Information Technology for Business: Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery Case Study

RUNNING HEAD: Information technology for business 0
Four Seasons Greenhouse and nursery
Information technology for business

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Contents
Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system............................................................2
POS system in gaining business competitive advantages..........................................................2
Advantages of having a centralised database.............................................................................3
POS system in decision making process....................................................................................4
Telecommunication options for this POS system......................................................................5
Types of risks bring by the POS system....................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is located in Colorado. It was a small nursery and used
manual registers to track and maintain inventory. The profits arising was either negligible or loss.
The company needed to do something to effectively manage it’s business operations. The company
started using point of sale (POS) system in 2008 to eliminate need of tracking sales manually. The
system helped company to track important business data from the sales transactions. In this report
advantages and disadvantages of new POS system have been explained. The role of POS in gaining
competitive advantage has been discussed. Further advantages of having a centralised database and
role of POS in decision making have been discussed. Finally the telecommunication options and risks
associated with POS system are discussed to make effective use of POS.
Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system
Advantages of the new POS system
Track useful business data: The POS system allowed owners of Four Seasons Green House
and Nursery to track useful business data from the sales transactions at the time of sale. It
eliminates the need of tracking sales manually (Luftman, Lyytinen & ben Zvi, 2017).
Updates inventory and gathers sales history: The POS system processes and stores data of
sales transactions. It updates inventory and gathers sales history. The nursery can easily
maintain inventory on daily basis.
Eliminates reliance on manual transactions: The company used to track sales and maintains
inventory manually in registers. The introduction of POS in 2008 allowed company to track
important business data immediately at the time of sale (Killian, et. al. 2014). It eliminated
reliance on the manual transactions.
Strong functionality: POS provides more strong functionality in inputting, allocating and
tracking data. It provides useful tricks to operate and manage business.
Disadvantages of the new POS system
Updates: The company need to update versions of POS system from the manufacture of
software company. The updates result in increasing costs. The company need to invest in
hardware as well.
Security risks: The customers who use debit card at POS indulge in the risk of sharing pin to
other customers. Mostly systems do not undertake the measure to hide keypad.

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Connection reliability: A consistent internet connection is required to maintain a POS system.
It is web based. If there is internet outage then there will be no access to POS
(Aleksandrovna, Fedorovich & Viktorovna, 2016).
POS system in gaining business competitive advantages
POS system helps business to generate an excellent return on investment by faster
technology.
Standardization: POS system leads to standardisation as it eliminates the guess work like how
much to order. It has helped company to gain competitive advantage by standardization of
activities. Standardization leads to efficient working of company.
Appropriate decision making: POS system helps in appropriate decision making by not
getting confuse for prices. The waterproof and UV resistant barcodes helps to scan prices of
inventory. Appropriate decision making of company enables maximum shopping experience
(Cabrerizo, et. al. 2015).
Expansion of control over employees: The system keeps control on employee schedules by
reviewing and allocating labour expenses for the specific departments. It also delegates more
responsibility to employees to establish accountability.
Strong Omni channel strategy: Incorporating POS with ecommerce enables cross channel
customer experience. It has helped company to recognise customers across all touch points. It
eliminated the need to install expensive technology in nursery.
Eliminates data loss:
Four Seasons used to keep track of sales annually in register before introducing POS system.
In this scene losing register meant losing data. The POS system convinces people to use
Dropbox or iCloud. The system manages data electronically and updates inventory. It has
changed the way company used to operate. Availability of data up to date helps in gaining
competitive advantage (Brown & Manarky, 2014).
Real time visibility: Four Seasons is having data to support it’s business decisions which
leads to competitive advantage. It gives the ability to company to see availability of stock.
Such ability provides more operational efficiency and the time used to find stock.