IT for Business: Evaluating the POS System at Four Seasons Nursery

This report analyzes the implementation of a Point of Sale (POS) system at Four Seasons Greenhouse Nursery, a small business in Colorado. The study highlights the business issues faced due to manual record-keeping and how the adoption of a POS system automated key processes like invento...Read More

Running head: IT FOR BUSINESS
IT for Business
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to analyse the business benefits that the Four Seasons greenhouse
nursery could achieve with the implementation of a new Point of sales system or POS. The
report discusses the different business issues that the organization faced due to manual record
keeping. The use of technology in automating the business processes of the organization has
provided a number of benefits, which are discussed in the report. The report discusses the
benefits, advantages and disadvantages of the new point of sales system. The different security
risks associated with the POS is evaluated and certain recommendations are made to mitigate the
risks.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
1. POS system-Advantages/Disadvantages.........................................................................3
2. The Competitive Advantage with POS............................................................................6
3. Centralized Database and its Advantages........................................................................6
4. POS in facilitating decision-making................................................................................7
5. Telecommunication Options............................................................................................8
6. Associated Risks..............................................................................................................9
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................10
Recommendations..............................................................................................................10
References..........................................................................................................................12
Appendix............................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
With the emergence of technology, the use of information technology has increased in
every industry and business. Even the small businesses can realize the positive effects with the
help of technology (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). Use of information technology is a
necessary need in large organizations as without the use of Information communication devices,
management of all the business process within the organization becomes challenge. Small
businesses may not have the resources and expertise of large organizations to implement proper
information technology strategies. Similar is the case of Four Seasons Greenhouse Nursery that
is located in Colorado. Four Seasons is a small nursery that used manual registers in order to
track and maintain the inventory. This manual record is further used to calculate which product
will realize more profit. Due to this, the profits of the nursery were quite negligible or it would
run on loss. These led to the adoption of a new point of sale system or POS in the year 2008. The
use of POS considerably helped the organization in obtaining the robust functionality of
managing the different operational processes of the nursery. The report gives an idea of the
advantages and the disadvantages of the new POS system and the process by which this new
system helps the organization in gaining the competitive advantage (Peppard and Ward 2016).
The report further gives an idea of the different security risks associated with POS that are
needed to be addressed. The following paragraphs evaluate the business operation of the new
point of sales system.
1. POS system-Advantages/Disadvantages
In order to integrate and efficiently manage the different business process of the
organization, the Four Seasons nursery adopted POS system to automate the different business

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processes of the nursery, which includes inventory management, record keeping, data input, data
distribution and tracking. There are several advantages of using the POS system in Four seasons
nursery which are as follows (Stadtler 2015)-
There is no need of the Four Seasons nursery to maintain manual registers, which was
originally prone to human errors resulting in incorrect data entry. The erroneous data about the
inventory sales and the profitable product was the main reason of the nursery running on a
negligible profit and even loss (refer to appendix). The review reports of the new POS system
proved that certain products were less profitable than they thought them to be (Laudon and
Laudon 2016). The automated process of calculating the real cost of the products helped the
profit margin to shoot up for the nursery.
The new system provided a robust functionality in tracking the inventory sales, data input
and distribution of the data. The detailed knowledge about the different vital process of the
nursery helped in easier management of the same. The accurate information provided by the POS
helped in proper decision making (Lallo 2012). The implementation of the new POS system
proved that the owners did not have a proper knowledge about their business as they thought to
have. The detailed cost reporting of the inventory items further helped them to understand which
product in the nursery contributed to a maximum profit (Stair and Reynolds 2013).
The detailed knowledge about the profitability of the product helped the nursery in proper
pricing of their products thus ensuring that the loss is negligible and the profits are higher.
The new system further helped in controlling the employee schedule in a proper manner.
The management control over the employee schedules helped in proper review and allocation of

