IT for Business: Case Study of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery

This report discusses the implementation of a POS system in Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, its advantages and disadvantages, and recommendations for telecommunication options. It also covers the advantages of having a centralized database and the facilitation of decision making by POS system.

Running head: IT FOR BUSINESS
IT for Business
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Abstract
The aim of this report is to know about the case study of Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery. They have decided to implement POS system in their business. This point of sale is
also termed as point of purchase or POP system. The typical customer relationship
management or CRM and the inventory management are considered as the main
functionalities of the point of sale system. Various details are provided for this organization
and suitable recommendations are also provided in this report.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
1. Advantages and Disadvantages of New POS System........................................................2
2. POS System in Business for Gaining Competitive Advantages........................................4
3. Advantages of Having Centralized Database.....................................................................4
4. Facilitation of Decision Making by POS System..............................................................5
5. Recommendation for Telecommunication Options for POS Systems...............................6
6. Probable Risks in POS System and the Remedies.............................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................9
Appendix..................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The system of point of sale or simply POS is solely defined as one of the specified
time as well as place, where any particular transaction can eventually occur or can be easily
and promptly completed (Lee, Lee and Won 2014). As soon as the invoice is being made, the
significant client is responsible for paying the required amount of money and even the vendor
and the trader utilizes various important machineries such as the cash registers, weighing
scale and also the barcode scanner for proper calculating and evaluating that particular
amount (Dahlstrom and Bichsel 2014). This particular report would be solely depicting the
proper description about the case study of Blooming with Technology. Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery is a Nursery in Colorado that track and control their inventories
manually. Hence, they were facing major losses; then they took the decision of implementing
POS system. This report describes various facts related to the case study.
Discussion
1. Advantages and Disadvantages of New POS System
The significant system of the point of sale system mainly comprises of the several
benefits as well as demerits. These advantages are responsible for making the system of point
of sale extremely popular and noteworthy for all the users (Cui et al. 2016). Similarly, the
disadvantages are responsible for creating some of the major issues for all the customers, who
are using this particular system. This particular case study is demonstrating about the nursery
of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The nursery would be enjoying some of the most
significant advantages after proper implementation of point of sale system. The various
important and significant advantages of the point of sale system are as follows:

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i) Higher Speed as well as Better Efficiency: Point of sale system is extremely
effective and efficient for all types of transactions for the users and could be utilized in each
and every type of business (Dahlstrom, Walker and Dziuban 2013). Moreover, the speed of
the transactions is effectively increased in this system and the respective transactional
efficiencies are enhanced.
ii) Managing the Inventories: Another important advantage of this system of point of
sale is that it helps to manage the inventories and stocks of the organization. Moreover, it is
even responsible for the significant stock replenishment within the business (Eason 2014).
iii) Accuracy within the Transactions: The third vital and significant benefit of the
system of point of sale is that it is responsible for providing perfection and accuracy within
the transactions and hence the respective data is absolutely error free.
Although, this specific system of point of sale is extremely advantageous for the
organization of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, few of the disadvantages are also
present that often create issues for the users (Yang and Hwang 2015). These disadvantages of
a point of sale system are as follows:
i) Extremely Costly: The major and the most significant disadvantage of this system
of point of sale would be that this particular system is extremely costly and thus it often
becomes an issue to afford this system (Jones 2011). Implementation and maintenance costs
of POS are quite higher than any other accounting information system.
ii) Needs Proper Maintenance: POS system needs regular and proper maintenance to
avoid any type of issues and hence the business processes are stopped during this
maintenance, which eventually brings losses to the company.

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2. POS System in Business for Gaining Competitive Advantages
The system of point of sale subsequently helps the businesses and companies for
perfectly acquiring the several significant competitive benefits within these companies
(Bloom et al. 2014). The major advantage of the POS system for Four Seasons Greenhouse
and Nursery would be that it is helpful for simplifying the entire transaction system into a
small and simple version than any other system. This type of recognition of all the details
about the respective specific business process could be easily and promptly completed by
simply undertaking a help of this POS system (Holtshouse 2013). Now, since this entire
process of transactions is much simplified, each and every employee of the Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery do not require working much more and thus the entire load of work
can be minimized to a higher level. During the previous business transactions, there is a
significant tracking and management of the total inventory register that would be eventually
completed by the manual intervention. Furthermore, as soon as the POS system is being
deployed within their business; a proper tracking as well as management of the inventory
registers are done systematically (Lloyd 2017). Hence, this organization would be gaining
various competitive advantages.
3. Advantages of Having Centralized Database
The centralized database is stated as a database that can be perfectly and properly
managed or stored in any specific location. There are two specific types of the centralized
database (Schwalbe 2015). Amongst these two, the first type would be the simply system of
data and the second type would be the centralized database. Both of these comprise of some
of the major features for storing of confidential data. The main advantages of having a
centralized database are as follows:

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i) Improving the Proper Preservation of Data: Centralized database helps in
improvising the proper preservation of the sensitive and confidential data (Laudon and
Laudon 2016). Thus, fault tolerance feature is present within this database.
ii) Cost Effectiveness: This centralized database is extremely cost effective and can be
properly utilized by all the respective users of this database.
iii) Provides Data Security: The centralized database even provides security to the
sensitive data or information and thus is being used properly.
Thus, Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery would be having some of the most
significant advantages when they will implement a centralized database within their business.
4. Facilitation of Decision Making by POS System
The respective system of the point of sale is solely responsible for facilitating the
entire process to take major and significant decisions for the business (Gallagher and
Sixsmith 2014). Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery could then easily or promptly arrange
the respective stocks and inventories. Furthermore, the accuracy of the confidential data is
also validated or verified by the implementation of a point of sale system. Previously, this
particular nursery substantially used to order the products as per the various assumptions
made by them of the customers’ needs. Then, they had to preserve the product rack
completely by manual help. Thus, they should be selecting this typical system of point of sale
for their perfect tracking as well as monitoring the products in an automated manner. Each
and every distinct service of the business would be much more effective, efficient and could
be completed with high speed (Bajdor and Grabara 2014). Moreover, the entire process of
decision making would be extremely easier and prominent for this particular nursery of Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. Hence, they must implement this particular POS system
within their business processes (See Appendix).

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5. Recommendation for Telecommunication Options for POS Systems
There are three important and imperative alternatives for the telecommunications
within the system of point of sale. These alternatives are present to gain the main purpose of
adapting the telecommunications options. These three significant options of the
telecommunications for this particular organization of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery
is local area network or LAN, the second option for them is metropolitan area network or
MAN and lastly the third and the final alternative for this Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery is the wide area network or WAN. Within these three above mentioned options of
telecommunications for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, the most appropriate
alternative for telecommunications would be wide area network or WAN. The respective
local area network would not at all be feasible for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery as
the complete area of network is extremely small. The second option that is the metropolitan
area of network would also not be feasible for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery as it
provides its network for the maximum extent to fewer buildings only. Hence, the third option
of wide area network would be the best for them as it allows network access in a large area
and the entire access of data is much easier.
The most accurate solution for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery will be the
wireless technology. One of the basic advantages of the wireless technology would be that
this particular technology does not consist of any complexity. The other prominent
advantages of the wireless technology would be that this technology is much cost effective
and also given higher speed. The most accurate example of the wireless technology would be
the Wi-Fi or the wireless fidelity connectivity.
6. Probable Risks in POS System and the Remedies
There are three important and specific features for each and every possible threat in
the typical system of point of sale. All of these features for the threats are as follows:

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i) Privacy: The several computer viruses and the malicious codes would be the most
significant threats that are solely related to the privacy (Dahlstrom and Bichsel 2014).
Implementation of various passwords and proper up gradation of those passwords are
considered as the most effective and efficient remedies for these above mentioned risks in
privacy feature.
ii) Confidentiality: The ex employees and staffs in the company should not breach
their confidential and sensitive data within the organization. The best remedy for this
particular risk would be the proper implementation of various firewalls.
iii) Security: The various hackers can easily and promptly hack the specific system
for the major purpose of data theft and data leakage (Eason 2014). The best remedy for this
particular risk would be proper up gradation of the deployed antivirus software.
Conclusion
Hence, from this above report, the conclusion can be drawn that Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery is a Nursery in Colorado that was facing some of the most
significant issues related to their business activities and processes. The diversified small and
the medium sized garden centre and business are properly attached with this particular
nursery. Since, they were managing their registers manually, several human errors were
occurring within those registers. Thus, inventory management was becoming more
problematic for the respective administrators and employees of the nursery. They were even
facing business losses to a subsequent level. Thus, they undertook the decision that they
would implement point of sale system within their business. The above report has properly
demonstrated the various advantages and disadvantages of the basic system of point of sale
for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. Several threats are identified here and a
recommendation is provided for the telecommunications of this nursery.

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References
Bajdor, P. and Grabara, I., 2014. The Role of Information System Flows in Fulfilling
Customers’ Individual Orders. Journal of Studies in Social Sciences, 7(2).
Bloom, N., Garicano, L., Sadun, R., and Van Reenen, J. 2014. The distinct effects of
information technology and communication technology on firm organization. Management
Science, 60(12), 2859-2885.
Cui, B., Jiang, J., Huang, Q., Xu, Y., Gui, Y. and Zhang, W., 2016. POS: A high-level system
to simplify real-time stream application development on storm. Data Science and
Engineering, 1(1), pp.41-50.
Dahlstrom, E., and Bichsel, J. 2014. ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information
Technology, 2014. Educause.
Dahlstrom, E., Walker, J. D., and Dziuban, C. 2013. ECAR study of undergraduate students
and information technology(p. 2013). 2013.
Eason, K. D. 2014. Information technology and organisational change. CRC Press.
Gallagher, S. and Sixsmith, A., 2014. Engaging IT undergraduates in non-IT content:
Adopting an eLearning information system in the classroom. Interactive Technology and
Smart Education, 11(2), pp.99-111.
Holtshouse, D. K. 2013. Information technology for knowledge management. Springer
Science & Business Media.
Jones, R. 2011, May. Garden Center 2.0. Today's Garden Center, 8, 14-16.

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Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Lee, H.J., Lee, Y. and Won, D., 2014. Protection Profile for PoS (Point of Sale) System.
In Mobile, Ubiquitous, and Intelligent Computing (pp. 495-500). Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg.
Lloyd, I. 2017. Information technology law. Oxford University Press.
Schwalbe, K. 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Yang, D. and Hwang, I., 2015, May. Security enhancement methods for mobile POS system.
In Mobile Software Engineering and Systems (MOBILESoft), 2015 2nd ACM International
Conference on (pp. 152-153). IEEE.

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Appendix
Case Study