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How to Cut Costs Using Unified Restaurant Management Software?

Retail ERP Software /

In an industry that is dynamic as well as low margin, it is important to track your food costs. Various restaurants suffer food wastage because of a lack of proper technology and proper cost-cutting techniques.   As the restaurants get struck by the massive competition, limited seating, and rising price of the ingredients, they need to optimize ingredient usage, buying, and cutting wastage.   An ideal Restaurant Management Software helps manage raw ingredients, spillage, menu prices, and food wastage while assisting the ways to minimize wastage. LS Retail is one such software that delivers a comprehensive set of tools and functionalities to help entrepreneurs run their business optimally while minimizing waste.   In the food and beverages industry, food costs are a major expense. An excellent restaurant management software like LS Retail helps you connect sales, inventory, and kitchen within the same platform while delivering everything you need in a unified manner.   Such a platform delivers complete transparency over your inventory and synchronizes inventory to recipe management. You will automatically receive notifications when you need to add a new inventory while subtracting the items already exhausted. Some software offers enough flexibility to adjust inventory on phones to remove some items that fall from the jar, spoiled meat, rotten vegetables, and so on.   Manage warehouse inventory like a piece of cake with automatic inventory tracking. Track where your inventory is headed. Check if the space is properly optimized so you can adjust more of it in there. Keep the environment favorable to increase the durability of your items. Apart from this, other ways help you cut food costs.   Manage Your Yield   An ideal yield management software enables you to know the actual yield of an ingredient; how much of the total ingredient is being used. For Instance, if you need 5 kg of meat to cook a dish, not the whole 5 kg is going to be used, the bones might get discarded in the process. Yield management computes the exact quantity of the stock that will be used and based on the same, it updates the inventory. It further eliminates the risk of over-ordering or under-ordering while reducing restaurant costs.   Keep Tabs on the Variations  Variance is another essential aspect that plays a massive role in cost-cutting. An ideal restaurant management system can make it easier for you. The variance is the difference between the actual ingredients consumers versus the ideal food costs. A variation of 3-5% is acceptable. However, any variation above that is a matter of concern. To cut food costs, regular variance monitoring is necessary. You can identify the source of high food costs while bringing down the overall restaurant costs.   Standardize Recipe and Cut Waste    Having a restaurant management system that standardizes your recipes can help you manage costs. How? The recipe management system records every ingredient and the right amount to prepare a dish. While preparing a meal, the chef already has the recipe available with the right amount of each ingredient. Hence, it reduces the chances of errors.   It is one of the most key features because several times your chef might mix up a few wrong ingredients, now the dish cannot be served, resulting in discarding the whole dish and adding to the restaurant costs.   Reduce Pressure While Cutting Labor Cost  Labor costs are one of the major costs in a restaurant. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor them. Of Course, hiring them is a time-consuming process. However, retaining them is not something restaurants have mastered so far. Managing labor is a costly and time-consuming affair. The enormous industrial pressure drives them to switch jobs. One of the easiest methods to retain your staff is to adopt robust restaurant management software that automates manual tasks and reduces pressure while letting your staff work with greater efficiency.   Hand-over Monotonous to Automation  Billing has always been a labor-intensive and monotonous task. However, now the time has changed since a restaurant management system can automate the billing process. Not just this, it also integrates the back office to the front under the same platform while streamlining complex tasks. You no longer must look for someone who is trained to manage these tasks.   Apart from billing, a KDS reduces your dependency on manual labor. It ensures that when a server receives an order, it is displayed on the right kitchen screen. Apart from this, when there are changes in the order, it also flashes on the screen right away. Therefore, ensuring low dependency on manual labor.   LS Retail is a unified Restaurant Management Software that delivers a comprehensive set of restaurant management tools under one umbrella. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail and Microsoft Partner and has served various business ventures of distinct levels. For further information, contact us.  

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How Does the Right POS Design Boost Your Restaurant’s Productivity?

