HC1041 IT for Business: Evaluating POS Systems in Organizations

This case study explores the adoption of a Point of Sale (POS) system by a Greenhouse and Nursery in 2008, focusing on its impact on data management, profit analysis, and overall business operations. It details the advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system, highlighting its role in gaining a competitive edge through improved accounting, inventory management, and customer loyalty programs. The study also examines the benefits of a centralized database, including enhanced data preservation, security, and cost reduction. Furthermore, it discusses how the POS system facilitates decision-making by providing accurate and timely information on inventory, sales, and profitability. Telecommunication options for the POS system are recommended, and potential risks, such as cybersecurity threats, are identified along with protective measures. The assignment concludes that the POS system enhances data analysis, streamlines business processes, and aids in strategic decision-making.

HC1041 IT for Business
Blooming With Technology
1

Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system?.....................................................4
2. How will this POS system help the business gain a competitive advantage?...........................................5
3. What are the advantages of having the centralized database?..................................................................6
4. How could this POS system facilitate the decision making?...................................................................7
5. Recommend telecommunication options for this POS system.................................................................9
6. What type of risks does the POS system bring and how to protect the business against the risks?........10
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................12
2

Introduction
This is the case study about the technology used by the Greenhouse and Nursery for recording
and managing the data and analyzing the profit and loss of the organisation. The technology is
Point of scale system which was adopted in the year 2008 by the organisation to access the
operational data which effectively manages the work of the organisation. It has explained how
the POS system helps in decision making in the business. The POS system uses the
telecommunication options for the business has elaborated in this assignment. Types of risk
which the POS system brings have been explored in this assignment.
3

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system?
Advantages Disadvantages
1. The system of point of sale reduces the human
errors and saves money in the long term.
2. Point of sale system helps the business in
tracking and managing the inventory in the real
time. The staff can easily see the number of
items which is retained in the stock and can
order quickly about how many items are to be
needed.
3. Point of scale reduces the paperwork by
automatically generating the accurate reports.
It helps in an instant update in the purchase and
sale record daily, weekly and monthly
according to a tone of the business.
4. Point of scale simplifies the process of the
accounting and it doesn’t need to hire the
number of accountants for maintaining the
transaction.
5. The point of scale system helps in controlling
the payment and sales operations record,
promotion discounts, products bundling,
inventory management, sales transaction.
1. The system is web-based which needs the
reliable and continued connection and the ISP
for maintaining the POS system.
2. The updating of the software with the POS
system is very expensive and is very time-
consuming. The business needs to pay for the
new licenses and the software when the
business expansion is involved.
3. Most of the systems are based on the web
charge the monthly fee as the fee of
subscription which reduces the returns which
are earned by the company in the long run of
business.
4. Systems which are software based are more
intricate and complicated in using then the
software which is easily available on the web-
based systems.
5. This is the software which concerns with the
online payments as it exposes the details of
debit and credit cards of the customers and can
put the financial security in the risk.
4

2. How will this POS system help the business gain a competitive advantage?
In the age of recording the big data many of the large corporations have been already harnessed
the power of the information for targeting their customers. The technology POS helped the
business of Greenhouse and Nursery in gaining the competitive advantages is that the POS
system helps in easy accounting, analyzing and cheek the counting of the stock, the loyalty of
customers, vendor ordering, reporting modules (Kim, and Kwak, 2015). Many of the times the
stock transferring, purchasing order, quotation issues all these can be created in an easy way, it
makes the work easier for the staff. The business has connected various gadgets with the POS
system such as barcode printer, a barcode scanner.
This system POS helps in increasing the loyalty of the customers, transforming the potential
interest into the sale and also increases the average order size of the business. The POS system
helps in improving the problems with the efficiency whenever the staff is not present this helps
in increasing the efficiency of the work (Rezvani, et. al., 2017). The system automates a variety
of functions which helps the staff, not to hard work rather than they do smart work, and helps the
staff and the owner to increase the productivity instead of giving the time in recording and
updating of the data.
5

3. What are the advantages of having the centralized database?
The advantages of a centralized database to the company are:
 It improves the data preservation: The laptop and pcs offers the fault tolerance as the
capacity for continuing the functioning after the failure of hardware. The fault tolerance
requires the duplicate components and the fault tolerance any of the data which is stored
on the laptop and pcs at the risk of the permanent loss. The storage of centralized includes
the fault tolerant setup and the redundant storage which preserves and save the data.
 Improves the physical security: The business maintains huge and sensitive consumers
information, the protection of the data is the critical issue (Smith, et. al., 2016). Central
database storage provides the security to the data which creates some challenges which
ensure the security of the data across the different and many local sites of the storage.
 Reduces the cost: This storage requires the business for investing in the heavy technology
such as fault tolerance but this type of storage allows cutting the overall cost. The central
server maintenance is less costly than of maintaining the multiple computers.
 Update the speed and improve the reliability: The centralized database employs the
higher quality of redundancy and components it makes the system more reliable in the
local storage. The database of centralized provides comprehensive and facilitates
virtualization access to the data, is to be accessed in any part of the world (Pauli, et. al.,
2017). Updates which are carried on the database run to the centralized storage which
carries through the end users and also opposed the local storage which applies to the
computers.
6

