Impact of IT on Business: A Detailed Analysis of Point of Sale System

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Point of Sale (POS) IT systems and their impact on business operations, particularly within the context of a case study. It explores the advantages of POS systems, such as real-time data storage, enhanced customer relationship management, and improved decision-making, while also addressing disadvantages like security risks and maintenance requirements. The report highlights how POS systems can provide a competitive edge by streamlining processes, improving data analysis, and enhancing customer satisfaction. It also discusses the benefits of a centralized database, including reduced security risks and easier data retrieval. Furthermore, the report examines how POS systems facilitate effective decision-making and process business operations more efficiently compared to manual methods. It recommends telecommunication options, such as LAN networks and wired media, while also addressing the risks associated with POS systems, including security breaches, confidentiality issues, and privacy concerns. The report concludes that POS systems are essential for modern businesses but require careful consideration of security and privacy implications. Desklib provides this and similar solved assignments for students.

Running head: POINT OF SALE
IT for business

1 | P a g e P O I N T O F S A L E
Table of Contents
Overview...............................................................................................................................................1
Pros and cons of POS system.................................................................................................................1
Advantage offered by point of sale system...........................................................................................1
Advantages of centralised database......................................................................................................2
Decision making is easier by POS system...........................................................................................2
Pos processes business operations effectively..................................................................................2
Using manual methods for tracking the data....................................................................................3
Question which could be answered...................................................................................................3
Information used for better business management..........................................................................3
Telecommunication network and media...............................................................................................3
Type of network................................................................................................................................3
Type of media....................................................................................................................................3
Risk due to POS system.........................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5
References.............................................................................................................................................6

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Overview
It is necessary for an organisation to chick that they are working on an updated
technology as it is the world where businesses are completely dependent on the technology.
Point of sale is one such technology that helps in monitoring the sales and all the transactions
in an organisation. This report comprises of the advantages and disadvantages of the system
and various communication channels that are used in the POS system have been discussed.
Pros and cons of POS system
There are various advantages and disadvantages that are offered by POS system.
Advantages
 It store all the data related to sales and transactions on the real time approach.
 It provide alerts to users regarding all the sales transaction made, which in turns
enhances the customer relationship management (Kenrick and Jabri, 2018).
 It plays an important role while making decisions as information is received at
anytime and anywhere.
 It makes sure that there are no errors caused due to humans and quick services are
provided to end users (Kenrick and Jabri, 2018).
 It also make sure that problem of data redundancy is resolved.
 It adds transparency to the work process as all the sales information is shared
instantly.
Disadvantages
 Point of sale system offers various issues due to the loss of security and privacy of
data.
 An IT expert is required for maintenance of point of sale system (McCarthy,
2018).
 It may lead to loss of data if system get corrupted as there is no backup plans
designed thus it is not proven to be good for an effective business environment
(McCarthy, 2018).

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Advantage offered by point of sale system
Point of sale system offers various benefits to the business. It helps in making the
process easy by removing the manual analyses of data. It offers the competitive advantage as
it helps in making decisions for betterment of a business. The data captured through the
analyses of point of sale helps in understanding the business in a better way. It helps in
knowing which products and services are offering better profit and which are not (Weber and
Bailey, 2016). So, that decision could be taken accordingly. The analyses help the firm in
focusing on the sale of product that is offering greater profit. The data analysed through point
of sale is also used in making efficient strategies. Point of sale also helps in improving the
process of businesses like accounting skills, decision making process and management of
processes regarding the sale.
In case of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, point of sale system offers
competitive advantage by speeding up the all process in a business that is needed to capture
more customers. The data that is gathered through POS helps in enhancing the customer
satisfaction as it provides detail knowledge of all the sales and purchases. It also helps in
resolving customers query as detail description is provided regarding the sales (Redmond,
Huang and Heisinger, 2012). It also removes the errors that might occur if work is done
manually. It helps in gaining competitive advantage as it faces the future demands of the
market.
Advantages of centralised database
In an organisation database plays a very essential role as it helps in making decisions
for better growth of a firm (Mahajan and Patil,2016). There are many users that more in
collaboration thus there arises a need of having a centralised database system. Some of the
advantages are:
 It reduces the chances of malicious attacks as the place at which attack could
happen is only one.
 Retrieving of data through centralised system is easy as compared to
distributed database system as data is stored at one location.
 Portability of data is simple (Samek & Hernandez, 2013).
 It is easy to manage the data as when make changes information need to be
modified at single location rather than updating ta different locations.

