Sophisticated Restaurant POS Software?
Lots of Point-Of-Sale restaurant vendors offer how sophisticated their POS systems are. I have seen the website of one of the POS hospitality vendors from abroad, where the many advanced features of the POS they sell are written in it. I admit I am amazed by how sophisticated their software is.
The question is, is the sophisticated resto software needed?
Initially, I also hoped that the Solis Resto restaurant software that we sold would be the most advanced software compared to our competitors. This is the “classic dream” of most technology companies. Everyone is competing to be the most sophisticated because being sophisticated is often perceived as quality.
However, from our experience, there are many restaurant and cafe entrepreneurs who don’t need sophisticated restaurant software or application systems. They need an application that can make it easier for them. Often, sophistication becomes a weapon for them to eat, because the more sophisticated it is, the more difficult it will be to use and the more expensive it will be.
POS focuses more on innovative restaurant software applications, rather than cutting edge. We admit, we are not the most sophisticated restaurant POS systems, because sophistication cannot be measured (relative). However, we always try to be an innovative POS system vendor for our customers.
Innovation is the sophistication needed. If a system is sophisticated, but not needed, it is useless. The examples of innovations from the Solis Resto restaurant application:
1. PDA Order application.
This application speeds up menu orders because it is directly inputted by the waitress via PDA when a guest orders a menu.
2. Kitchen Monitoring.
An innovation for easy monitoring of the menus that the kitchen staff wants to cook.
3. Data Center.
Module for restaurant report consolidation with multi-branches, or with a franchise concept. It is extremely helpful and makes it easy for the head office to know the sales status and inventory level of each outlet.
There are many other innovations that we continue to develop. The origin of our innovation, of course, comes from customer input itself, as our most asset.
Other Terms Of Restaurant Software
For some people, especially those who are familiar with the hospitality, cafe, restaurant, and F&B industry, maybe restaurant software is better known as Restaurant Point Of Sale software, or what is abbreviated as restaurant POS. In English, the term often used is Hospitality Software. In effect, this is the “real” term for this type of software.
However, the term “POS” does not sound familiar to ordinary people, especially those unfamiliar with the IT world. In fact, recently someone asked me what is the point of sale (POS) software. Maybe because his words are a bit foreign, so many ordinary people in Indonesia are still unfamiliar with the point of sales software.
Therefore, to make it more familiar to ordinary people, some call it a restaurant cashier program, cashier software for restaurants, or a restaurant billing system.
However, this term seems “narrow” in meaning. As if this software is only to assist cashiers in making transactions. In fact, the restaurant software covers inventory and purchasing, not only at the cashier.
Others use the term “restaurant management system” or “restaurant application system”. Again, there are those who feel the language is too high-tech. It would be difficult to sell this software to people who are clueless with these less grounded terms.
What about the term “F&B software”? Do not be surprised, there are still many people who don’t even know what F&B stands for (for those of you who don’t know, it stands for Food and Beverage: D). After all, the term “F&B” is too broad, as businesses like catering would be categorized as F&B. In fact, this software is not suitable for this type of catering business.
Therefore, POS ended up using a term that is expected to be quite familiar, easy to remember, and not deviating from its true meaning, namely “restaurant software”.
If you want to look for it, the weaknesses still exist, which can make people think that this software is only for restaurants, not for cafes or food court types. In fact, of course, it can be used for cafes and food courts. Confused in the end ….: D
