Manage Point Of Sale (POS) Systems with Reboot To Restore Software

Innovations in point of sale (POS) systems has revolutionized the world of retail commerce. POS have evolved rapidly with the advancement of technology. Today, these systems cater to various functions of a retail organization, such as registering sales, tracking inventory, ordering goods, managing stock availability, and so on. With such extensive application in retail functions, it’s obvious that ‘Point of Sale’ is the most targeted and vulnerable part of your retail infrastructure. Software applications using advanced technology, such as reboot to restore , is essential for you to ensure that the integrity of your POS systems is secured and maintained without a single instance of failure.

To fully comprehend the advantages that reboot to restore technology offers in the current retail climate, let’s first analyze the significance of POS systems and how their downtime impacts critical business processes.

Importance of POS Systems in Retail

Fundamentally, ‘point of sale’ refers to those IT terminals that perform, record, track, and otherwise facilitate any kind of transaction. A POS system comprises a cash register and a computer, and typically has multiple nodes, such as credit terminals, digital displays, receipt printers, host stations, server, and so on. By deploying modern ‘point of sale’ systems, you can:

● Calculate cash collected, paid, or due as well as record the mode of payment

● Track the amount available as liquid cash, without even physically accessing the drawer

● Generate sales reports daily and hourly as per the necessity

● Track the sold and in-stock items in the menu for better visibility across the inventory

● Keep track of customer information for better understanding of frequent, occasional, and first-time visitors.

Such diverse capabilities of POS systems allow you to seamlessly integrate various retail functions and streamline processes by eliminating every scope of redundancy. It ensures that no item is out of stock in your inventory, nor is any product overstocked. Hence, your investment and income are always in tandem with each other. Point of sale systems similarly optimize your retail workforce. It is thus difficult to even imagine being competitive in today’s retail environment without leveraging the full potential of POS machines. Flawless functioning of POS systems is absolutely critical to gain maximum benefit from them. However, prolonged POS downtime and other IT challenges often affect the revenue margin and productivity of the retail businesses, all of which can be effectively dealt with by a reboot restore software.

Challenges and Business Impact of POS Downtime

POS downtime can directly hit the flow of retail operations, as no tasks can be accomplished till the time the systems are up again. Customer pile-up is imminent in situations where your employees scrabble to keep the operations going. According to a survey report, 82% of customers are likely to stop shopping at the store where they experienced long wait. Thus, POS downtime can result in the loss of potential business opportunities. About 83% of customers report that they would stop shopping at the store that ran out of stock of the item they were looking for. Point of Sale system failure thus directly affects the inventory management, as switching back to manual paperwork promptly during system downtime is neither possible nor effective.

The impact that POS downtime has on the overall business operations is critical. With systems down or malfunctioning, all the connected functions and processes will go haywire. For example, if you stock perishable goods, you will have to manually check their conditions to prevent them from deteriorating. Especially in case of medium and large-scale retail outlets, taking total control of the operations manually is virtually impossible.

The main challenge for retailers is to identify the technology that can prevent POS outage, and optimize its performance. However, you cannot implement a solution that requires hiring multiple IT professionals for its proper management. Rather, an effective reboot to restore solution is needed, which equally enables each member of the retail staff to maintain the desired state of the systems.

The Reboot to Restore Technology and How it Helps in Managing POS Systems

As the name suggests, the reboot to restore technology preserves the baseline configuration as desired by the system administrators, and restores the computer to that predefined state on each reboot. It thus reverses all the unwanted changes in just the time required for the device to reboot. It is a self-sufficient technology that can be executed by all staff members irrespective of their technical expertise. This makes the management of POS systems simple and more effective.

Solutions using reboot to restore technology locks-in the desired system configuration when deployed. It allows the system to function normally, but prevents all unwanted occurrence from taking effect on the system. When any user restarts the device, this robust technology restores the locked-in configuration state, and discards the changes that unintentionally or maliciously crept into the system. With the reboot to restore technology deployed on your retail IT infrastructure, eliminating downtime becomes a matter of restarting the POS terminals.

There are a number of software based on the reboot to restore technology available in the market, such as Deep Freeze. These solutions do possess certain peripheral features unique to them, but the capability to restore pristine configuration on reboot essentially forms the core functionality of these offerings.

By securing the admin-defined configuration of the system on each reboot, reboot to restore software guarantees prime POS performance. In case of slightest hint of performance lag, you can simply restart the device to optimize its performance. Such software significantly reduce your dependence on IT professionals for POS management. While the reduced dependence of IT experts saves unnecessary cost of maintenance, constant system uptime with the desired performance-level directly translates into a rapid increase in productivity. As a result, you can ensure that the critical retail operations keep running without any disruptions. The improvement in employee efficiency, on the other hand, reflects on the customers’ satisfaction with your service.

Point of sale systems are a critical asset for your retail business. Retaining them in their best state is, however, a challenge, given their constant use by multiple people. Investing on a reboot to restore software is a good solution if you want to effectively address all the challenges pertaining to POS maintenance and ensure all-time system availability. Compare the best options available and on-board one at the earliest, if you haven’t already.

Read More at http://www.faronics.com/technology/reboot-to-restore