Retail POS Solution /

Did you know you can even engineer your POS so it replicates your menu? This is the commencement of your restaurant’s advancements. Numerous restaurants are deprived of this facility.   If your restaurant management system allows you to modify your POS, there are high chances that efficiency will increase by at least 20%. Having tasks automated that were done manually earlier, boosts your staff efficiency, allowing them to serve your guests better.   A traditional POS is nothing more than a billing software that can accept payments online and offline separately. However, an advanced and integrated POS is more than that; it can record customer transactions, streamline order taking, integrate back office to the front, and much more. A restaurant can reap tremendous benefits by optimizing this system alone.   Engineer Your POS to Imitate Your Menu   A POS should enable you to organize and display each food item from your inventory the way it is on your menu. It should be able to handle the conventional ordering. For instance, if a customer wants extra ketchup with fries and extra cheese on the burger, your employee can instantly record it and transfer the details to the accurate food counter. Order recording becomes a very convenient task for the employees without having to ask the customer twice.   You can also set different menus according to a specific shift. For example, in the morning you can display breakfast options so that the customers arriving at your restaurant at that time only get to see the breakfast items first. This way, you can easily increase upselling while increasing the efficiency of your staff. Thus, your staff can serve the guests with more enthusiasm since the POS is now handling extras on their behalf.   Break Down Menu Items  A typical breakfast menu can add up to dozens of dishes such as boiled eggs, omelet and toast, baked beans, and so on. If you list every menu item separately on the POS, it will end up building an extensive list while making everything a lot more complicated than it already is. For example, if a customer and his friend order the same dish but the friend orders extra cheese, there will be transactions twice. This makes the entire process a lot longer, and there are always chances of filling the order. This sort of POS has serious drawbacks:   Slower ordering: your front office staff has to go through a thorough list of items while ensuring they tap on the correct ones. It is a lot more time-consuming and fuels the risk of errors.   Difficult reconciliation: when you have to record multiple dishes separately, their reconciliation becomes tedious. It may even end up taking hours just to get this job done.   Complicated menu: you cannot optimize the menu if you do not know the best dish and the right mix-match distinct items to create an alluring menu.   With LS Retail, you can set a few dishes in your menu and optimize the modifiers to add or remove ingredients. In addition, you can catch more accurate food costs, streamline inventory management while aligning replenishment to the actual use.   Use Colors to Differentiate Different Items  As soon as you successfully set your POS replicating your menu, this is where the fun part begins. Play with assorted colors to differentiate dishes. For instance, you can set starters as blue, the main course as purple, and desserts as pink. Pick colors for different food sections like green for salad, yellow for chicken, white for fish, and so on. With this sort of color setting, your staff can easily differentiate between dishes and make the order-taking process quicker.   Allow Self Service and Contactless Ordering  You can increase both staff efficiency and customer satisfaction simultaneously, as self-service is becoming increasingly popular among guests especially in quick and fast restaurants. Customers love the convenience of the technology. Many restaurants have noticed a hike of 15%-20% of checkouts after allowing self-service and self-ordering facilities.   According to some research, customers order more add-ons and are willing to pay more when they have the facility to add whatever they want on their own, instead of asking someone to do it for them. Self-service devices also speed up the table and ordering turnover as the guests are free to order whenever they are ready.   LS Retail is one of the unified software service providers that delivers a set of tools and features required to run a restaurant business. Integrated POS is one of its services. Trident Information Systems is a Gold Microsoft Partner. Since 1999, they have served various business ventures and failed none. Contact us for further information.  

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Why Does Your Restaurant Business Need Intelligent Analytics?

Restaurant Management ERP /

Have you ever imagined the number of opportunities you are probably losing to your resistance to change? The past few months have proven that no business can stand longer in the competition while sticking to the old conventional ways. Especially during this time where changes, speed and agility became a survival need.   It did not take too long for restaurants to figure out the need to adopt new models of quick and efficient food delivery. The need for staffing changes, last-minute customizations, ingredient substitution, etc. needs quick processing. Traditional technology cannot support this agility. Therefore, restaurants need to start investing in the right technology that guarantees a greater level of agility.   According to the studies by IDC, companies who focus on building business intelligence improve their productivity, drive cost efficiency, and have 8 times the revenue and twice the profitability as non-digitally transformed enterprises.   How Analytics Benefits Your Restaurant Business   With the new Artificial Intelligence technology, businesses no longer rely on their data scientists to dig out insights and wade through data. There is cloud-based business-powered analytics available to most restaurants while providing tangible benefits.  Effective AI-powered analytics can provide tremendous benefits to a business such as:   Finds the meaningful patterns: Such analytics extracts even the trickiest data that a business person might not catch at first. For instance, you might note that your restaurant gets more customers as it rains. Or that your downtown location sells more wine glasses and fewer beers when you serve steak as the main.   Drives effective Ingredient Ordering: It tracks your historical consumption patterns and helps you forecast the probability of next week’s sales. The system also displays a report containing the necessary details you need to make in the next orders.   Minimizes waste: With the right information at hand, you can figure out why there is an extra can of sauce left, or how much content your freezer already has. Having accurate data on your current inventory helps you adjust just the right amount and while minimizing waste.   Optimize stock usage and distribution: You can also identify if the content in your freezer will be okay if shifted to a different location. You can relocate inventories accordingly and find the most appropriate alternatives that ensure maximum utilization of the spaces you have.   Creates a more logical menu: Intelligent Analytics can provide insights to design a perfect menu that compliments your guest’s taste while giving you more in return. Identify the dish that doesn’t return enough profit. Check if you can work with other dishes that can offer a better return. Check if your most popular dishes are even providing the revenue you expect.   Simplified Staffing: check if your restaurant is overstaffed or understaffed, how many workers are useful, and how many of them won’t make a difference if removed. Check if you have too many or too few staff working in a location at a specific time. Identify how you can make better use of their time and resources.   3 Tips for a Restaurant CIO  We have accumulated a few tips for CIOs to optimize intelligent business analytics for the maximum benefit of their restaurants.   Find the Subtle Drivers of Benefits  Optimize analytics to find the smaller driver of benefits. As it is important to concentrate on the KPIs like the number of laborers and the number of hours you are spending on your guests, you need to find the smaller sections that play a massive role in providing a good return. Figure out the factors that are driving your customers into your business. Identify why small changes are happening among your customers, the factors driving them, and how you can shift them.   Use Analytics to Predict   Many restaurants use historical analysis to understand what has happened. However, the real power of such analysis is to prepare you for the future, where the business is going, and how it can do better. It is essential to involve external data to determine external behavior. For instance, if you notice that the miles your customers travel have dropped, what could be the reasons behind it, and how you can mitigate against it.   Adjust Your Matrix   Take your previous table turns, for instance, how fast you can turn the tables only matters if you have enough guests to fill those tables. As the matrix changes, businesses must focus on serving more to the customers who already exist. Always pay attention to what is happening to your business before choosing the matrix you want to focus on.   To take full advantage of intelligent analytics, the first step is to discard the old disjointed applications and upgrade to a unified software solution like LS Retail. Trident Information Systems is one of the Gold Partners of LS Retail and Microsoft. Backed up with more than 150 technical resources, we have served several businesses. Contact us for further information. 

