BBC News – How ‘point of sale’ became much more than a fancy calculator

You probably still think of it as a “cash register” – basically a fancy calculator and cash drawer that sits at the end of the shopping aisle just before the exit, which gives you the correct change on your way out.

Sure, it has a few more flashing lights than a few years ago, but it’s still essentially a machine whose only role in life is to accommodate a transaction every few minutes.

Wrong.

The modern point-of-sale (POS) system is a tightly integrated computer that almost certainly knows all about your buying history, how often you shop online and what you’re likely to buy next week.

It is also able to communicate along the entire length of the store’s supply chain right back to the factory if necessary.

Not bad for a device that has its origins in the late 1800s and was used primarily for producing a simple receipt – one copy for the merchant and one for the costumer.

via BBC News – How ‘point of sale’ became much more than a fancy calculator.

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BBC News – Viewpoint: The transparent supply chain

As we are all busy clicking, collecting, shopping and dropping, how often do you spare a thought for the long journey the goods you are buying have taken to get to you?

The “supply chain” describes the journey products and materials make long before they reach the shelves.

It involves all processes from getting material or produce out of the ground, processing it into product, distributing it to customers and finally returning the product to the ground in a sustainable way.

Technology impacts each element of the supply chain from distribution to getting the product back into the ground.

Our new year bottle of champagne, for example, will involve:

• the agricultural supply chain of growing grapes
• pressing grapes
• using the grape skins to create alternative gas sources

The glass supply chain is required for the bottles. Corks, labels and the metal to hold the cork also needs to be sourced and produced.

We then need to move our bottle of champagne from vineyard to supermarket, to your home and finally once drunk the bottle may be recycled and the process continues again.

via BBC News – Viewpoint: The transparent supply chain.

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Late payments not better for battling firms

Company collapses are likely to proliferate in coming months as the number of businesses delaying payment on their bills continues to increase, heaping more pressure on the struggling small business sector.

The latest figures from Dun & Bradstreet show an alarming deterioration in payment terms to 53.2 days for small businesses, from a previous reading 51 days, three months earlier.

Given the standard repayment term is 30 days, this lengthening of the due payment repayment is likely to push more companies to the wall.

By contrast, in 2003 the average term was 45 days and before GST was introduced in 2000 it was 41 days.

Payment trends are known to be an accurate leading indicator of an economic correction. Indeed, the last economic decline was preceded by a blowout in trade payments. The concern is that as the global credit market again tightens, and funding is harder to obtain, the impact of later payments will have painful consequences for many firms.

According to the latest Dun & Bradstreet Trade Payments Analysis – examining the ability of firms to pay their bills, and pay them on time – the number of payments falling within the standard 30-day term dropped 16.5 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

via Late payments not better for battling firms.

Strange Random Payment Quote:

The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.” – Simone Weil (French social Philosopher, Mystic and Activist in the French Resistance during World War II. 1909-1943)

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