Advantages and Disadvantages of POS System for Small Business

This report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of POS system for small businesses like Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. It also explores ways to gain competitive advantage, advantages of focusing on the centralized database, process in which POS facilitates the overall process of decision making, telecommunication options for POS system, and risks related to POS system. The report emphasizes on the importance of information technology for small businesses.

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Executive summary
The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small company which is situated in Colorado.
The company takes into consideration manual registers so that it can be simple to maintain the
inventory and also to earn profits. They focused on the information system so that it can be easy
to manage the activities. In this report the discussion will be related to POS in which pro and
cons will also be elaborated.
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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Advantages and disadvantages........................................................................................................1
Advantages...................................................................................................................................1
Disadvantages..............................................................................................................................2
Ways that can help business to gain competitive advantage with the help of POS.........................2
Advantages of focusing on the centralized database.......................................................................3
Process in which POS facilitates the overall process of decision making...................................3
Telecommunication options for POS system..................................................................................3
LAN.............................................................................................................................................3
WAN............................................................................................................................................3
MAN............................................................................................................................................4
Wired media.................................................................................................................................4
Wireless media.............................................................................................................................4
Risks related with POS System.......................................................................................................4
Security........................................................................................................................................4
Privacy.........................................................................................................................................4
Confidentiality.............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6
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Introduction
It has been examined that every business needs to focus on informational technology so that
business activities can be managed effectively. The small business can take into consideration
the advantages of POS system and in this report the discussion will be made of the small unit. In
Colorado the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is situated.
It has been seen that company is using the manual registers so that it can be simple to manage
the operations of the company. They are also focusing on considering the information system so
that their business operations can be enhanced and also POS system is the best way that can help
to consider various advantages. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can take assistance
from POS and can easily track the inventory and also the overall customer base.
In this report, the emphasis will be given on the information system usage in the nursery. There
are also many advantages and disadvantages that will also be discussed. Also the concept of
centralized database will be discussed in this report.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
One of the advantages is related with improved efficiency in which POS system can easily
record the overall cost of inventory and the workers of the company do not want to calculate the
overall financial information on the manual basis. The next is related with stock management in
which POS can assist to analyze the current availability of the stock. The information will be
given into the database which is based on the digital platform. In this the workers can easily enter
the information and can access the information (Chockalingam et al., 2016).
Accurate reports is also considered as the advantage in which it can be simple to search the
actual sales related to the seasonal variations according the requirement of the stock. POS can
also help the company to have proper behavior analysis of the employees and also they submit
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the sales goals for the coming reporting session. It has been seen that POS can assist to focus on
the entire documents of the company.
Disadvantages
Cost of web access is the disadvantage in which it has been seen that The Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery will focus on high expenditure to consider the system of POS. They
will also have to give to cloud vendor. It is necessary for them to require proper connection with
the high bandwidth. The next is related to the updates in which it has been seen that The Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery will emphasize on updating the software resources on the
continuous basis and they will also upgrade it on the basis of the overall hardware features.
Security risks are also the factors in which The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery will focus
on implementation of the anti-virus software in the entire system and also it can be seen that
information can be breached easily (Eason, 2014).
Ways that can help business to gain competitive advantage with the help
of POS
POS system can help to track the overall detail of the business. POS will facilitate the Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to manage the activities. This software is beneficial to have
proper tracking of the data and they can also easily focus on scheduling the stock for various
external resources. It has been examined that inventory management is important for The Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The POS also helps to focus on tracking of the data and also it
helps in making correct decisions. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can easily focus
on tracking the activities of the employees and also they can track the products which are
manufactured. With the help of this it can be simple for the company to earn profits and also it
can help in expanding the business (Min and Park, 2017).
Advantages of focusing on the centralized database
First advantage is related with data preservation. It has been seen that preservation can be given
by the overall centralized database. The database also takes into consideration the setup related
to storage preservation of the information. This takes place when catastrophic failure of hardware
takes place within the drive. The next benefit is also related to enhancement in the overall
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physical security. The information which is stored can be related to the physical safety hazards.
It also helps in enhancing the data security. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery focuses
on maintaining the overall information of the customers and workers. But it can be seen that
privacy and security is considered as the challenge. It is also important to focus on the policies so
that it cannot harm the server (Hu et al., 2018).
