Advantages and Disadvantages of the new POS system
Discuss about the important for businesses to adopt the technological changes.
With the advancement in technology, it has become important for businesses to adopt the technological changes and move along with the momentum. One such example of this technological ramification is Point-of-sale (POS) system. The implementation of such system has made the business process more efficient and is highly beneficial for the firms to keep track of its inventory (Aurigi, 2016). The overall profit of a company can be tracked and improved using this system. While having several advantages of such system, there are also some setbacks which makes it difficult for the business firms to completely rely on such systems. The report will discuss the POS system from different perspectives.
Advantages:
- Important and crucial data can be tracked using this system at the time when a product is being sold which will help the owners to keep track of such data for their business purposes
- The data collected through this POS system helps in updating the inventory list and also compiles the sales history of a product (Tukker, 2015).
- Inputting the important data, storage of data, keeping track of useful information and several other robust functionalities are associated with this system
- Provides accuracy of maintaining the inventory data which helps in an efficient decision making (Ingram et al., 2015).
- Accurate prediction of inventory units can be made using this system which helps the businesses to operate on a leaner inventory unit.
- The system is also helpful for the owners as they can run reports which help them to analyze which product is more profitable and which is less.
Disadvantages:
- The whole setup of POS is much costlier than the traditional cash registers.
- There is a chance that the system might get affected by a POS malware which would certainly result in loss of data.
- A proper ISP connection is needed so that there is no interruption in the normal process.
It is evident that firms which have moved into such system have been able to gain a competitive advantage as this system has several benefits associated with them. POS systems help in a critical decision making which is very important for a business as the data provided using this system is very accurate. Using POS, owners can focus on the product which is more profitable and more in demand rather than giving equal importance to all the products. A proper analysis of the reports helps in managing the inventory units, flagging a product when to reorder and to read the sales pattern of a product (Pantano, Priporas and Dennis, 2018).
When businesses grow, the volume of data collected internally and externally also increases which demand an implementation of the centralized database system. There are several advantages of having a centralized database which are:
- The data preservation is improved which keeps the data safe even after suffering from a major failure of hardware (Bommireddipalli et al., 2017).
- Having a centralized database maintains the data security as it limits the risk to a single place rather than keeping the data at multiple places where every location should be monitored.
- It is more economical as having a centralized database reduces the space required for the data storage and all data is kept at a single place
- It is more reliable as it reduce the data redundancy and an update in the database can be accessed by all its users securely (Ben-Shachar et al., 2014).
POS system provides the overview of a large volume of data which is collected throughout the process of business. By a proper analysis of the data, an effective decision can be taken so as to when and where there is a margin of profit in a business.
POS systems help in processing the business activities more effectively as a proper decision can be made on how many units of inventory should be needed and accurate prediction can be made on the volume of inventory which eliminates the scope of extra units. The data generated at the time of sale can be used to manage the inventory and take prompt action whether the reorder should be placed or not.
This technology provides a precise result of data which helps in tracking the exact inventory needed for a product. The data can be tracked manually too but the reliability can’t be assured as it might provide you some misinterpreted data whereas on the other hand POS system helps us with the real -time data which is more reliable and accurate (Hansen and Sia, 2015).
Gaining competitive advantage using POS
Using the POS system, accurate data of inventory can be obtained. It provides a detailed transaction history of a product and also helps in analyzing the profitable product out of the all. It helps in keeping track of the product which is actually generating profits for the business and to minimize the efforts involved in managing a redundant product (Amundsen et al., 2014).
With the help of all these data, the business owners can take a customized marketing decision and analyze the sales history of a product which would help them to focus more on the product which is generating more profit rather than the others. To gain a competitive advantage over the others, proper analysis of this data is must which will help them to find out the gaps to fill in (Stair and Reynolds, 2017).
The selection of appropriate telecommunication option must be done according to the type of business and its process. For Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, there are several options available which is related to the type of network to implement, the type of media to use, whether wired technology is suitable or wireless would be effective ( Kim and Kwak, 2015).
Among the three options available LAN could be the best suitable network. As Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small business which is spread across a limited area so the network requirement is very small. A local area network (LAN) would be suitable for such business as it provides a high speed connectivity and is more economical than rest of the types.