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Revolutionize Your Restaurant Experience with Technology

Restaurant Management ERP /

Everything in the kitchen has revolutionized in the past two decades; from smart appliances to the boom of the curbside kitchen, everything is influenced by technology. The hike in technology has also helped to cope with the moody customers. A comprehensively designed technology like LS Retail, it is a unified solution that offers a set of essentials every restaurant owner needs to streamline their operations.   The hospitality industry is one of the toughest industries to survive because it directly deals with customers. People from diverse backgrounds, mindsets, and preferences might demand different services. Keeping each of them happy sounds like a tough affair, doesn’t it?   Before the arrival of technology, every restaurant was in a compact shape, worked back office in silos, and allowed enough flaws in to slow down overall operations. The POS was just billing software capable of collecting bills offline and online separately.   The decision-making process was rather slower than it is today due to the lack of real-time and accurate data. As soon as technology signed in, restaurants started evolving in many ways:   Restaurant Expansion Beyond the Four Walls   Many customers these days prefer the comfort of their homes over any dining experience. Especially after covid-19, the demand for taking away has taken a hike. Allow your customers to order food from wherever they want and however they want. Integrate different channels and ensure enough flexibility with food ordering and payments. According to the National Restaurant Association, three out of five buyers in the US alone, order delivery or takeout. Apart from this, two out of five consumers claim that they would rather buy meal kits if their preferred restaurants offered them.   The time has passed when the customers had no other choice but to walk to their favorite restaurants just to have their favorite meals. However, the same is not the case with today’s guests. They demand their favorite delicacies the way they want, be it at their homes or in a restaurant. With the right technology, any restaurant can expand itself beyond the four walls, collect customer data from all interactions enabling both loyalty and personalization of their customer’s preferred touchpoints.   Unfold the New Eat-in Experience   In-store designs and layouts that present restaurant spaces popularized on social media, plates that look like a sheer piece of art, and an impressive essence of a brand. In the past few years, restaurants have focused on delivering an unforgettable experience to their guests.   Privacy and intimacy coupled with an excellent dine-in experience boost satisfaction to the next level. For example, in the Netherlands, a restaurant has set up a temporary greenhouse structure for two, so that couples could enjoy a luxurious time with privacy and intimacy. These innovations are not uncommon today.   For fast and quick casual establishments, self-serve kiosks or self-ordering devices can level up guests’ convenience. Self-ordering devices on the table can provide a hassle-free and contactless way of ordering, while also allowing guests to make it as quick or slow as they want.   Overall, the key to reading your customers is to understand what draws them in. To collect such data, restaurants need suitable technology that unifies all your key data (loyalty, sales, interactions) into a unified view. With this unified data you can see both the individual preferences and the big picture.   Empower Your Employees   In the restaurant industry, the employee turnover rate is notoriously high. According to some research, it can reach up to 75%. Many factors are causing it: such as a stressful environment, working in silos while having more customers in, fewer growth opportunities, etc. Technology can help tremendously to cope with situations like these. For example, by empowering your employees with a mobile POS (Point of Sale) device, the servers can help their customers more conveniently and make the work environment enticing overall. For instance, they can provide readily available information on whether the catch of the day is still available, or a particular chicken dish is gluten-free.   When you have all the information a click away, customer service becomes smoother and less stressful. Apart from this, when tech-savvy workers start joining the industry and arm themselves with the technology, it can take you ahead of the competition in one jump.   Optimize Artificial Intelligence  You can optimize Artificial Intelligence to improve efficiency and prevent waste. For instance, if there are new tariffs or droughts, and there is a specific ingredient that is hard to find, you can use AI and find more affordable ingredients or substitutes of the same. It displays all the options available to you and picks the best option.   No matter what your goal is, AI takes the responsibility to simplify the decision-making process by providing a full-fledged report containing every essential detail on the topic of your choice. However, to run through BI and analytics services, restaurants need to install a software solution that integrates data from different platforms and turns it into a unified actionable report.   Trident Information Systems offers a set of every tool you need to run your business and stay ahead of the competition. We are the Gold Microsoft and LS Retail Partners and have served multiple businesses so far. Armed with 150+ technical resources, we provide services in India and Beyond. For further information, contact us.  

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5 Restaurant Technology You Need to Know.

