POS System Implementation for Four Seasons

This assignment examines the potential benefits and drawbacks of implementing a Point-of-Sale (POS) system at Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery. The report focuses on the nursery's current manual inventory and sales tracking methods and suggests a WAN network connection with wireless transmission for optimal functionality. A centralized database implementation is also recommended, highlighting its advantages.

Running head: POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
POS System for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery
Name of Student-
Name of University-
Author’s Note-

1POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
Executive Summary
POS (Point Of Scale) system helps the customer of a company to execute their payment
for all the goods and services they get from the company. With implementation of POS system,
the company can analyze the data of sales, also can figure out the sales productivity of their
company, and can help to increase the purchase level of their products accordingly. POS also
helps to maintain the history of sales so that they can adjust the decision of buying for all
purchasing trends. POS also improves the accuracy of their pricing by integrating the scanners of
bar code and the scanners of credit card that are possible by the authorization of POS system.
This report gives the details of the POS system. The advantages and the disadvantages of
the POS system are described in this report. The advantages of centralized database are also
elaborated in this report. POS system enhances decision making and also helps in competitive
advantage of a company. The company that is taken in this report is Four Seasons Greenhouse
and Nursery.

2POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................1
1) Advantages and Disadvantages of POS System..............................................................1
2) Competitive Advantages of POS.....................................................................................1
3) Advantages of Centralized Database...............................................................................1
4) POS facilitate Decision Making......................................................................................1
5) Recommended tele-communication for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery...........1
6) Risks of POS...................................................................................................................1
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................1
References............................................................................................................................1

3POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
Introduction
The case study given in this report is a small business and a garden center known as Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery in Colorado. The nursery is a small business and deals with its
own inventory and sales within itself. As their business is increasing, more number of employees
associates with the business. The employees find it difficult to maintain all their inventory and
sales record manually (Willcocks 2013). The nursery uses manual registers so that they can track
the inventory and also maintain the sales production in the company. The profit register is also
maintained manually in registers. It was seen that their percentage of profit was very negligible
or they were running for loss. They were not able to manage all their operations in their business.
The employees were not able to track their individual products. To mitigate all these problems,
the company can implement the POS system which helps them to deal with all such problems.
The Point-of-Scale system helps the user to track all their inventory records as well as
transaction of sales. The system of POS helps to store all the data and process the system which
is difficult to track manually.
This report elaborates all such properties of POS system including the advantage sand the
disadvantages of POS system. The POS system also enhances competitive advantages within the
organization. The nursery also can use central database system for storing all their data. The
advantages of central database system are also highlighted in this report. The POS system also
facilitates decision making in the company. Since, all the system has a good effect as well as
negative effect, there are some risks of implementing POS system in their business. This report
also recommends tele-communication network for the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery.

4POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
1)Advantages and Disadvantages of POS System
There are certain advantages of POS system. The system of POS is very accurate, and
helps to maintain the inventory. The POS system helps to scan all the data which is not possible
in traditional method. The scanning method is much more accurate than other traditional method.
It is not possible for the cashier to remember the cost of all the items. The POS system helps to
do all these operations easily (Cassidy 2016). The POS system also manages the inventory, flag
the items for reordering, and analyze the pattern of sales. The terminal of the POS system can
also be networked with all other terminals and can be networked to a server situated in the back
room or at some other locations. The POS system can be handled with devices that are connected
wirelessly having a link with the main system. All the operation carried out in the Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery can be monitored and managed by the POS system and can be changed over
time if needed. The most important advantage of POS is that the POS system can be used instead of a
cash box or instead of using a cash register. The manual process of handling the cash is a difficult
process. The POS generated system helps to keep a detailed sales report of the business that is carried
out in the nursery (Galliersand Leidner 2014). All the items that are sold from the nursery, time
period of the product, promotions that are made within the organization, all such details are stored in
the POS system. This will help the manager of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to buy the
amount of inventory that is actually needed and save from running at loss.
There are also certain disadvantages of using the POS system. The cost of POS system is
relatively high as compared to other traditional processes. The POS helps in connecting to a single
network to a very large network including information that are not convenient or are unavailable for
accessing (Arvidsson, Holmström, and Lyytinen 2014). This creates negativity for the business that
involves POS system in them. Many organizations use the web-based system instead of using

5POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
software-based system to mitigate this disadvantage of POS. There are also many security risks of
using the POS system. The customers who use credit and debit cards for transaction in POS system,
faces a risk of displaying their pins to other involved customers.
2) Competitive Advantages of POS
The software of POS expedite all the transactions so that they can keep a turning line
with an increased pace. The POS systems that are cloud based helps to eliminate all line turning
entirely and also allows the associates of the sales so that they can complete their transaction
with iPads. The POS can give the company of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to report the
sales hourly, which can help the nursery to find out when to work with more people and when not to.
This gives an advantage in the competitive market (Xu and Bélanger 2013). The POS system
enables the company to market their sales across many numbers of channels very quickly, helping
them to stay fresh in the minds of customers. Competitive advantage can be enhanced by POS system
by keeping a track of all the items that are being sold out from the company and that are waiting in
the store.
3) Advantages of Centralized Database
There are many advantages of centralized database. The advantages are as follows:
 Data preservation is improved- The centralized database helps to improve the
preservation of data. The functionality of working even after the failure of hardware is a
fault tolerance in most of the laptops and personal computers (Pearlson, Saunders and
Galletta2016). To mitigate fault tolerance, secondary components are required, which
needs extra cost. So, to prevent data from fault tolerance, central database can be used.

6POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
 Improving the physical security- Physical security risk is implied mostly on the data
that are stored locally. The computers that are unattended gives the opportunity for
accessing by anyone. They can damage and steal the data that are stored locally. The
security of the server room is improved by the central database system.
 Reduces cost and update speed- The maintenance cost of centralized database is very
low than the maintenance of several computers particularly if the company has many
office branches (Tsang 2014). Centralized database reduces the requirement of space for
storing data and processing data. Centralized database also facilitates virtualization and
provide data access from anywhere the user wants to.
4) POS facilitate Decision Making
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery maintain the accuracy of the POS system. The
POS system helps in decision-making and helps in product synchronizing. The nursery can give
order for the products with the help of POS on assumption basis and on speculation basis. If the Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery uses the POS system in their business, they can make proper
decision about what to buy and what not to buy (Sabherwal, Hirschheimand Goles 2013).
Previously the company used to maintain all their records of accomplishment by manual registers.
The POS system helps to make exact decision about the inventory and the products that are being
sold by the company. The service that is provided by the POS system is very effective and is
considered as error free. The nursery was running for loss because it was not able to maintain its
inventory and was not able to detect the amount of raw materials they were needed for the company
for the production. The POS system can acknowledge maximum profit.

7POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
5) Recommended tele-communication for Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery
The network that can be recommended for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is
Wide Area Network (WAN). For accessing a file by any employee in the nursery, WAN is the
best network practice for doing service very fast. The employees associated with Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery can easily utilize all the files that are stored in the POS system
(Peppardand Ward 2016). The Wide Area Network also enhances wireless communication
among all the devices that are connected with the main system. Inspite of the distance between
different centers of the company, the WAN network helps to reduce the distance between them
as the employees can get access to all their data from anywhere they like to access from. The
application performance is generally improved by WAN network. The WAN network also
reduces the cost of equipments that are involved in the system.
Wireless connection is best for Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery for the WAN
network. All the employees of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can be connected together
by the help of wireless network (Snyder and Diesing 2015). Without the lose of internet
connection, the employees in the nursery can work anywhere and at anytime. All can work
efficiently in the company with the help of wireless WAN network. The wireless connectivity is
generally helps to access the information in the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery.
6) Risks of POS
Security- The network of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can be made insecure
which is generally considered as a threat for the nursery. The network should be made strong
enough so that it cannot be hacked by any intruder. The database of the company should be made

8POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
secured so that they can make their system vulnerable. Anti-virus installation in all the systems is
to be done on an urgent basis so that the security of the system is ensured. The antivirus helps to
protect the network of the company (Snyder and Diesing 2015). Security should be given to the
network so that the attacker does not get access to the information of the company. The firewall
of the anti-virus helps to protect the network from any type of potential virus or any type of
malware.
Confidentiality- There should be confidentiality of the data in a network system of Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery (Ifinedo 2014). The data involved with the nursery are to be
kept safe with the POS system. There is always a risk of data hacking in a company with all the
networks related with the system. The data should be kept confidential within the company. With
less data confidentiality, there is a chance of data breach in the company. Financial loss and loss
of employee data are serious issues in a company.
Conclusion
In this report, the details of POS are highlighted for Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery. The nursery is presently working with manual registers for tracking their inventory
controls and sales. This report highlights the advantages and the disadvantages of the POS
system that may affect the nursery. For the nursery, it is suggested to have a WAN network
connection with wireless media transmission. It is also recommended to implement a centralized
database and the advantages of the centralize database are discussed in this report.

9POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
References
Arvidsson, V., Holmström, J. and Lyytinen, K., 2014. Information systems use as strategy
practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and
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Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Ifinedo, P., 2014. Information systems security policy compliance: An empirical study of the
effects of socialisation, influence, and cognition. Information & Management, 51(1),
pp.69-79.
Kavanagh, M.J. and Johnson, R.D. eds., 2017. Human resource information systems: Basics,
applications, and future directions. Sage Publications.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information
Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a
digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.
Sabherwal, R., Hirschheim, R. and Goles, T., 2013. 11 Information Systems—Business Strategy
Alignment The dynamics of alignment: insights from a punctuated equilibrium
model. Strategic Information Management, p.311.

10POS SYSTEM FOR FOUR SEASONS GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY
Snyder, G.H. and Diesing, P., 2015. Conflict among nations: Bargaining, decision making, and
system structure in international crises. Princeton University Press.
Tsang, E.W., 2014. Case studies and generalization in information systems research: A critical
realist perspective. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(2), pp.174-186.
Willcocks, L., 2013. Information management: the evaluation of information systems
investments. Springer.
Xu, H. and Bélanger, F., 2013. Information systems journal special issue on: Reframing privacy
in a networked world. Information systems journal, 23(4), pp.371-375.