One Blog |May 24, 2022 | Blog

The Competitive Advantage of Using a Best-of-Breed POS Tracking Software

Mark Fullerton

The Best Reasons for Choosing and Using a Best-of-Breed Point-of-Sale (POS) Tracking Solution

Hint: The “Best Reason” of all is to Gain and Retain Competitive Advantage

When considering software of any type there are so many options. Often beverage alcohol distributors can be overwhelmed by the choices, making a final decision very difficult.

All-In-One vs Best-of-Breed Solutions

The Competitive Advantage of Using a Best of Breed POS Tracking Software One of the debates that we sometimes see is distributors looking to balance the arguments favoring all-encompassing applications (All-In-One), versus the features, cost advantages and speed of deployment of separate solutions (Best-of-Breed) that address specific areas of your business.

Historically SaaS applications (Software-as-a-Service, or so called “cloud-based” or "on-demand" solutions) the choice wasn’t always clear.

Today, when most companies are considering a software solution, that decision making process often includes at least one cloud-based solution. This means that increasingly the solution selection now favors the best-of-breed approach.

This best-of-breed approach extends to many other business areas as well. You see, a growing number of industries are focusing on offering a narrower set of products and services, rather than trying to be the jack-of-all-trades (and master of none) provider.

Actually, beverage alcohol distributors fit rather well into the master of one type of business.

The Internet of Things

The increasing adoption of best-of-breed software solutions is a fact. Why is this?

It’s largely due to a version of the “Internet of Things” — or IoT.

In this context, the IoT suggests that there is, today, a network of software (and hardware) that can easily connect and exchange data with each other creating efficiencies, features, and functions that result in economic and financial benefits for the enterprises that use them.

Why a SaaS Solution Makes Sense

Let’s look at why a best-of-breed, SaaS POS Tracking solution makes more sense today than in any other previous time.

In the past 12+ years, we’ve learned that every beverage alcohol distributor relies on POS marketing to “get, keep, and grow” their market share. We’ve also learned that most distributors consider POS to be one of their highest operational expenses.

In addition, we’ve heard that many distributors liken POS to a “black hole”. That means that they put resources, time, and money in and aren’t exactly sure what they get for their treasure and trouble.

They often ask,

Why do POS costs continue to escalate?
Where is the POS deployed, especially my permanent POS?
Am I getting the best ROI possible out of my POS spending?

Best-of-Breed POS Tracking Solution

A dedicated, best-of-breed focused solution for POS, like the ones developed by OnTrak, were designed by beverage alcohol distributors for beverage alcohol distributors.

These systems offer the capability for the sales team to order POS, electronically route that order to the print shop, or to the permanent POS warehouse. Then track the status of that order in real-time through production and placement.

Once the POS is placed these systems allow distributors to use the information collected by the systems to help them analyze the data and make better business POS decision about suppliers, brands, and customers.

Bottom-line these dedicated POS systems provide Ordering, Tracking, Measuring, and Managing of the full lifecycle of POS Marketing.

Other Things To Consider

- Over the past few years several popular “back office” systems have hastily added a POS ordering capability to their solutions, attempting to convince distributors that they have a best-of-breed solution as it relates to POS. OnTrak's POS Tracking solutions provide several key benefits in addition to just ordering POS as was mentioned earlier.

- While these solution providers have done an outstanding job of developing and all-in-one order entry, inventory, purchasing, A/P, and A/R solution, they’ve missed the mark with POS. Their POS ordering module does not deliver the functionality and depth of capability you’d come to expect from a best-of-breed solution like OnTrak.

- A best-of-breed POS Tracking solution is focused on doing a great job in one area — POS. All-in-one back-office solutions must focus on providing a solution to your sales, inventory and purchasing, payables and receivables, and financial reporting departments. Most whole-enterprise solutions, therefore, are strong in one area and often just adequate or good in the others. It just goes with the territory.

Selecting a Best-of-Breed Solution

The Best Reasons for Choosing and Using a Best-of-Breed Point-of-Sale (POS) Tracking Solution

Based on more than 12 years of experience selling and implementing best-of-breed POS tracking software we have confirmed the following:

- Selecting a best-of-breed POS solution means you will be getting access to “subject-matter experts” — people who have, literally, thousands and thousands of hours-worth of experience implementing and supporting a POS tracking solution that addresses specific areas of the beverage-alcohol distribution business.

- A best-of-breed POS Tracking solution can have new POS-focused features and functions added independently of other applications that are typically included as part of an all-encompassing suite of software

- When software companies change one module within a one-size-fits-all suite, there is a risk that making the change to one module in an all-in-one solution may cause unintended consequences in another.

- Due to best-of-breed POS solutions’ ability to be updated and enhanced more quickly and more frequently than would be the case with an embedded POS solution, it is possible to rapidly implement a best-of-breed solution especially when compared with the time and resources required to deploy an entire integrated back-office system.

- A cloud-based POS Tracking software does not require your IT department’s time and attention and it does not require additional networking or data center services meaning there is virtually no impact on your existing infrastructure and IT personnel.

- Finally, as stated in the title, the best reason, overall, to choose a best-of-breed software solution is to gain and retain competitive advantage in your market.

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