Retail POS Solution /

The time is evolving, and so are the expectations of customers with the restaurants. Times are gone when customers are liable to commute to the restaurant in order to get their favorite meals. They want to eat wherever and however they want. In addition, with technological advancements, they expect faster services and complete attention from the staff at the same time.   Research has shown during the pandemic that the food home delivery ratio increased to a certain level, and this was the factor through which restaurants could manage to survive. Usage of third-party food delivery applications like Swiggy, Zomato, and so on grew significantly. Technology played a vital role in restaurant survival.   Now, the customer can enjoy food wherever and however they want. They can now make changes to their order without having to ask a staff member. For instance, they can tell them to add more cheese to the pizza or ask for extra ketchup right there and then without a server. In some reports, we discovered that people would pay more to add Ons when they have a self-service facility available.   As technology has evolved so much, there is still room for growth. To meet customer preferences and not to mention to evolve, restaurants need to invest more in further technological advancements. This way, they can focus more on what they love: creating delicious meals and delicacies and unforgettable experiences. We have compiled a list of restaurant technologies that restaurants must be aware of.   Online POS  An Online POS system or a Cloud-based POS system is more than billing software. It is more advanced and delivers more features than the traditional one. Older POS were merely used to collect bills online and offline separately. However, the scenarios have changed, and modern POS can collect bills, take orders, track inventory, and integrate the front office with the back. Everything is saved on the cloud so there is no risk of data loss. Even if there is no internet, the transactions are recorded offline and saved on the cloud as soon as they are connected to the net.   Apart from this, a cloud-based POS records customer transactions from different channels which can later be utilized to create deals and plans for the customers. According to some reports, about 61% of businesses want their next POS to be cloud-based. Some of the reasons include its cost-effectiveness and scalability. Online POS can be availed of a monthly subscription. Therefore, ditching the need to invest in high upfront costs. It does not even need hardware and is quick to deploy.   Artificial Intelligence (AI)  Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human processes by machines, specifically computer systems. This technology can process even the natural language, collect data, and make sense from a vast amount of data. In the case of restaurants, there are many applications powered by AI such as:   Chatbots: chatbots are designed to understand speech patterns and have relevant conversations through which customers can book a table or order food online. Platforms like- official websites and social media platforms can be used.   Predictive Ordering: this feature analyses your restaurant’s previous orders and revenue and forecasts future needs while helping you avoid over-stocking or under-stocking.   Staff Scheduling: scheduling and staffing solutions help you schedule staff optimally.   AI is the heart of businesses which helps them grow and evolve exponentially. Therefore, allowing restaurants to elevate their service standards.   Kitchen Display System (KDI)   A Kitchen Display System (KDI) is designed to replace your traditional paper ticket and kitchen printers. The job is not done here, there are a lot more things it offers. As soon as a customer place an order, it flashes straight on the accurate kitchen counter. If guests want to make changes or wish to have add Ons they may address them straight away while notifying the chef.   There is a function called recipe viewer, which enables chefs to follow a specific recipe and avoid wastage. A recipe viewer will also cut costs on training and call attention to nutrition and allergy information.   Business Intelligence (BI)  Business Intelligence optimized AI to compile, integrate and analyze business data, turning it into a single vision truth while driving more logical decisions. Business Intelligence and analytics solutions have been used to increase business efficiency, and their effectiveness is not new to restaurants.   With this technology, restaurants can place suitable lunch meals in the relevant areas or provide reports on the breakfast items making the most profit each week. Restaurant owners can also identify if the crowd in a location would like to see stand-up comedy during dinner. Having these kinds of data at hand helps make more logical decisions and    Contactless Payments and Self Ordering Devices  Restaurants need forms of payments that require little or no contact with shared surfaces. For instance, mobile wallets, biometric authentication payments, credit cards, debit cards. Contactless payments are much safer, especially in this era where social distancing has become one of the necessities.   Similarly, self-ordering devices vitally helped cope with the pandemic. They enable customers to make their orders without a server in the restaurant kitchen. Customers can either use self-serving kiosks, tablets on the table side, or even their mobile phones.   Internet of Things (IoT)  Internet of things refers to all the items and devices that are designed to connect to the internet and each other to transmit data. For instance, connected kitchen appliances like ovens, freezers, and deep fryers upload their status automatically to the cloud ensuring seamless operational flow and regulatory compliance.   With IoT, managers do not have to go through each device and check their condition. Instead, they can simply go through the reports and see the presence of an issue and think of a resolution.    As time flies, the restaurant industry is rapidly changing. It needs to adopt technological advancements to fulfill customer demands and embrace better efficiency. LS Retail provides a suite of tools that ensure customer satisfaction as well as better business efficiency. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail Partner who has served multiple business ventures. Backed with a team of 150+ experts and two decades of experience, we deliver excellent software services. Contact us for further information.  

