IT for Business: Point of Sale System and Competitive Advantage

This report provides a detailed analysis of Point of Sale (PoS) systems within a business context. It begins by defining PoS and outlining its benefits, such as reduced human error, increased efficiency, and easier system management, while also addressing its drawbacks, including reliance on software and potential security issues. The report then explores how PoS can provide a competitive advantage by improving customer experiences and enabling faster decision-making through automated reporting. It further examines the role of centralized database systems in enhancing data security and accessibility, and discusses various telecommunication networks used with PoS, including LAN, WAN, and MAN, along with wired and wireless technologies. Finally, the report identifies risks associated with PoS, such as privacy, confidentiality, and security concerns, and offers recommendations for improved system implementation and data protection, concluding with the importance of IT in modern business operations.

Running Head: IT for business
Point of Sale

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Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Answer to question 1-Point of sale (PoS)...............................................................................................2
Benefits of POS..................................................................................................................................2
Drawbacks of POS..............................................................................................................................2
Answer to question 2- PoS help business to gain completive advantage..............................................2
Answer to question 3- Centralized database system.............................................................................3
Answer to question 4-PoS facilitate decision making............................................................................3
Answer to question 5- Telecommunication for PoS...............................................................................3
Answer to question 6- Risk associated with PoS....................................................................................3
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Point of sale is also known as point of service as it deals with sales, customer’s issues
and dealing with new orders. In this report detailed decision is done about point of sale along
with the risks associated with point of sale. IT has various type of security issues associated
with it that have been analysed in this report. Additionally, the types of telecommunication
in network and its terminologies have been discussed.
Answer to question 1-Point of sale (PoS)
Point of sale is a new technology that is been adopted by every industry as it not used
for dealing the sales of products but it take care of all the return policies and new products
that are launched in the market (B2C, 2018). It has made the business work automatically by
removing the manual work of tracking the sales status. It simplifies the business operations
by making it automatic.
Benefits of POS
There are various advantages of point of sale system, discussing some of them.
 It reduces the human errors as most of the work is done automatically and has reduced
manual work and the chances of small errors.
 It also increases the efficiency of the system by reducing the duplication of data as it
makes the work automatic.
 Deployment of system is also easy by using point of sale.
 It helps in managing the system by automatically regenerating the reports and has
substitute the manual report making process (Lifewire, 2018).

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 It helps in monitoring the system on regular basis by keeping track on all the sales
record and the daily transaction. It shows an alert message at the emergency situation
so that plans could be regenerated to make sure business works continuously.
 It is a flexible approach as it helps in building a strong Customer relation management
(SolutionDots, 2014). That helps in keeping track of single as well as multiple
customers and tracking all the past transactions.
 It provides a more detailed receipt to customer that helps in building trust among
customers.
 It reduces the labour cost; as the accounting process and maintenance process is all
done automatically that do not require manual staff.
 It uses a sophisticated way to provide acute results (Berezina, et. al, 2016).
 The system is designed in an effective manner that keeps customers remain in the
business for longer time.
 The repair and maintenance cost of point of sale system is very nominal.
Drawbacks of POS
The point of sale system has some of the drawbacks.
 Working on point of sale system makes the business rely completely on the software
and the software need to be updated so that no bugs hit the system. Setting up this
required additional initial setup fees.
 Point of sale system has high security issues if the system is not updated. If it is not
correctly updated it may lead to security fissures.
 The web based system is truly dependent on internet connection. If the internet
connection is not reliable it makes the access to customers impossible.

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 It is difficult to resolve the hardware issues.
Answer to question 2- PoS help business to gain completive advantage
It is true that working with point of sale system will help business gain the
competitive advantage. Competitive advantage helps the business to gain higher sale margin
with better profit. It attracts more audience to offer unique advantage to the company. It helps
the business as it provides better customers experience’s which help the business to compete
with other businesses serving the same products and services (Alexander and Schantz, 2017).
Competitive advantage helps in getting deeper knowledge about the business by
understanding why the business is lagging in the market. This design innovative marketing
strategies to improve the sale in the market. It also delivers report on regular basis so that
proper analysis could be done to make the decisions faster and improve the business
strategies (Good, et. al, 2018). This has provided ease to customers as they do not need ot
wait for longer time to get their services.
In today’s era, where everyone wishes to get their products and services instantly and
expect for quick response, point of system is used to resolve the concern. It is the fast
growing technology that provides better customer experience (Mohammed and Saleh, 2017).
It supports online payment options and provides a two way communication facility from
anywhere and at any time. PoS help business to get competitive advantage as it segregate the
business from other competitors by making it more effective. It helps the business to stand
out other businesses by offering better opportunities and speed. Point of sale helps in
expanding the business by offering lower upfront cost (Huang, et. al, 2014).
As stated in case study, Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery uses POS system that
has eliminated the means of tracking sales manually. It focuses on tracking the sales data
automatically and instantly at the time of the sale. This has helped four seasons greenhouse