Process in which POS facilitates the overall process of decision making
It has been seen that through this it can be easy to create effective ways for marketing. Email
marketing is considered as the valuable source that can promote the services and also the
products. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can boost their business. It has been seen
that company is considering the CRM so that it can be easy to target the specified people. POS
can help to focus on setting the margin so that profit can be earned. The nursery will take into
consideration the POS as it can help to give preference to the customers (Ingram et al., 2015).
Telecommunication options for POS system
LAN
The terminals of POS can assist to connect with POS servers with the help of LAN. POS also
assist IDP protocol and also the UDP data transfer protocols. It is used for the connectivity
option and also POS is linked with the LAN router. LAN router is linked with the server of POS.
WAN
WAN offers a protective data transmission among the networks. WAN makes the overall
reliability of the data transmission and also it is less costly. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery can take into consideration the usage of WAN so that it can be simple to gain the overall
support of the agents. It is also considered as it can be used for the remote administration like
POS parameters with Q- Prog and uploading the POS parameters.
MAN
MAN supports the hardware of POS. The software is also beneficial to manage the inventory and
also the stock. The invoices are given to the consumers by considering the system of EMAIL.
Cash Flow is known as the monitors and also POS assist to create the financial statement. POS
software is simple to use and all the consumers can consider the software.
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Wired media
Wired media is fixed and it can be simple to consider terminals. The POS terminals are safe and
also reliable. POS system can be related with the debit card and also the credit cards like Visa
Card and union pay. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can consider this source for the
payment purpose also (Yang and Hwang, 2015).
Wireless media
In this it has been seen that wireless POS is related with the usage of the wireless device which
can help to make the payments for particular products and service. The wireless POS is also
defined as WPOS which consider the specified situation which is link with the central network.
The WPOS is considered to manage the devices so that it can be simple to communicate in an
effective manner (Farias, 2015).
Risks related with POS System
Security
In this it has been seen that vendors can control the encryption keys by not considering the
security modules. The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can consider corporate network so
that it can be simple to send emails. It has been seen that security breach is also one of the
important factor.
Privacy
The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery has the duty to offer safety and security related to the
system. The company also focuses on the initiatives so that it can be simple to maintain
confidentiality of the data for the customers and workers (Young and Leveson, 2014).
Confidentiality
The Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery must focus on safety of the information. The
business should focus on securing the overall information for the customers and also for the
employees. The security breach can also be considered as the disaster and also it can affect the
overall confidentiality of the data.
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Conclusion
By analyzing the paper it can be stated that POS system has various advantages. In this report the
focus is given on the POS so that it can be easy to achieve competitive advantage. Also in the
last phase confidentiality and security issues are stated which is needed to be considered. It is
important focus on installing the anti-virus program so that it can be easy for the company to
maintain safety and security. In this report there are various benefits which are stated which will
help to consider overall security and safety of the data which is necessary for the company to
grow in the high level of competition prevailing in the market.
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References
Chockalingam, S., Hadžiosmanović, D., Pieters, W., Teixeira, A. and van Gelder, P., 2016,
October. Integrated safety and security risk assessment methods: a survey of key characteristics
and applications. In International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures
Security (pp. 50-62). Springer, Cham.
Eason, K.D., 2014. Information technology and organisational change. CRC Press.
Farias, A.S.P., 2015. System for accessing a POS terminal, method for downloading and
updating applications and method for performing electronic operation using such a system. U.S.
Patent 9,131,012.
Hu, B., Xie, H., Ma, Y., Wang, J. and Zhang, L.J., 2018, June. A Robust Retail POS System
Based on Blockchain and Edge Computing. In International Conference on Edge Computing(pp.
99-110). Springer, Cham.
Ingram, T.N., LaForge, R.W., Williams, M.R. and Schwepker Jr, C.H., 2015. Sales management:
Analysis and decision making. Routledge.
Min, B. and Park, S.J., 2017. A Smart Indoor Gardening System Using IoT Technology.
In Advances in Computer Science and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 683-687). Springer,
Singapore.
Yang, D. and Hwang, I., 2015, May. Security enhancement methods for mobile POS system.
In Proceedings of the Second ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering
and Systems (pp. 152-153). IEEE Press.
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Young, W. and Leveson, N.G., 2014. An integrated approach to safety and security based on
systems theory. Communications of the ACM, 57(2), pp.31-35.
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