While evaluating the software for your retail business, what are the key things to look into it ? We can have a large checklist detailing the requirements, but the following are the key points which can help you in deciding the right software:

• Point of Sale and invoicing - quick and easy billing, support for all POS accessories etc.
• Purchase order creation and receiving - automatic PO generation, handling of supplier offers etc.
• Inventory and price control - price levels, re-ordering, physical stock etc
• Customer Relationship Management - Home delivery, loyalty points etc
• Reports - Business and Statutory
• Security - user/role based, auditing
• Accounting - receivables, payables and general ledger
• Specific features of your vertical/Industry - service, rental, etc
• Software vendor services - training, support, upgradation etc.
• Ease of usage

While the above can be a handy checklist, which any decent IT vendor should be able to provide - there are other critical factors which you need to consider before you decide on the software for your retail business. Some of these are :

• What is the product’s current capability ?
• Whether the product/company can continuously evolve and adapt to the changing business dynamics ?
• Whether they will be able to provide a world class support and maintenance? What are the factors which constitute world class support ?
• Does it take care of your capital investment ?
• Does it increase your sales ?
• Does it make your operations more efficient ?

Makes sense, right ? A detailed white paper on the above can be found here - http://www.gofrugaltech.com/evaluation-check.html. A worthwhile study before you embark on your all important decision.

- Sivakumar