Mahesh is a seasoned professional with more than 12 years of work experience spanning across Digital Transformation Sales, Sales Operations, Account Management, Project Management, and IT Out-Sourcing. He holds experience of working with startups, growth companies as well as Fortune 500 organizations.

Today businesses are looking to do more with less. But the question is how to do more with less and still deliver enhanced customer experience and repeated sales? This is a question every small, medium, and large business owner or entrepreneur is facing today. According to a recent study, businesses are embarking on new initiatives to deliver improved customer experience and attract new customers. Technology is playing a key role. While some companies are trying to extract more value from existing systems, others are investing in new technologies to have a positive impact on the top and bottom line of the business.

"Despite companies shifting away from these earlier systems to POS systems; lack of flexibility, interoperability, and future-proofing still remains a challenge"

Point of sale (POS) is the perfect example. Currently, POS system runs up costs due to power inefficiency and always need constant intervention to operate. System failures in these POS systems drain internal resources and increase operational costs by requiring more frequent and costly service calls.

Moving Beyond the Cash Registers
With changing times, POS systems have made huge advancements and are light years ahead of the mechanical cash registers and stationary credit card readers of the first half of the 20th century. Despite companies shifting away from these earlier systems to POS systems; lack of flexibility, interoperability, and future- proofing still remains a challenge. Businesses require future-ready POS systems to go beyond processing transactions. These latest POS systems must be packed with features that can provide vital insights to improve efficiency and boost sales. They must also slowly and steadily shift to more advanced capabilities that can give merchants greater flexibility, control, and business intelligence than ever before. Eventually, they must become an integrated part of the entire business operating ecosystem with new and evolving innovative models.

POS Model: What Best Suits Your Business?
Some POS system models create sales reports, store purchase information, and conduct inventory tracking. While some other models use them to receive payments online, whether through debit or credit cards, or cash. Based on the individual set-up and the industry, businesses can either leverage existing hardware and software setup to set -up POS system on native hardware or use the cloud to set-up POS systems.

Native Hardware Setup
1.   Mobile POS (mPOS)-mPOS comes with a plethora of features and perform customer transactions on a portable mobile device instead of a traditional checkout register. This POS system accelerates checkout, increases sales volume, uncovers upsell opportunities, and reduces the up-front cost, enabling businesses to achieve a rapid return on investment.
2. Tablet POS-Tablet POS provides mobility and a seamless platform for both sales and inventory management. Businesses adopt tablet POS when they want to ensure that their sales staff should not go back and forth between serving customers and managing billing at the counter.
3. Terminal POS-Terminal POS allows you to accept the widest variety of payments quickly, safely, and easily. These are designed to fit the businesses needs and improve bottom-lines.
4.  Online POS-Online POS systems track customers, inventory, and sales. These POS systems work well for retail businesses that use cash, cheque, or account numbers in their POS transactions.
5.  Self-service Kiosk POS-The self-service kiosk can be used to purchase movie tickets, manage parking space and pay, look up pricing and availability of products in a retail store, perform patient check-ins, and etc. These POS systems help businesses work smarter by avoiding labor costs while improving the customer experience.

Cloud-based POS
Cloud-based POS is different from traditional POS as it not only keeps your data safe but also helps you to monitor sales data and manage the business from anywhere and on any device. This POS system is not managed locally and requires no installation.

Groundwork for the Future

Foreseeing a major industry shift from cash payments to point of sale systems in the upcoming years, we feel consolidation and merger between popular platforms is a must. Some of the key things that businesses must look for while figuring out which systems are the best are:

• Define your business needs and goals and then choose the best fit system
• Certain online POS system product directories provide overviews, view all relevant information and narrow down on your choices list
• Compare the cost
• Consider either a lease option or a buy option
• Choose between Native, Cloud, or a Hybrid software
• Calculate process or cost
• Check the return on investment (RoI) from the selected POS

Businesses can also ponder on the below key pointers when choosing a POS system:

•  mPOS integrated with backend processes such as CRM and accounting software helping businesses increase sales and boost revenues
•  IoT and secured POS systems are preferred when businesses need to wirelessly monitor and manage multiple devices over the Internet
•  POS that offers robust data gathering, real-time analytics, and reporting features help in stronger understanding of consumer behavior
•  POS with Business Intelligence can help you gain insight into the health of your operations Choose a POS system that meets your business goals, objectives and drives you well into your future.