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and nursing has it reduced labour expenses and gained popularity in economical world with
extreme efficiency.
Answer to question 3- Centralized database system
Centralized database system is a collection of all the similar databases at a single
location. It is very useful as it enhances the speed of processing and improves the
performance of the system.
Various advantages offered by centralized database system are:
 Security- Centralized database system makes sure that integrity and confidentiality of
data packets are met. It assures that data assets of all the businesses are accessible
only by authorized users (Blake ,Collier, McGregor and Koser, 2015). It avoids the
conflicts caused due to data replication.
 Sharing of information- it helps in sharing the data at multiple location effectively as
data is stored at single location rather than being scattered at multiple sites.
 Recovery- Centralized database maintains backup of sensitive data which do not
cause loss to the business even at time of failure.
 Maintaining integrity- The information is stored at single location, so that whenever
modification needs to be done changes need to be done at single location.
 Reduced cost- : Centralized database reduces the overall cost as maintenance is done
of single server that is less costly than providing maintenance of multiple servers.
Also, it decreases the overall space requirement for data storage (Blake ,Collier,
McGregor and Koser, 2015).
 Consistent- Centralized database system is more reliable.
 It allows data to be accessed from anywhere ta anytime.
 It is easy to access the data instantly.

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Answer to question 4-PoS facilitate decision making
It is possible to track the information manually but this is very time consuming
process and requires a lot of efforts. Keep the track of data manually is a complex process
and decreases the efficiency as information is not updated and more staff is needed in the
company to handle the tasks.
The automatic generation of reports is useful as it helps in visualizing the situation in
a better way (White & Mobility , 2015). The plans are designed after understand the issues.
Point of sale system gives alert in the system whenever services or products go out of stock.
Thus it helps in maintaining the demand and undertaking decisions for betterment of an
organisation.
Point of sale technology has turned out to be very beneficial for business as it has
reduced the paper work. Additionally it has saved the useless efforts and time by making
better customer relation (Bemmel and Mian, 2014). All the information can be managed in a
better way as it is done automatically rather than making the reports by manual work. It all
also provides more accurate result without any errors.
Answer to question 5- Telecommunication for PoS
Point of sale system requires a telecommunication network for exchanging the information
between different parties. A proper link is needed to transmit the message, signals and
information (McNamee, et. al, 2015). Some telecommunication networks that can be used
with POS system are:
 Local Area Network- it is used to link computers within the same organisation that
are located in same area. The transferring seeped of data packets in 10Mbps. It is

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reachable to 1000 of users at a time. The management of LAN is done by single entity
as they manage and control all the operation.
 Wide Area Network- it is used to connect LAN’s over a channel. The speed at which
data transfer is dependent on implementation cost of routers which is dependent on
the distance. It is owned and controlled by distributed ownership.
 Metropolitan Area Network- it operates at very high speed and is used to connect all
the LAN’s in nearby area. They are owned and controlled by government authorities.
The telecommunication technologies include either wired technology or wireless
technology. In wired technology communication between devices are done using cables
and wires wherein the wireless technology communication is done through radio waves
rather than cables. Advantage of wireless network over wired network is mobility and
freedom to move and work. It suffers in terms of speed and security of data. Additionally,
wired networks are difficult to install and it also increases thefts (Tseng, Lee and Tseng,
2015). However the cost of transmission is high in wireless system but it covers wider
area for communication. Wireless systems are reasonably maintenance-free as they can be
easily maintained.
Answer to question 6- Risk associated with PoS
There are various risks associated with the system that is privacy, confidentiality and
security. Point of sale system is important to be secured as it stores all the sensitive data of
the business like information of cards, emails as well as private data. Point of system can run
on any operating system like Windows, Linux as well as UNIX which increases the chances
of flaws (Mateu, et. al, 2015). There are various risks associated with the network like it
gives access to third party users by leaking the confidentiality and getting the data hacked by

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the attacker. Risk management is a procedure that allows user to take vital decisions to avoid
possible threats to hit the system.
Privacy of data is required to keep sure that data remains confidential. Proper access
should be decided about who can read, write and modify the data (Norp, et. al , 2015).
Security of information is important to keep the information confidential, available and
integrated and ensuring that data is available to only authenticated user (Weiss, Cosart,
Hanssen and Yao, 2016).

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Recommendations
For better development in the society advanced and updated tool must be use so that
business could grow rapidly. In the IT world, there are several vulnerable threats which can
cause serious loss of information as unauthorized user tries to gather information which can
be misused and leads to business disruption.

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that information technology has transferred the ways in which
business operates. The use of point of sale system has added effectiveness in working of the
business. It has allowed firms to increase their efficiency and effectiveness by enhancing the
growth. The case study has helped in analysing how point of sale has helped the business to
work.

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References
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