Next Gen POS (point-of-sale) will be about customer engagement. That was a key theme during a session, “Power Panel: Next Gen POS,” at the recent Money20/20 Conference in Las Vegas.
POS is no longer a fixed piece of hardware at the front of the store with a narrow set of capabilities.
As Money20/20 Chief Content Officer Andrew Morris put it: “The whole notion of POS is changing.”
Oscar Bello, president, Ingenico Group North America, said POS is not about payments.
“It’s about engagement,” he said. “That POS device has become the center for merchants to really manage their entire businesses. Combine that with a marketplace rich in applications and it gives merchants much more to do with POS devices. We really see this point of interaction becoming very powerful. POS has come a long way. It’s much more than just payment.”
Bello looks at omnichannel as “being able to enable every interaction into a point of purchase. That’s key in how we offer omnichannel. If it’s not secure, then you don’t have a seamless transaction. And to compete with larger players, we give them cross-border capabilities.”
Clover First Data CEO and co-Founder John Beatty said that when the company started, it was a mobile wallet company in 2011.
“We hit a major roadblock: POS integration,” he said. “We wanted to rebuild POS from the ground up.”
Revel Systems CEO and Co-Founder Lisa Falzone started her company in 2010. Her company is an iPad-based POS system. Revel’s inventory management allows business owners to keep track of and manage their inventory directly from the backend management console or a mobile device.
“I think the definition of POS is an interesting one,” she said. “We view POS as a mini SAP for your business. We’ve been able to eliminate the bac office server and post everything in the cloud. It’s cloud-based software and it’s real time. That’s the future of POS and where we see ourselves in the marketplace. We’re really focused on providing inventory analytics and aggregate reporting.”
Glen Robson, EVP, global head of solutions, Verifone, used to work as the Chief Technology Officer at Dell in the company’s Special Products division.
“When we think about the future of POS, software is now the key,” Robson said. “We have to drive a different kind of experience. It facilitates that one-to-one customer experience and a far greater level of identification with the customer.”
Earlier this year, Verifone, a world leader in payments and commerce solutions, launched Verifone Carbon– a flexible and integrated POS that leverages powerful capabilities and applications to transform the checkout process into an experience merchants and consumers will enjoy.
Verifone Carbon embodies the company’s vision for how commerce operates in a connected world. It shows Verifone’s commitment to transforming the POS, with the goal of connecting merchants to new differentiating opportunities and consumers to intuitive, enjoyable experiences.
Robson said merchants need trusted tools and services to create simple, secure, and engaging customer experiences and new ways to grow their businesses.