It feels like everything is online these days. Including your business’s POS system.
For reasons of simplicity, scalability, cost efficiency and more, retail and hospitality POS systems have seen a major shift to cloud-based architectures over the past decade. Recent onboarding trends show a 60-40 split in favour of cloud POS deployments. In hospitality, 71% of businesses now prioritise cloud functionality.
To understand the reasons for this shift, we have to look at the differences between cloud and ‘on-premise’ software. In the past, POS software (like all software, for that matter) was installed and run on local machines. That meant you had to have suitable computing hardware to run all your transaction processes at the necessary levels of speed and efficiency, as well as store all your data.
For fast-paced, high-volume sales environments, the compute demands for running POS effectively can be pretty high. With an on-premise infrastructure, that means having powerful enough servers and fast enough processors right there on site. And that makes POS expensive.
The cloud computing revolution changed all of that. The cloud model separates front-end operations from the back-end processing capabilities required to drive them. More specifically, compute, processing, storage etc are offered ‘as a service’ on a subscription basis from giant data centres. You don’t need to install large programmes locally, you don’t need large servers to run the programmes effectively. You get all but open-ended resources, you pay for what you use, and your hardware investment priorities shift from heavyweight back-end infrastructure to lightweight, user-friendly end points.
In the context of POS, this has helped more businesses access high-performance systems at drastically reduced costs. The scalability of resources has allowed POS to evolve from straightforward sales processing into the digital hub of most customer-facing businesses, powering multiple systems and integrating data feeds.
Network vulnerability
There is, however, one drawback with the cloud model. The way you access those all-important compute capabilities from a data centre is via an internet connection. And as we all know; internet connections are far from fail-safe. If your business’s internet connection goes down, your cloud POS goes with it. And in many cases, that can mean your ability to do business shuts down, too.
This is one very good reason for retail and hospitality businesses not to go all-in on cloud deployments. Given all the advantages of cloud, there is some debate over whether any kind of on-premise or ‘offline’ backup is even necessary. But with average downtime costs for internet outages ranging from £95 a minute for small businesses to an eye-watering £12,000 a minute for the biggest players, it’s hard to understand why there even is a debate.
In the era of cloud POS, dodgy internet connections can cost your business serious money. Maintaining some kind of ‘offline’ functionality as a back-up is a sensible business contingency.
This doesn’t mean a return to the days of every business having to invest in a complete server architecture. But it does mean having the right tools in place to allow POS functionality to continue even if your internet connection is disrupted. Chief among these is the ability to store transaction data locally so you are able to process sales even if cloud-based systems aren’t working. Then when the connection is restored, the locally saved data can sync back with the system.
How much of a priority these offline fail safes will be – and which back-up protocols are appropriate for your business – will vary depending on your specific circumstances. Businesses operating in more remote rural locations where internet connectivity might not be so reliable, for example, or mobile food trucks and retail concessions that rely on mobile internet, you might need additional precautions.
All of these situations can be accommodated by your choice of POS hardware. To talk more about your business’s needs and how to ensure continuity for your customers, get in touch with the MedEpos team.