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Drive Customers Back to Your Business in a Post-COVID Era

Retail ERP Software /

There has been a massive shift in the way customers approach brands. They have now become even more quality and cost-conscious. Businesses have also modified the way they operate; they have now understood their customer’s sentiments better while the world is fighting a battle against this never-ending virus.   In order to gain your customer’s trust, you have to be true to your brand and serve its purpose. Now how can you do it better? By understanding your customers, their needs, and sentiments. Keep your customers first. Ask for feedback, use appropriate technology to track their spending patterns and habits. What changed, and how can you keep up with it? It is all you need to understand. Given below are a few things that COVID-19 changed;   Brand Switching: As several brands dwindled and shuttered, consumers were forced to try new brands. With the limited opportunity to purchase products in person, they had to rely more on online mediums. As the pandemic started fading, more people began to realize that it was not a bad idea to give other brands a chance.   Expecting channels: As customers explored online shopping increasingly, they became further accustomed to Omnichannel research and transactions. Customers are now expecting physical stores to offer online transactions that complement their overall shopping experience even before entering the store.   Price and Value Consciousness: After job declines and shortage of income, people started becoming even more quality conscious and began to question further if their brand is equating the value or not. Also, they are concerned about environmental sustainability and what these brands are doing in the favor of the planet.   Loyalty V/s Retention: Many people confuse loyalty with retention. However, little do they acknowledge their difference. Customer loyalty is what fuels customer retention. Loyalty is a keen sense of support and obligation to choose a brand which later fuels retention.    Tips to Keep Customers Loyal to Your Band Post-COVID  There are a number of ways through which you can retain customers. If accompanied by suitable technology like LS Retail, even better. You have to make sure the quality of your product is up to the mark while keeping customers first at all times.   Keep Online Communication Consistent  Online communications involve updated social media posts and emails. However, at the onset of COVID, various small businesses paused their online communication. If you are one of them as well, this is the best time to begin again.   You do not have to aggressively promote your brand (which can later become annoying for the customer) and understand that the situation is now different from pre-COVID times. All you have to do is inform your customers about product availability. Since this is a tough time for everyone, sympathize with them, tell your stories, and let them know how much you care for them. This is the best time to connect emotionally with the consumer.   Omnichannel Customer Service  Imagine how frustrating it would be for a customer to fill in their name, contact, and other details again and again at every step, especially when his requirement is urgent.  For instance, a customer purchased a product last weekend from your store, who raised a fund request explaining his issues. After a while, a customer executive calls him asking for issues further, and other details again. After a few days, now the marketing manager wants to have a word with the buyer and asks for the same details again.   Businesses need to introduce a robust omnichannel mechanism that allows every member to stay on the same page while taking care of the customer’s concerns. It not only saves time but also lets the customer feel important.   To set up an effective omnichannel, you need to bring sales, marketing, and customer services together and connect them with all touchpoints via a common dashboard.   Offer Gift cards to Customers  Pandemic or not- everyone loves gifts. To increase customer engagement, offer them e-gift cards. This way, you are maintaining communication while avoiding human contact. Offer them interesting offers while keeping your business in mind and how it runs. For example, if you have a store at Amazon, you can offer X% cashback on your next purchase. Such offers thrill customers and boost sales while maintaining safety.   Resolve Queries of Unsatisfied Customers first  It is more important to train your customer service team to treat unsatisfied customers first than you think. It is a massive risk to let them remain dissatisfied. Everyone has access to social media platforms where they can freely share their opinions. There is always a risk of negative promotion if they are discontented. The best practice is to resolve their queries as soon as possible. Another factor that may come into influence is their negative remarks on social media impacting your website search engine.   Reward Loyal Customers   Using a unified software solution like LS Retail can help you identify your loyal customers. With a robust visionary dashboard, you can calculate each customer’s behavior and pick the loyal ones. Offer attractive deals and offers exclusively tailored for them. It makes the consumer feel important and belonged. You can classify different customers and segment them into diverse groups and prepare exclusive deals for each. Offer gifts that none of your competitors offer. There is no better time than their birthdays, anniversaries, festivals, and other notable events to offer your personalized gifts.   It is essential to think out-of-the-box to keep ahead of your competition in the post-COVID era. Letting the right technology assist you is a clever idea. LS Retail is a unified software solution specifically designed to take care of your every business need. Trident Information Systems is a Gold Partner of LS Retail. Armed with 150+ technical resources, we have served various business ventures. Contact us for further information.  

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How Can Unified Commerce Be a Game-Changer for Your Business?

