Advantages and Disadvantages of Point of Sale System for Businesses

This report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of point of sale system for businesses, including gaining competitive advantage, decision making, and effective tracking of information. It also covers the benefits of using centralized database and the risks associated with the system.

IT for business

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Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Advantages and Disadvantages.............................................................................................................2
POS system helps in gaining competitive advantage.............................................................................3
Benefits of using centralized database...................................................................................................3
Decision making using point of sale system..........................................................................................3
Point of sale process business effectively..........................................................................................3
Tracking information through PoS is better than manual methods........................................................3
Type of questions that could be answered.............................................................................................4
Data collected via Pos system................................................................................................................4
Telecommunication option in POS........................................................................................................4
Type of network....................................................................................................................................4
Type of media........................................................................................................................................4
Risk associated with point of sale system..............................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The limelight of this report is based on the case study of Bloomberg. The focus on
this report will be done on point of sale and its advantages and disadvantages has been
analysed. The benefits of using POs help in gaining competitive advantage. It also helps in
making the business work effectively. Apart from that there are various telecommunication
media and type of media is available that can be selected on the size of business.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Point of sale is an arrangement of software’s and hardware’s that is used for making
the business operations work effectively. It takes care of all the transactions that happen in a
business (Edwards, Skoog, Babu & Dorogusker, 2016). It has replaced the old traditional
methods that required lot of human efforts. There are various advantages and disadvantages
offered by point of sale system.
Advantage
Point of sale system helps in storing the information of all the instant transactions related to
sale in the system. They allow companies to store their data packets in less space and also
provide ways to store distribute and keep track of all the transactions. Point of sale helps in
evaluating many important transactions that take place in a business (Dorsey, Henderson,
Grassadonia, McKelvey & Wen, 2017). The information analysed helps in assisting the sales
of product. Point of sale help is a flexible approach as they provide automatic generated
reports and removes the human efforts. The history of sale can be gathered to manage the
present transactions. The deployment of system is easy and it also resolves the issue of data
replication. The sale is monitored regularly thus also enhance the relation among customers.
The maintenance and labour cost is very low as all the operations are completed
automatically. It has made the working of businesses easy by making all the work automatic
Disadvantages
It makes the business completely dependent on the system, so in case of failure of the system
it might be huge loss to the business. It requires regular update otherwise it might lead to
security issues. Some of the organisation work on web based point of sale system but it
requires an internet connection to stay connected to the system. The customers might not
access to the system if they do not have an internet connection. At time of hardware failure it
requires at IT expert (Cunningham, et. al, 2015). The input and sale of a business increases
day by day thus it is necessary to keep a backup and update the system on regular basis. The
point of sale system also suffers from chances of hacking as well as leakage of information.
Sometimes the information is transferred to the invalid users (Cunningham, et. al, 2015).

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POS system helps in gaining competitive advantage
There are many benefits of using point of sale system which help in gaining competitive
advantages. The information gathered through this system also helps in making correct
decisions. This gives assistance to achieve competitive advantage in the market. It works by
analysing all the products in an organisation then finding out the actual profit related to each
product so that decisions could be made accordingly (Meagher, 2014). Thus a business using
point of sale system enhances the profit by analysing the operation and expanding the
services in the global market.
Benefits of using centralized database
Centralized database offers various benefits to every organisation. They are beneficial for
small businesses also. They provide easy ease to information and it is flexible to maintain and
manage the data as so the information is stored at single location. The integration of
information is very high as data is not repeated at multiple places that cause an issue of data
redundancy. There are chances of fewer attacks as the data is stored at single server. The
timeframe is another advantage of centralised database which helps in analysing the data in a
proper manner. Management of centralised database is also easy as only single server need to
be checked (Meagher, 2014). It is also easy at time of updating the data as changes need to be
made at single location rather than at multiple places. It helps in achieving goals for a
business as it keeps all the information secured from unauthorised users.
Decision making using point of sale system
Managing the information helps in making decisions by considering all the transactions. It
focuses on all the transactions and work on a data driven approach to make decisions
(Kassem, Dawood & Chavada, 2015). It helps in analysing the system in a transparent
manner so that decisions are made in order to improve the overall sale.
Point of sale process business effectively
PoS have made businesses work effectively by providing larger target market increasing the
revenue margins. The analysis of data helps in deciding what plans need to be designed like
offering discounts and benefits. The data collected help in taking actions related to the back
office as well as customer’s benefits (Hall, Londero & Schlee, 2015). It also helps in
achieving competitive advantage by making précised decision. The tracking of information is
easy through PoS system and also makes effective promotions to gather more audience. It
helps in analysing the stock so that orders could be made accordingly. Rather than using point
of sale system if manual method would be used it will require lot of time and efforts.
Tracking information through PoS is better than manual methods
In present scenario manual methods are not recommended in business as it requires lot of
time and efforts (Hall, Londero & Schlee, 2015). Manual method is replaced by Pos system
as they complete all the operations automatic and reduces the chance of taking wrong
decisions. Point of sale system analyses the data in an effective manner and also reduces the

