How system helps during slow economy

Yes, we are talking about retail management system, or commonly referred as POS. Most retailers and restaurants are complaining about slow economy now, since the environment not going to improve too soon, the main strategy is for companies to survive, improve sales performance, and increase efficiency.

The last thing directors or managers want are interruptions to daily operations, incidents with computer systems could be one of the most common issues we heard about, you are busy with ranking up sales, want to focus on putting resources to good use, and maximize everyone\’s productivity, so you just can\’t bear with anything that holds you back, such as these:

1. You came up with a great idea, but system cannot support the way things are planned
2. Every marketing team may need tailored reports for analysis, but customization is not available for systems targeted at mass market
3. System vendor is just reseller, not keen on growing together with users, so you lose out on useful advices
4. Have you ever encountered system down during peak business hours, and technical support number is not answering?
5. For unknown reason, you find stock balances shown in system are always inaccurate, and affected procurement planning
6. Connection between HQ and branches is always down, thus office team unable to react on timely information, e.g live sales monitoring
7. Surprisingly many systems still don\’t run automated backups, imagine computer crashes while promotion is going on, and no backup plans to quickly recover?

So, sticking with a broken hammer isn\’t going to help you putting in any nails at all.

It\’s your company, so you should know better on urgency to look for better system, it really affects and pays off in long term. Many companies are still with the system they quickly bought during early days, without understanding its expansion capabilities and service quality.

Instead, survey for POS/Retail system companies that has tens of years of experience, long enough to handle and advice on your many requirements and scenarios, secondly look for principals not resellers so that own programmers can offer flexibility of customization, these companies often has better sales team to really listen to user needs rather than just closing deals.

Third area to look at are features, e.g owners or managers will want a mobile app to \”accurately\” monitor live sales, stock balances, staff attendances, simple analysis and so on. Next question is certainly about asking their stability and reliability, whether it is proven by existing clients, an actual demonstration would be the best evidence.

Another important note is about customer service quality, a reputable company providing POS/Retail system should have customer service reachable during important times, that includes weekends and public holidays, besides answering to many of your questions, these people are also important to recover your system if it ever goes down, with proper backup plans, of course.

With all these taken care by correct teams, you will find planning and moving forward a lot smoother, particularly during slow economy.