Benefits And Risks Of Implementing POS In Four Seasons Greenhouse And Nursery

The advantages of implementation of the new POS system in Four Seasons

1. POS system-Advantages/Disadvantages

The implementation of technology proved to be a boon for Four Seasons greenhouse and nursery. The owners could easily track down the reason of the loss and could efficiently manage the entire business operations. The advantages of implementation of the new POS system in Four Seasons are as follows-

1. Manual registers were prone to human errors that resulted is loss or negligible profits. With the help of the new POS system, the owners had an easy access to the useful operational data that helped in effective management of the business. With the help of the new POS system, easy tracking and review of the individual products were possible. The business data could be easily tracked from the sales transactions immediately after the sales, which in turn eliminated the need of tracking the sales manually (Baden-Fuller & Haefliger, 2013).
2. The new POS system helped in easier processing of the stored data as they are updated after the sales along with the inventory items. This further help in easier compilation of the sales history (Sako, 2012). This eliminated the need of reliance on the manual entry of the sales transaction.
3. The use of new POS system helped the organisation in accurate decision making. This was because the estimation of the unit of a product sold or ordered is no longer based on speculations (McDonald & Rowsell-Jones, 2012). The accurate inventory count eliminated the need of guesswork on the amount to order thus helped the business in operating on leaner inventory units
4. With the help of the new POS system, the accurate pricing of the products were possible. Previously the owners did not have a proper idea about the products that could yield them a higher profit. The accurate costing of the products enables the organisation in gaining a higher profit from the items sold.
5. The new POS system further helped in generating timely and accurate reports. These reports helped the managers in effective management of all the operations of the organisation. Furthermore, the generation of the reports in real time reduces the need of data entry on paper (Diallo, Rodrigues & Sene, 2012). This was time saving and effective as well.
6. The new POS system further offered a greater control over the employee schedule as it helped in proper review and allocation of the labour expenses to the specific departments and functions. As an additional benefit, the new POS system helped in delegating more responsibility to the staffs and employees to establish proper accountability.

The implementation of POS in Four Seasons provided an excellent example of the use of technology in realizing the business benefits. The ability of an organisation to remain competitive was crucial and the POS provided a way to increase the competitive advantage of the organisation in market.

However, there were a number of disadvantages of implementing POS in Four Seasons, which are as follows-

1. The company needed to invest a huge amount of money in order to automate the business processes using POS system. However, this investment proved to be a greater benefit for the organisation.
2. For efficient operation of the POS, the company needed to train their staffs about the specifications, use and operations of the new point of sales system implemented in the organisation.

The above discussed points give an overview of the advantages and the disadvantages of the new POS system that was implemented in Four Seasons greenhouse and nursery. The following section gives an idea of the competitive advantages that the business could gain with the implementation of the new POS system.

2. The Competitive Advantage with POS

The new POS system will help the organisation in gaining competitive advantages in the following ways (refer to appendix)-

1. Accurate knowledge about the products helped in proper pricing of the products thus giving the organisation a competitive advantage in the market.
2. Accurate knowledge about the inventory items further helped in easier management of the sales and orders. This has given the organisation a competitive advantage in the market.
3. Employee management and management  of the labour schedule became easier thus providing a competitive advantage to the organisation.

The implementation of the new POS system therefore helped the organisation in obtaining a greater profit margin that made up for the earlier losses.

3. Centralized Database and its Advantages

There are a number of advantages of choosing a centralized database over a decentralized database, which are as follows-

1. The centralized database enhances the speed and efficiency of data processing and data accessibility (Osman & Knottenbelt, 2012).
2. Data preservation is increased in centralized database as it has a higher capacity of fault tolerance. Data can be preserved in a centralized database even during a catastrophic hardware failure (Coronel & Morris, 2016).
3. The use of a centralized database reduces the risk of data threat and loss of data as it restricts physical access to the data only to the authorized individuals.
4. The cost of maintaining a centralized database is comparatively low as the business need not invest heavily on server and technology.

These are the major advantages of maintain a centralized database system. Since there is no scope of human error in the data storage, Four Seasons could eliminate the risk of business loss by implementing the new POS system.