Retail ERP Software /

We have witnessed a massive shift in the retail industry in the past few decades. We have seen retail stores evolving and expanding their reach via multiple channels. The only way to survive in this industry is to keep customers happy at all costs.   Retailers must provide an omnichannel service to the customers and deliver personalized services across all channels. A unified commerce solution implements advanced technologies like IoT or ML and software solutions such as CRM and POS. However, it is still difficult to make them collaborate.   Now, with changing times, businesses are making amends with their business processing. They are now inclining more towards using one platform for sales, systems, and applications while collecting data and extracting essential insights. This process is also known as unified commerce, and it is most likely to become the base for all businesses in the future.   What is Unified Commerce?  Earlier the commerce industry relied on the individual channels of sales. However, now most of them optimize an omnichannel commerce model. Despite having multiple benefits, this model is insufficient to cover every issue that retailers might encounter. Therefore, there is an emerging demand for unified commerce.   Unified commerce is a full-fledged software system that enables retailers to:   Monitor each function of their business.   View product and customer data via all touchpoints in real-time.   Analyze data and turn them into actionable insights.   Make data-driven and logical decisions.   Proffer a personalized customer experience.   In simple words, you can get product data, customer insights, back-office management within the same platform.   The Major Aspects of a Unified Commerce  Given below are the main pillars of unified commerce: Sales, customer, software, and product.   Sales Channel  Different customers might prefer different channels to reach out to your product. Some might pick your website, third-party applications, or any other medium depending upon their choice. It makes the retailer even more accountable for providing an equally seamless experience across all the touchpoints. Whether browsing or purchasing products online or in-store, buyers must access the same chances: the view, the feel, promotions, and exceptional deals, and everything else must be the same. This is what we call consistency across all the channels.   Customer Interactions   The users who interact with your business using different channels via different devices must get a seamless shopping experience even from a different channel from the point they paused. For instance, if a buyer puts a product in the cart on your website, the next time they open the app, the cart items must be visible to them. This way they can continue shopping even after shifting to another channel.   When you keep tabs on your customer moves via all the channels, you can create personalized recommendations and make customers happy. As a result, your sales go up.   Software Systems   This concept even implies the integration of different systems on the same platform, such as ERP, CRM, SCM, CSM, POS, mobile apps, and other systems. Unified commerce ensures these systems are fully integrated and deliver impeccable services.   Product Information  The data addressing your services or products must be accurate and relevant across all the sales channels. Your customers and employees need to access the identical data of your services and products to avoid misunderstanding. Make sure the data is identical at all levels.   How Does It Provide a Seamless Shopping Experience?   Unified commerce opens doors to several benefits, and seamless customer interactions are one of them. But how does it do it? Given below are the factors that are responsible for providing seamless customer services:   Flexibility: It enables more flexibility for the customer. They can start, continue, finish, and cancel a product using their mobile phones or any other device they prefer. The buying journey has never been more flexible.   Interaction Recording: The system tracks every customer’s action; what they purchased, what they canceled, and what product they returned. The system tracks every interaction they have with your brand while allowing you to predict their next decisions.    Real-time Updates: Completely integrated channels make it possible for a real-time product or service updates while keeping your staff and customers aware of the availability.   Personalized Recommendations: Customer monitoring allows you to tailor recommendations for the customer.   How does Unified Commerce Benefit Your Business?   Apart from providing a seamless experience to the shoppers, this concept benefits your overall business with:   Automation: A centralized platform allows automation of most of the time-consuming manual tasks, which results in increased productivity of employees.   Effective Management: Unified commerce prevents almost all business barriers while ensuring 100% transparency of processes at all levels. Your staff is aware of all the updates in real-time hence allowing them to make the right decisions centering on delivery, marketing, inventory, and other business processes. You can also get rid of some general retail issues such as overstocking and understocking.   Lower Scope of Errors: Automation ensures accuracy of data drives the lower scope of errors as compared to those of manual management of different solutions. In addition, AI and ML-based predictive analysis help you predict and prevent issues.   Boost of Sales: All the above benefits mentioned above sum up to the boost of sales. With delighted customers, efficient management, accurate data, logical decisions, and fewer errors you can boost sales.    LS Retail is a unified commerce service provider. It delivers a set of tools ensuring impeccable business operations and incredible customer services. Trident Information Systems is a Gold Partner of LS Retail and Microsoft who has served numerous business ventures so far. For further information contact us.  

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How can Retailers Surpass Competition with Innovation?

Retail POS Solution /

In today’s world, where competition is cutthroat, retailers need to find innovative ideas to stand out in the crowd. With the right technology and creativity, retailers can be ahead in the race. With suitable strategies, retailers can accurately capture a larger sum of customer base.   Traditional retail methods come along with various drawbacks such as:   Inability to record customer experience.   Consumers demand the latest POS experience.   Reliability of the same old methods to sell a product and expecting a different result.   Stores and eCommerce are still operating in silos.   Lack of accurate customer data for launching effective offers.   By combining the right technology and strategies, retailers can outshine their competition.   Switch to an Integrated POS system  Customers need flexibility and freedom to place an order however they want and get it wherever they want: their smartphones have become a walking POS. Traditional POS would only support billing offline and online separately. It would not record customer data further to form effective loyalty programs. An integrated POS does the job. With this technology, even staff efficiency increases, they can serve customers even more effectively, find the product location right away, manage inventory more easily and greet customers with a warmer smile. The customers no longer must stand in the long queues, they can help themselves with the payments and free the space soon. Before creating any loyalty program, the first step is to access the customer data, only then can a retailer classify customers into diverse groups for different deals and offers.   Offer Subscription Boxes   A subscription box is a marketing tool to enhance brand exposure to the customers. Be its meal kits, books, shaving kit, or wine subscription boxes have transformed the concept of repeat purchases. Surprises excite everyone. Hence, they can be used as a great marketing tool. Consumers adore the experience of convenience and a surprise of a curated selection of new products directly sent to them. According to a recent eCommerce study by McKensy, about 35% of active box subscribers tend to purchase more active subscriptions.   Surprise Customers with a Surprise Basket   Understand each customer’s preferences and their spending pattern. Offer deals on their favorite products. Mix a few of them and voila! you have a surprise basket for your customers. Distinct baskets for different segments. Not only does this boost customer satisfaction, but also builds recognition for your store. Satisfied customers tend to spread word of mouth contagiously. There is no better promotion than a referral. It is economical and more effective than any other promotional measure. As human beings, we all long for a sense of belonging. If you successfully show your care and affection towards your customers, you are already ahead of the competition.   Promote Sustainability by Reselling   Customers these days have become more sensitive towards our environment. According to Neilsen, 73% of global consumers are willing to change their consumption habits to reduce environmental impacts. Consumers are now holding retailers accountable for their production tacts. Keeping this new mentality of their customers in mind, retailers have decided to respond by reselling pre-used items.   According to the latest Thredup resale reports, the sale of second-hand items has grown 21 times faster than the retail apparel market over the past three years. Now the time has changed, and bargaining is not limited to just students. Even 26% of luxury shoppers are now preferring pre-used luxury items.   Allow Apparel on Rent  As the trend of ethical consumption grows, the rental market is fueled as well. Consumers nowadays do not prefer to empty their bank accounts and buy expensive clothes to rot in their closets as soon as a trend is over. Apparel rentals give enough flexibility to the buyer to keep up with the trend affordably.   Retailers willing to enter the rental market must make sure that they have the right technology that tracks each item; which one is in, and which ones are out. It should be efficient enough to check the state of each product when it is back in the store and identify if it is in the proper shape.   Bottom Line  Retailers can barely stand up to their strong competitors Without innovation. With better technology, more accurate data, and more efficient strategies, retailers can beef up their business tremendously. LS retail is a unified software specializing in retail matters offering a complete set of tools required to run a retail business. From integrated POS to automatic inventory tracking, you can get everything under one umbrella. Trident Information Systems is a Gold Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner who has served various business ventures so far. For further information, contact us.

