DigiPos Revolutionizing the Retail Sector - Case Study Example

? DigiPoS Revolutionizing the Retail Sector Upgrade of the electronic point of sale by DigiPos was after every five to seven years. This included replacement of all hardware and was a long process. Stores closed during the process of change over or upgrade which contributed to losses in revenue and status of the firm. The upgrade was also expensive since all the system’s hardware had to be purchased and involved high technical maintenance at the cost of DigiPos. To offer a solution to these problems, DigiPos invented a Retail Blade. This was the first electronic point of sale client using the blade technology. This system enabled merchants to changeover only parts that needed upgrade unlike the whole system in previous system. Motherboard and hard disk are removable for maintenance and upgrading to match with the latest and high performance blade. This makes retailers easily acquire high performance technologies while keeping conformations and fixings. This design decreased downtime and minimized cost and maintenance time. Blades can power and connect a variety of devices that enabled retailers to try new technologies while in store (Parry, 2011). These solutions offered by DigiPoS, are advantageous to the retailers compared to the later system that did shut down for a complete changeover. Changing the only parts of a system which needs upgrade is a great achievement as it allows the retailers continue serving their customer and no losses due to change over or loss of reputation. Since DigiPoS produced both hardware and software, an alternative of implementing the new technology could be, have a robust type of hardware that most software upgrades could not affect the performance of the whole system (Parry, 2011). DigiPoS could have made the hardware energy efficient with the required high technology capabilities and customize their software to offer solutions to the upgrade of their system unlike the hardware upgrades which caused closure of retailers businesses due to changeover of systems. This can be a good solution to the issue of upgrade. Make software upgrades match with the latest technology and only upgrade hardware at rare conditions with backups to enable retailers continue with their businesses unlike the later where they had to shut down for each upgrade. Most a times, upgrade of software does not affect much the performance of a system though change of configurations and compatibility might change. Quantum blade system is an upgrade of retail blade system with increased power efficiency and increased performance. Quantum blade runs on SSD made by Intel compared to retail blade that used rotating hard disk drives. These SSD used in quantum blade systems has no spinning parts and this increases the reliability and productivity of the systems. Quantum blade has a 60% reduction of power consumption compared to retail blade that increases the return on investment. Unlike retail blade systems, quantum blade have reduced carbon footprint, which saves a lot of cost. With better heat dissipation, there is a further decrease of the cost of ownership with the quantum blade systems. Quantum has a 30 percent increase in performance compared to the retail blade due to the introduction of the new processor. The storage of data in quantum has increased volumes due to flash drives added compared to retails blade (Digipos, 2013). Both quantum and retail blade systems have low consumption of power and decreased downtime. They also offer little time for upgrade or replacement as hard disk, power supply, and motherboard in both technologies. Furthermore, both have a higher reliability due to the fan less power supply and capability of connecting a variety of devices powered by the Blade. Data storage and diagnostics due to the use of diskette on component flash drives. In addition, both systems have the capability of mounting on different locations depending on retailer’s wish (DigiPoS Store Solutions, 2013). Several methods said to help reduce the cost of ownership of this blade technology system. Use of Intel technologies like the Intel SSD offers a low cost of ownership for the electronic point of sale systems while gaining other advantages on top of that. The design of Quantum Blade based on latest Intel Core i7 processor, which brings remote management capability via Intel. The use of Intel Active Management technology helps lower the total cost of ownership of these electronic point of sale systems. This capability enables retailers to fix, query, or even protect their networked systems when either off or not responding. This kind of technology allows users to turn on and off systems when not in use to reduce power consumption (DigiPoS Store Solutions, 2013). Though there is a reduced total cost of ownership, Blade technology offers a high range of advantages to the retailers. Its fan less design reduces noise in the workstation, which increases the attention of the retailers, and reduced risks of making mistakes. Easy maintenance as the hard disk is easy to replace or upgrade within few seconds. Efficiency in power management and reduced heating increases the life span of the system and hence reduces the total cost of ownership. These methods used to reduce the cost of ownership of these systems will work best (DigiPoS Store Solutions, 2013). These methods are in reality the most factors ignored by most systems users but when put in place by the system manufacturers, the end users will realize increased return on investment due to efficiency of the systems. If systems made are power efficient, the power consumption and charges due to usage of power will reduce, this also reduces the environmental effects due to reduced power usages by systems. The retailer will realize low cost of maintenance if systems made are easy to maintain and cheap availability of changeover or upgrades to the new technology (Dizon & Griswold, 2011). When end users can change to new technologies without any technical work done, there is no much cost incurred in the process and this increases the return on investment of the retailer. These cost reduction methods are efficient and applicable in not only this retail point of sale systems but also other system. References DigiPoS Store Solutions. (2013). Transforming Retail through Technology. Retrieved on October 9, 2013, from www.salepoint.com/retail/pdf/DigiPoS-Retail-Blade.pdf Dizon, S. & Griswold, P. (2011). Revolutionizing Retail. Teradata Magazine Online. Retrieved on October 9, 2013, from http://www.teradatamagazine.com/v11n03/Viewpoints/Revolutionizing-Retail/ Parry, P. (2011). Revolutionizing the Retail Sector. Retrieved on October 9, 2013, from http://intel.ly/NAfWDs Read More