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additional efforts that are required by humans. Apart from the manual method is slow which
in turn POS system is fast.
Type of questions that could be answered
There are varieties of questions that could be resolved by using point of sale system. It
resolves the query of businessman regarding which product stock should be increased and
what marketing strategies need to be adopted to increase the sale. It also helps in dealing with
the customer queries so that decisions could be made accordingly (Andratschke, Alheid,
Allgäuer, Becker, Blanck, Boda & Guckenberger, 2016).
Data collected via Pos system
Point of sale system helps in collecting information so that decisions could be made accurate.
The data related to the entire sale and transactions are gathered. It also provides information
related to products and services that are offering better profit margins. This helps in making
proper changes in the strategies (Lopez, Kéfélian, Jiang, Haboucha, Bercy, Stefani &
Chardonnet, 2015).
Telecommunication option in POS
As seen in the case study of green house and nursing there are various telecommunications
available (Robba, Zammarchi & Grasso, 2018). The choice of selecting the best
telecommunication media depend upon the type and size of business.
Type of network
There are various options available like LAN, MAN and WAN. In point of sale system local
area network is considered as a best choice. The reason for using LAN is its speed and size of
the company (Bercy, Stefani, Lopez, Chardonnet, Pottie & Amy-Klein, 2014). It is basically
used for those organisations that are smaller in size. It is beneficial for small business as they
have low financial sources and emphasis on making optimized use of all the resources.
Type of media
The telecommunication media could be either wireless or wired technology. The wired
technology is difficult to be implemented as it requires cable connections. On the other hand
wireless connection has higher cost but it has high speed (Bercy, Stefani, Lopez, Chardonnet,
Pottie & Amy-Klein, 2014). It is difficult to maintain wired connections but it is more secure
as compared to wireless network.
Risk associated with point of sale system
There are different types of risk associated with point of sale system but there are many ways
that could be undertaken to secure the system (Teyeb, Raaf & Zhou, 2014). The type of risk
can be related to security, privacy and confidentiality of system.

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Security- As the information is increasing day by day thus PoS platform is used to store large
amount of data. Thus it is necessary to safeguard the information so that there are no chances
of information being hacked.
Privacy- Most of the organisation is dependent on Pos system for their sensitive data thus it
is necessary that proper access control is granted. So, that lack of privacy does not impact the
goodwill of an organisation.
Confidentiality- The confidentiality can impact the performance of an organisation. There is
huge number of sensitive data that is stored on the system thus proper encryption technique
and access control is provided.

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Conclusion
It can be concluded from this report that point of sale is important for businesses; in
this report advantages and disadvantages of PoS system has been discussed. The benefits of
centralised database have also been discussed. Additionally the telecommunication media
that could be used has been discussed. There are various kind of risk associated with the
system in term of security, privacy and confidentiality.

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References
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Bercy, A., Stefani, F., Lopez, O., Chardonnet, C., Pottie, P. E., & Amy-Klein, A. (2014).
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Application No. 15/599,826.
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Lopez, O., Kéfélian, F., Jiang, H., Haboucha, A., Bercy, A., Stefani, F., ... & Chardonnet, C.
(2015). Frequency and time transfer for metrology and beyond using
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Meagher, M. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,822,848. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
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Robba, M., Zammarchi, C., & Grasso, G. (2018). U.S. Patent No. 9,894,044. Washington,
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Teyeb, O., Raaf, B., & Zhou, W. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,675,604. Washington, DC: U.S.
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