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Why Does Your ERP Need a SaaS Upgrade?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 /

As businesses are spending a fortune on building and maintaining an infrastructure for on-premise Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), various other organizations are switching to the cloud. Why? Because of its many benefits. It ensures more security and streamlines processes.   Unlike on-premise ERP, where security is more breachable, a SaaS ensures bank-level security, anti-data theft, and data backup. On-premise ERP deployment can pose issues with mobility due to reliability on private networks.   A SaaS-based company delivers more flexibility and scales with your business. It usually updates automatically. Minor updates occur without disturbing the organizational ecosystem. While considering massive updates, the service provider sends a notification in advance. However, this is not the case with on-premise ERP; updating the software is tiring and the user’s a headache.     How Does SaaS-Based ERP Outshine On-Premises ERP?  Considering the crucial information stored in an ERP system, such as company financials, employee data, corporate trade secrets, and so on. Security is the biggest concern when it comes to prospective buyers. Cloud vendors like Microsoft Dynamics 365 have strict standards to secure your data. Additionally, it ensures mobility and sometimes accesses native mobile apps while complimenting the security. Apart from this, other features outshine ERP.     Needs Less Initial Capital  One of the greatest benefits of SaaS is its cost-efficiency. In an on-premise ERP, the user has to spend a heavy upfront cost on hardware, labor, and training. However, this is not the case with the cloud-based ERP, which uses a SaaS model and eliminates common financial pitfalls.   This approach offers various financial advantages as it turns ERP systems from a capital cost into an ongoing operating expense. Thanks to the cost-efficient qualities of this model, the total upfront investment required for its implementation is relatively low. The low implementation cost can be a savior for small businesses that do not have the budget for on-premise ERP and want to scale quickly.     Streamlines Deployment   Generally, massive ERP disasters occur during the implementation stage when coordination and integration become hard. Different departments struggle to cope with the same, and the IT department is scrambling upon it all. There can even be issues like production hampering due to costs piling up.  Cloud ERP Software is designed to tackle these issues right away. They are engineered to be more adaptive, responsive, and easier to implement. Additionally, it takes up to three-six weeks to deploy, unlike on-premise that takes up to twelve weeks. It can be a great asset to small businesses that cannot afford an efficient on-premise ERP deployment. Moreover, every organization acknowledges that having the resources needed is useless unless they are people friendly.     Secures Corporate Data   When it comes to choosing a suitable ERP, security is the biggest concern. Because of the widespread belief, the cloud does not provide better security than the one on-premise, many businesses still prefer to stick to the on-premise ERP. However, nowadays, many cloud ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics 365, offers a suite of tools that ensure data security no less than an on-premise ERP. Moreover, some even provide additional services such as:   Automatic, simultaneous, and system-wide updates that fix security pitfalls without users having to take additional steps.   Various backups and failsafe redundant layers.   And systems looked after by a dedicated team of cloud safety experts.   One of the jobs of an ERP is to deliver interdepartmental corporation; the cloud makes it a lot simpler. A cloud ERP provides cooperation, transparency, and accountability across the organization. It can accomplish all this due to its various features that include:   A suite of project management tools that streamline synchronicities and communication.   Real-time performance and financial reporting deliver essential insights to decision-makers.   Resource management operations to help spot opportunities and eliminate waste.   Efficient third-party collaborations with vendors and consultants.   Increases security by showing user footprints across the system ensuring easy inventory monitoring.   Apart from being an asset to the company’s functionalities, a capacity upgrade provides robust agility as well as visibility. Thus, helping them to respond quickly and make more logical decisions.     Updates Faster  The software update is one of the significant areas where the cloud ERP system ensures the scope of improvement. Traditional ERP system needs a regular update to fix security threats and boost performance. Upgrading the software can be tedious, arduous, and can demand a lot of IT resources. The situation gets more problematic when incomplete updates are applied.   This cannot be the case with cloud ERP systems, as upgrading is the manufacturer’s or the vendor’s responsibility. New Modules, Security patches, and software updates are usually automatically updated – usually in the background. Therefore, allowing employees to carry on with their tasks without any disruptions. Version inconsistencies are not likely to occur, as the service provider can remotely access and update any user’s account.     Unlocks the Doors to Mobile Devices  The mobile device has been used as an essential business tool. One of the significant ERP benefits that are perfectly suitable for mobile devices is its capacity to provide centralized data throughout the organization but in a decentralized way to remove hurdles to efficiency.   It allows the users to access real-time data wherever and whenever they want.  Provides real-time updates and facilitates efficient manufacturing operations.   Delivers the most up-to-date information to the sales staff to make better decisions.     Trident Information Systems is one of the top SaaS providers. With Microsoft’s Gold Partnership, 150+ resources, and two decades of experience, we have served multiple ventures so far. For further information or a demonstration, contact us.     