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the labour expenses in specific departments and functions. This furthermore helped the owners to
delegate additional responsibility to the staffs and establish accountability (refer to appendix).
With the numerous advantages of using the new point of sales system, there are a number
of disadvantages as well, which are as follows-
The implementation cost of the new point of sale system is higher and considering Four
Seasons to be a small enterprise, the cost is high. Therefore, the initial investment is high and the
maintenance cost is high as well.
With the automation of the business process, there are certain associated security risks
associated with the private and confidential data of the organization.
The employees of the nursery are used to manual data keeping and therefore, it is
necessary for the organization to provide proper training to the employees.
2. The Competitive Advantage with POS
The implementation of new POS system not only helped the organization in improving
their profit margins, it helps the organization in gaining competitive advantage as well. The
competitive advantages that new POS system offers to Four Seasons are as follows-
The new POS system helps in integrating all the vital operations of the organization.
Proper knowledge about the vital business processes helps in better management as well giving
the organization a competitive advantage in business.
Since the new system helps in better identification of the products that will yield a larger
profit, the price of such products were modified. The higher profit margin of the organization
helped in gaining a competitive advantage in the market.

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Employees are a vital part of an organization. The POS system helped in better
management of the employee schedule thus giving the organization a competitive advantage.
3. Centralized Database and its Advantages
The new POS system of the Four Seasons nursery consists of a centralized database. The
advantages of maintain a centralized database are as follows (Hall 2012)-
1. The centralized database of a system has considerably lesser security risk in
comparison to a decentralized database as it enforces a strong control and data monitoring.
2. The operational efficiency of the stored data increases as well since the data of the
organization can be managed or stored centrally (Coronel and Morris 2016). This maintains the
consistency and the integrity of the stored data.
3. The cost of data storage is considerably less in centralized database in comparison to a
decentralized database as the data management cost is considerably reduced as well.
4. The speed of data processing is high in a centralized database.
The above discussed points are the significant advantages of using a centralized database
system.
4. POS in facilitating decision-making
The use of new point of sales system has considerably helped the Four Seasons nursery in
managing the different business operations of the organization. The automatic reports generated
by the POS system have helped the management of the organization in better decision making.
The new system helps in managing the business activities more effectively as the important

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information can be tracked in an effective manner. The new POS system helps in proper
management of all the vital business operations of the organization.
The business activities are effectively managed with the help of new POS system as it
accurately manages the different business activities. The accurate estimation of the different
business needs helps in proper decision making.
Manual tracking of the vital information is a troublesome work as it is prone to human
errors (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The use of the new POS system eliminates the need of
manual record keeping. The automatic report generation and record keeping is helping the
organization in proper decision making.
The new POS system effectively answers certain vital questions associated with the
business, which is associated with the different inventory items such as number of goods
purchased, sold or discarded (Diallo et al. 2014). This helps in proper decision making associated
with the inventory management.
The information that is provided by the new POS system helps in easier management of
all the business processes within the organization. This includes review of the labour expenses
and the employees’ schedule which is used to properly establish their responsibilities within the
organization.
These above discussed points are the different processes by which the new point of sales
system helps in effective management of the business activities of Four Seasons nursery.
5. Telecommunication Options

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The new POS system should have a suitable telecommunication system that will facilitate
the information flow within the organization. The organization has to choose from LAN, WAN
or MAN network as a suitable network for their telecommunication system. For choosing the
appropriate network, it is essential to understand the business process of all the three networks.
The Local area network or LAN is used to interconnect the different digital devices that are
present within a particular area. Wide area network on the other hand interconnects all the digital
devices that are present in a particular geographical area (Wang et al. 2014). The metropolitan
Area Network is able to connect the digital devices of a large geographical area.
Since Four Seasons nursery is a small sized enterprise, it recommended using LAN as the
backbone network of POS. The cost of implementation is low as well and the organization does
not need to make use of WAN or MAN that is associated with a larger geographical area.
LAN being the backbone of the new POS system that is implemented in Four Seasons
nursery, it is recommended for the organization to make use of wired technology (Ghosh et al.
2014). The wireless technology is easy to operate and access. It furthermore reduces the need
and cost of implementation of wired network in the organization. However, the security risk is
higher in wireless network and therefore it is essential to address the security risks of wireless
network as well. Since the organization is a small sized enterprise, WI-FI communication and
infrared communication is recommended for Four Seasons nursery (Lu et al. 2015). This is the
suggested wireless technology that the Four Seasons can make use to.
6. Associated Risks
Along with the numerous advantages, the POS system gives rise to the different security
risks as well. These security risks are needed to be addressed so that the confidentiality of the