4. POS in facilitating decision-making

The new POS system that is implemented in Four Seasons greenhouse and nursery helped in facilitating decision making in a number of ways which are as follows (refer to appendix)-

1. The new point of sales system could process the business activity more effectively as it helped in live tracking of the sales and inventory data items. These data helped in taking proper decisions regarding the number of items to be purchased or to be discarded.
2. The manual information tracking is not as effective an automatic information tracking with the help of new  POS system. This is because the maintaining manual registers are a time consuming task and is prone to human errors. Therefore accurate estimation becomes quite difficult. This limitation was addressed by the new point of sales system that helped in easier data tracking thus facilitating decision making of the vital business operations of the organisation.
3. With the help of the new POS system, the questions  associated with the inventory items such as number of goods to be purchases or sold or to be discarded, could be answered quite effectively. This facilitated decision making in Four Seasons green house and nursery.
4. The information provided by the new POS system could be effectively used in accurate pricing of the products yielding a maximum profit. It further helped in controlling the labours’ schedule and facilitated decision making.

The above discussed points give a clear idea about the process by which the implementation of the new POS system facilitates decision making in Four Seasons greenhouse and nursery.

5. Telecommunication Options 

A telecommunication network is to be set up in Four Seasons green house and nursery. LAN or local area network is the recommended telecommunication option for Four Seasons (Wang et al., 2015). LAN interconnects the digital devices of a smaller area in comparison to the WAN (wide area network) or MAN (metropolitan area network) (Wang, Meng & Chen, 2012). Since Four Seasons is a small sized organisation, LAN is recommended as an appropriate telecommunication option.  LAN will therefore act as the backbone of the POS system.

The Competitive Advantage with POS

However, it is essential for choose a proper media technology which will help in easier propagation of the information stored in the POS system. For Four Seasons, wireless media technology is recommended (Koenig et al., 2013). This is because implementation of wireless technology is quite easier in comparison to wired technology and provides a cost effective solution as well (Arnon et al. 2012). The information can be propagated via Wifi or infrared communication. However, the security issues associated with the wireless technology should be addressed as well.

6. Associated Risks 

With the numerous advantages, there are certain risks associated with the use of POS in Four Seasons greenhouse and nursery. These risks are associated with the security privacy and confidentiality of the data stored in the system (Chen & Zhao, 2012). With the use of wireless media technology, the risk of data theft further multiplies. Therefore, the security risks associated with the use of POS that includes cyber threats, threats from hackers and so on should be addressed. The risks can be mitigated by making use of encryption in secure data storage and enforcing access control so that only the authorized members are able to access the data stored in the system.

Conclusion:

The report discusses the benefits of technology in a business. Four Seasons greenhouse and nursery used to maintain manual records of the business data that resulted in severe loss in the business. The implementation of the new POS system provided many business benefits to the organisation which are discussed in this report. The report has given an overview of the various advantages that a business can gain with the implementation of the POS system, one of such advantages is enhanced decision making. The report further recommended the better telecommunication option for the POS.

In this emerging world of technology, the use of information technology in business is a necessity. Use of technology in small business can provide a larger business benefits. Small businesses may not have the resources and expertise similar to the large organisation and that is the reason many small business are not able to make appropriate use of the information technology. However, the need of technology and benefits that the use of technology can render to small businesses is quite significant (Bharadwaj et al., 2013). The report discusses the benefits of technology that Four Seasons Greenhouse and nursery could achieve with the implementation of a point of Sales (POS) system. The organisation used to maintain manual records in order to store the vital data of the organisation. However, the organisation suffered a huge loss or negligible profit from their products that gave rise to the need of implementing a POS system for their $1M business operations. The report discusses the business benefits, advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system. It further recommends the better telecommunication option and risk mitigation approaches for enhancing the performance of the new POS.

The recommendations for enhancing the business operations with the help of POS are as follows-

1. Proper training is to be provided to the employees so that they can effectively make use of the new POS system
2. Access control is mandatory in order to present any sort of data security threats and loss of important information.

References:

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