4. How could this POS system facilitate the decision making?
The point of sale system is able to track the beneficial information easily and immediately at the
point of the scale. The POS system counts the accurate inventory which eliminates the
guesswork on how much to order and helps the business in operating on learner about the
inventory units. The system's report can provide the details about the transactions for the item of
the inventory such as how many were purchased, discarded and sold. The more detailed cost
reporting by the item helps the staff to understand which product is contributed the most profit to
the operation. The system helps in giving the detail about the cost of the product which helps the
business to price the product more profitable. The timely and accurate reporting of the
information assists the business to be more effective managers of the operations of the business.
The ability of the system helps in processing the sales, purchasing transactions, inventory which
immediately reduces the need for the data entry on the paper information. This can be from
ordering diminishing the stock to identifying the best seller and customer (Xu, 2015). This
software allows the owners to delegate for more responsibility to the staff and establish the
accountability. The POS system helps the owners for tracking he useful information from the
sales transactions at the times of sales immediately, it eliminates the need for tracking the sales
manually. The process of the system and the data which is stored from the sale while updating
the inventory as compiling the history of the sales.
This can be done manually but not as effectively from the time management standpoint. As
manually data sheet takes a lot of time in searching out the sales record, purchase transactions. It
is very time taking and hard-working task to do the manual work. The software POS records the
data of sales, purchase transactions and updates the record automatically and effectively which
saves the time of customer and the business. The question which can be answered will be if sub
per selling items are taking much space for the hot items.
The information can be used in managing the business better as the information can be safely
recorded in the system of POS, which is safe and easy to record. The purchasing transactions,
inventory all can be recorded in the POS system and it helps in finding out any information
easily and effectively which reduces the hard work of the staff and helps them in doing the other
work effectively. As the information which of the business provide the useful information for
7

operating and managing the business. The accurate inventory data maintained by the system POS
help in decision making, these decisions are finding of how many units of the product to order
were no longer based on the speculation about the current inventory units.
8

5. Recommend telecommunication options for this POS system
The most well-known is WAN as the internet; a WAN is used in connecting the local area
network together so that the users and the computers in the location which communicate with the
computers and users in the other locations. The WAN is the computer network which extends
over the large geographical distance. This network is mostly established with the leased
telecommunication circuits. Wireless technology is used in the WAN network, this technology
uses the radio waves for transmitting the information without wiring or cables. The wireless
communication has been used since 1876, this technology is now being widely used in creating
the wireless computer networks (Thompson, 2014). Using the wireless technology means that
one can move freely, in the business, home or even in the city which still maintains the other
computers on the same network. Installation of the cables can be expensive which is especially
for the long distance in the different buildings (Ng, 2016). There are different uses of wireless
technology in the small business access of the wireless which gives the access to the internet to
the more desktops, mobile phones, and laptops. The wireless technology linked two buildings
which are physically separated.
9

6. What type of risks does the POS system bring and how to protect the business against
the risks?
The main concern of the business is the cybersecurity, as the data is in the huge and increases
repeatedly and they move between the clouds system. The weakest area of the digital security
plan is the POS system. There are three types of risk which the POS brings are:
 The weakness of Network and Software: The most common problem with the POS
software from the network that it is not so secure. These have the weak setups and the
hackers can infiltrate them and can steal the information. The POS technology must be
kept in the separate and password protected network (Akyildiz, et. al., 2015). The
business must change the password within three or four months for reducing the chance
of infiltration.
 Device Faults: It doesn’t mean that the network is secured then the hackers can’t hack
the systems, the systems are risky too. Guarding the laptops and pcs which having the
passcodes is the first step of fantastic. The business must choose the product which has
the inherent security measures such as the iPads of Apple don't compromise the other
application if any one of the programs is infiltrated.
10

Conclusion
This is to conclude in this assignment about the POS system which is used in the business for
recording the data of sales, purchase, and inventory which help the business in analyzing the data
easily and fastly. This assignment has explained the advantages and disadvantages of the POS
systems and the POS system help the business in gaining the competitive advantage. It has
examined the advantage of the centralized database which is used in the business. Moreover, it
has been explained about the POS system that how they facilitate the decision making and the
network which is used in the POS system and also the media which is used in the network. And
lastly it has been explained about the risk which the POS systems bring with it and the business
can protect itself from the risk.
11

References
 Akyildiz, I.F., Lin, S.C. and Wang, P., 2015. Wireless software-defined networks (W-
SDNs) and network function virtualization (NFV) for 5G cellular systems: An overview
and qualitative evaluation. Computer Networks, 93, pp.66-79.
 Kim, J.G. and Kwak, Y.H., BIXOLON CO Ltd, 2015. POS terminal and POS system
using mobile terminal. U.S. Patent 8,949,144.
 Ng, W., 2016. New Digital Technology in Education. Springer International Pu.
 Pauli, J.N., Newsome, S.D., Cook, J.A., Harrod, C., Steffan, S.A., Baker, C.J., Ben-
David, M., Bloom, D., Bowen, G.J., Cerling, T.E. and Cicero, C., 2017. Opinion: Why
we need a centralized repository for isotopic data. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, 114(12), pp.2997-3001.
 Rezvani, Z., Jansson, J., and Bengtsson, M., 2017. Consumer Adoption of High-
Involvement Sustainable Products: Exploring the Interplay of Gain, Normative, and
Hedonic Motivations and the Role of Perceived Social Norm.
 Smith, A.T., Brennan, E., Meyer, K., Sahin, A., Nadler, M., John, O.W.I. and Keefe, J.D.,
EMC IP Holding Co LLC, 2016. Automated storage provisioning and management using
a centralized database. U.S. Patent 9,519,441.
 Thompson, J., Ge, X., Wu, H.C., Irmer, R., Jiang, H., Fettweis, G. and Alamouti, S.,
2014. 5G wireless communication systems: Prospects and challenges [Guest
Editorial]. IEEE Communications Magazine, 52(2), pp.62-64.
 Xu, Z., 2015. Uncertain multi-attribute decision making: Methods and applications.
Springer.
12