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stored information is maintained. The storage of the inventory data of the POS system is prone to
certain cyber security attacks that are needed to be addressed (Barakah and Ammad-uddin 2012).
The cyber security issues results in certain privacy risks as well. In order to maintain the
confidentiality of the data, it is essential protect the data privacy as well (Moreno-Vozmediano,
Montero and Llorente 2013). The confidentiality and the security risks mainly arise because the
data stored in the POS system can be accessed by a number of employees of the organization. It
is therefore essential to eliminate the data security risk associated with the use of the POS in
order to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of the stored data (Al Ameen, Liu and Kwak
2012). This can be achieved by access control that will limit the use of the data only to the
authorized members or employees of the organization. Furthermore, the enforcement of
authorization levels will define which employees are allowed to access how much data.
Conclusion
The report gives an overview of the new point of sales system that is implemented in
Four Seasons nursery. The manual record keeping process that was followed in Four Seasons
resulted in severe human errors and the loss for the organization. The nursery was in need of a
technology bloom that was provided by the point of sales system. The report discusses the
advantages and the disadvantages of the new POS system. The advantage is that, it automates the
vital business process of the organization while the disadvantage is that, the cost of
implementation and maintenance of such system is very high. The report further discusses the
advantages of a centralized database and the security risks associated with the use of the new
point of sales system. The use of POS has provided the Four Seasons nursery with a number of
competitive advantages that are discussed in the report. The report generated by the new POS
system helps in easier management of the inventory sales and data input.

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Recommendations
1. In order to maximize the benefits of implementation of the POS system, it is
recommended that the organization thoroughly research the need of POS in its business.
2. It is very essential to address the security risk in order to secure the confidential data
stored in the system.
3. For securing the data access it is essential to enforce access control and authorization
levels.

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References
Al Ameen, M., Liu, J. and Kwak, K., 2012. Security and privacy issues in wireless sensor
networks for healthcare applications. Journal of medical systems, 36(1), pp.93-101.
Moreno-Vozmediano, R., Montero, R.S. and Llorente, I.M., 2013. Key challenges in cloud
computing: Enabling the future internet of services. IEEE Internet Computing, 17(4), pp.18-25.
Ghosh, A., Thomas, T.A., Cudak, M.C., Ratasuk, R., Moorut, P., Vook, F.W., Rappaport, T.S.,
MacCartney, G.R., Sun, S. and Nie, S., 2014. Millimeter-wave enhanced local area systems: A
high-data-rate approach for future wireless networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, 32(6), pp.1152-1163.
Wang, S., Chen, W., Yin, Z.Q., Li, H.W., He, D.Y., Li, Y.H., Zhou, Z., Song, X.T., Li, F.Y.,
Wang, D. and Chen, H., 2014. Field and long-term demonstration of a wide area quantum key
distribution network. Optics express, 22(18), pp.21739-21756.
Lu, X., Wang, P., Niyato, D., Kim, D.I. and Han, Z., 2015. Wireless networks with RF energy
harvesting: A contemporary survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 17(2), pp.757-
789.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2013. Principles of information systems. Cengage Learning.
Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and
advanced planning (pp. 3-28). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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Lallo, N.Y.H., 2012. Critical Succes Factors, Instructors' Characteristics and Accounting
Information System Course Content (Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Utara Malaysia).
Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a
digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.
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.
Hall, J.A., 2012. Accounting information systems. Cengage Learning.
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Diallo, O., Rodrigues, J.J., Sene, M. and Niu, J., 2014. Real-time query processing optimization
for cloud-based wireless body area networks. Information Sciences, 284, pp.84-94.
Coronel, C. and Morris, S., 2016. Database systems: design, implementation, & management.
Cengage Learning.
Barakah, D.M. and Ammad-uddin, M., 2012, February. A survey of challenges and applications
of wireless body area network (WBAN) and role of a virtual doctor server in existing
architecture. In Intelligent Systems, Modelling and Simulation (ISMS), 2012 Third International
Conference on (pp. 214-219). IEEE.

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Appendix

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