4 | P a g e P O I N T O F S A L E
 It requires comparatively lesser resources which makes the system cost
effective.
Decision making is easier by POS system
One of the sole benefits of using point of sale system is that it helps in making
productive and realistic decisions for a firm. In case of four season greenhouse and nursery
huge amount of data stored that facilities the decision making task. This helps the business to
achieve good growth. Point of sale system makes sure that accurateness of data is maintained
(Samek & Hernandez, 2013). In case of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, Point of sale
system also facilities data driven approach which supports the firm to analysis the operations
and make accurate decisions. It also helps the business to make proper decisions at time of
failure so that proper conclusions can be figured.
Pos processes business operations effectively
Earlier all the process in an organisation used to be done manually that used to be a
time taking process. All the tasks done using manual methods take lot of time which has been
overcome by point of sale system (Xian, et. al, 2013). There are very less chances that result
is accurate through manual methods which is solves by the process of POS. It also eliminates
the problem of data redundancy and the transaction could also be tracked at anytime from
anywhere. Point of sale system also helps in finding out the best seller in the market and the
products through which firms get benefits.
Using manual methods for tracking the data
The effectiveness of tracking the data through manual method decreases with time as
the data increases. Tracking the data through manual method is a slow process and it does not
fit the expectation of modern business (Kim, Lim and Oh, 2016). In manual methods that are
chances of data redundancy thus there are chances of making wrong decisions. It requires lot
of human efforts to track the information. Tracking of data through manual process do not
helps in making instant decisions and also do not give surety on accuracy of data.
Question which could be answered
Pos system helps in answering variety of questions that are related to sales and
transactions in an organisation. It helps in answering the queries regarding the product that

5 | P a g e P O I N T O F S A L E
are offering greater benefits and also helps the business to know which services need to be
increased to boost up the sale.
Information used for better business management
The information that is captured via POS system is used in future for making
decisions regarding the sale in an organisation. The data gathered helps in removing all the
inefficient operations from the business.
Telecommunication network and media
There are various telecommunication networks that are available in POS system
communicate.
Type of network
There are various networks available but in case of point of sale system, LAN is
recommended. Local area network is better as it is used to connect all the nearby computer
devices and have a very high speed of connectivity (Cunningham, et. al, 2015).
Type of media
Selection of type of telecommunication media is an important part as media decides
the performance of the network. The system in an organisation can be connected through a
wired technology or a wireless technology(Mahajan, 2016). If the distance between the
systems in an organisation is less than they should be connected through wired media as they
are easy to maintain, have high speed of connection and there are poor chances of data
leakage.
Risk due to POS system
The use of point of sale system has various risks associated with it. There are some
common risks that are faced by the system are:
Security- Point of sale system makes huge amount of data available instantly and there are
chances of data packets going in wrong hands, thus it could lead to security failure. It is
important to protect eh data packets of an organisation to maintain the reputation in the
market (Della , Iavazzi and D’Andrea, 2015).

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Confidentiality- The confidentiality of data is important for an organisation to maintain the
performance. There are chances that data is leaked to some unauthorised user which violets
the confidentiality and integrity of data packets. In such cases data need to be encrypted
(Carvalho and Dimmick, 2016).
Privacy- privacy of point of sale system needs to be strong by offering proper access control
to user regarding who can read and modify the data. Privacy associated with stakeholder’s
data needs to be sustained and proper use of firewalls can be highly beneficial in this regards.

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that point of sale system offers huge importance for the
businesses. In this report various advantages and disadvantages has been discussed. The
importance of using centralised database has also been analysed. It can be stated that point of
sale system helps in making decisions by removing the chances of data redundancy. Various
telecommunication technologies have been discussed and the best type of network and media
has been suggested that should be used by a business. Other than that point of sae system also
offers various risks in terms of security, privacy and confidential as also been discussed in
this report.

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References
Carvalho, K. and Dimmick, J., Visa International Service Association, (2016). Point of sale
payment using mobile device and checkout credentials. U.S. Patent Application 15/143,231.
Cunningham, C., Good, T., Kearney, S.P., Miraglia, M., Amundsen, T., Giordano, P., Wang,
Y.P. and Zhu, X., Metrologic Instruments Inc, (2015). Point of sale (POS) based checkout
system supporting a customer-transparent two-factor authentication process during product
checkout operations. U.S. Patent 8,976,030.
Della Corte, V., Iavazzi, A. and D’Andrea, C., (2015). Customer involvement through social
media: the cases of some telecommunication firms. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology,
Market, and Complexity, 1(1), p.10.
Kenrick, B. and Jabri, M.A., Onmobile Global Ltd, (2018). Method and apparatus for
providing interactive media during communication in channel-based media
telecommunication protocols. U.S. Patent 9,883,028.
Kim, J.S., Lim, S.S. and Oh, J.W., Pantech Co Ltd, (2016). Method for displaying
transmission status of MMS (multimedia messaging service) message and telecommunication
terminal using the method. U.S. Patent 9,357,363.
Mahajan, M. and Patil, S., (2016). Optimization of Association Rule in Horizontally
Distributed Databases: A new way to strengthen the security of Encrypted
Data. Optimization, 2(1).
Mahajan, M., (2016). Optimization of Association Rule in Horizontally Distributed Database
using Unique Key Value A New Way to Strengthen The Security of Encrypted Data.
McCarthy, M., (2018) The benefits of Moving to a Point-of-sale (POS) System. [Online]
Available at: https://www.allbusiness.com/the-benefits-of-moving-to-a-point-of-sale-pos-
system-10206841-1.html. [Accessed on 14th May 2018].
Redmond, E., Huang, J., & Heisinger, P. (2012). U.S. Patent No. 8,190,530. Washington,
DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Samek, J., & Hernandez, M. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,550,335. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office.

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Weber, L. and Bailey, K., Visa International Service Association (2016). Dynamic point of
sale system integrated with reader device. U.S. Patent 9,390,412.
Xian, T., Ellis, D., Good, T., & Zhu, X. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,448,863. Washington, DC:
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.