recommended that the organization thoroughly research the need of POS in its business.
- It is very essential to address the security risk in order to secure the confidential data stored in the system.
- For securing the data access it is essential to enforce access control and authorization levels.
References
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