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Manage Exceeding Electronics and Handset Demands this Festive Season

Retail POS Solution /

The festive season is near, and customer demands for electronics have already outstripped supply for consumer electronic items. It has become a grave issue for retailers and other industry executives. Demand for the best-selling models coupled with a set of other imported devices is either short on supply or out of stock.   The supply crunch amplified due to the Navratri sales (October 12-15) led by online marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart, as well as brick-and-mortar retail stores such as Croma and Reliance Digital.   How to Manage this Demand Hustle?  The festive season is when retailers are flooded with opportunities and need the right technology and approaches to beat this demand crunch. We have compiled a few suggestions to help you manage overwhelming demands.   Predict Demands and Stock up   Demand prediction is the first and the most crucial step for managing demand. Understand market trends and keep yourself stocked up. This is how Amazon and Flipkart could stay ahead in the completion. They already forecasted this surge, and the sellers stocked up with higher inventory much earlier. Hence, leading to a better situation for these marketplaces. Supply Chain Management Software like Microsoft Dynamics 365 empowered with AI-based technology extracts market data and creates logical and actionable reports.   Integrate Online Ordering Channels  Allows customers to reach you the way they want. Whether it is an application, website, or third-party platform, they can reach out to you through any medium. Having all the channels integrated within a unified platform saves retailers from multiple integration complications. This way the buyer gets enough flexibility to choose what they are most comfortable with. Apart from this, retailers can also check on their customer’s activities, for example, they can check out how many customers landed on their website and for how long. calculating their level of interest, the retailer can set a targeted customer base accordingly.   Manage Warehouse Efficiently  When demands get unpredictable, efficient warehouse space management becomes a must. Plan proper stock positioning and allocation for maximum floor space optimization. Many warehouses ignore the importance of proper racking and stacking. Hence, they end up wasting a lot more space than usual. Adopt proper spacing methods such as extending your racks up vertically, reducing aisle width and racking area, adding half-pallet storage location, and so on.   Electronics tend to get outdated pretty quickly, hence discard the obsolete and damaged appliances. Regulate warehouse temperature and keep tabs on the inventory yet to arrive.  Make Sure You are Not Short on Inventory   After forecasting demand, retailers should ensure they have the right number of stocks available complimenting consumer demands. Track electronics batch and classify inventory with similar traits in batches. For example, keep all the iPhone versions in a single batch and Samsung phones in another. This is called batch tracking, which makes inventory management a lot easier. You can also use a technology that keeps tabs on current inventory and required inventory. Not only does it save your efforts but also streamlines inventory management.    Bust Queues with Mobile POS System  A team equipped with mobile POS assists customers way better. It accelerates customer experience while tracking the right electronic item in the store. It even streamlines the payment process; customers can pay faster and even help themselves if other staff members are busy with others. Consumers do not have to wait in long queues. Apart from consumers, it also manages suppliers and ensures complete security. A mobile POS is more than just billing software. Mobile POS is different from a fixed POS system. It is easy to carry and more convenient for both consumers and the seller.   Ensure Timely Delivery  When demands are rushing, and so is the time, accelerate the delivery process. Retailers have to be extra careful during the festive crunch. The profit rates are high, and so is the competition, which makes customers demand faster delivery. Track vehicles and the shortest route possible while ensuring the product reaches its destination unharmed. Also, it is advisable to allow a seamless returning process if the customer is not satisfied with the product. This leads to a sense of security among the customers. Many marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart follow the same policy. They allow customers to return a product if they feel like it.   Bottom Line  The festive season brings joy, business, and stress for retailers altogether. With overwhelming demands and shortage of supply complimenting the urge for quality needs a solid supply chain management. Demand forecasting, omnichannel, warehouse management, and prompt delivery are the aspects. A unified supply chain management service provider like Trident Information Systems. It has been a Microsoft Gold Partner since 2003 and has dealt with such demand scrunches gracefully. For further information or a demonstration, contact us.    

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