For a firm cited in the case, wired connectivity would be suitable because it is faster as compared to wireless. Also in case of wireless, there are more security concerns because sometimes bandwidth and the information both can be accessed. Moreover, switching to wireless technology is much more expensive and can be difficult to implement.
An Ethernet cable is a twisted pair cable which would be suitable for wired technology due to its speed and security. There are also several wireless technology available like satellite communication, radio communication, mobile communication, Wi-Fi communication etc. Out of these, Wi-Fi communication is most suitable if someone is looking for implementing a wireless technology (Hansen and Sia, 2015).
Where technology brings several advantages for a business, still there are several loopholes that are associated with it. POS system also possess several risks in business which is concerned with security, privacy and confidentiality but there are various ways that can be implemented for protection against these.
- Security: The security of POS becomes an issue as there is a hefty amount of data that is being transferred in the database every hour. So to protect this data the company should ensure that the security is not compromised at all. To ensure the data security, a biometric authentication or a strict data security protocol should be implemented (Jovcic et al., 2015).
- Privacy: The data which is being stored is of utmost importance for a company. It should be ensured that privacy is not breached and the data doesn’t fall into the hands of an unauthorized person as it may result in mishandling of data. Unnecessary information should not be shared and should be limited to the rightful person only so that privacy invasion can be stopped and privacy can be maintained.
- Confidentiality: It should be ensured that the data of a particular person is not divulged to any third party who doesn’t have the proper rights for that. A secure server and firewall would help in maintaining the confidentiality to the strictest of limits. It would help in ensuring that critical information like the credit card and debit card details are not exposed to an unknown entity and are secured.
Conclusion
It is evident that POS systems have a handful of advantage at its disposal but the loopholes also are major setbacks for this technology. For a business process to operate effectively and to gain a competitive advantage it is must for a business owner to adopt this technology. It would help in a better decision making for the entire business process. With upcoming ramification in the technology, it is sure that these POS systems will be more reliable and secure in coming days which can be used for better predictive decision making so that the area with more improvement can be focused on.
References
Amundsen, T., Kearney, S.P., Edmonds, S.M., Wang, Y.P., Good, T., Miraglia, M., Cunningham IV, C.J., Zhu, X. and Giordano, P.A., Metologic Insturments, Inc., 2014. Method of and system for detecting produce weighing interferences in a POS-based checkout/scale system. U.S. Patent 8,794,525.
Aurigi, A., 2016. Making the digital city: the early shaping of urban internet space. Routledge.
Ben-Shachar, I., Erdogan, E.S., London, K.S. and Parsons, J.E., Microsoft Corp, 2014. Centralized publishing of network resources. U.S. Patent 8,683,062.
Bommireddipalli, V.R., Brodsky, S.A., Chang, D.W., Dawra, A., Horman, R.W., Leung, T.K. and Ostler, P.A., International Business Machines Corp, 2017. Method and system for centralized control of database applications. U.S. Patent 9,679,017.
Hansen, R. and Sia, S.K., 2015. Hummel’s Digital Transformation Toward Omnichannel Retailing: Key Lessons Learned. MIS Quarterly Executive, 14(2).
Harris, D.N., Harris Intellectual Property LP, 2017. System and method for tracking purchases. U.S. Patent 9,721,286.
Ingram, T.N., LaForge, R.W., Williams, M.R. and Schwepker Jr, C.H., 2015. Sales management: Analysis and decision making. Routledge.
Jovcic, D., Taherbaneh, M., Taisne, J.P. and Nguefeu, S., 2015. Offshore dc grids as an interconnection of radial systems: Protection and control aspects. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 6(2), pp.903-910.
Kim, J.G. and Kwak, Y.H., BIXOLON CO Ltd, 2015. POS terminal and POS system using mobile terminal. U.S. Patent 8,949,144.
Pantano, E., Priporas, C.V. and Dennis, C., 2018. A new approach to retailing for successful competition in the new smart scenario. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 46(3), pp.264-282.
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2017. Fundamentals of information systems. Cengage Learning.
Tukker, A., 2015. Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy–a review. Journal of cleaner production, 97, pp.76-91
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