Retailers Reduce Risk with LS Retail Subscription

Reykjavik, Iceland (PRWEB) November 07, 2013

Since early 2012, LS Retail has been preparing for servicing retailers in a changed world. The efforts have been focusing on four areas: making LS Retail solutions^[1] easier to operate, reducing implementation time and costs through LS RapidStart implementation methodology, subscription-based pricing – pay as you go and providing customized information on vertical microsites, offering trials and access to specialists.

"Lower cost of ownership is the new regime. Therefore many retailers only want to pay for the functionality they actually use creating the need for out-of-the-box functionality. The software must be easy to implement and the time to value must be reduced to a minimum", says Carsten Wulff, Director of Partner Management at LS Retail.

Pay as you go has been around for some years now in various Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings. With LS Retail on subscription, we have solved some of the weaknesses of that model.

With LS Retail Subscription the POS can operate offline and online. As opposed to SaaS, the software can be hosted in the cloud or hosted locally on the retailers’ own hardware with subscription. This accommodates many retailer’s requirements of having items and prices available on the POS even if the connection to the server breaks down. The POS automatically shifts to offline mode and no sales are lost.

Another very important difference between SaaS and retail solutions in the cloud is the POS device. Usually, the retailer needs to purchase named users to cover all employees. It means that if a retailer has 10 different cashiers using the POS during the week, he must purchase 10 named users making it very expensive to rent the software. LS Retail Subscription offers a POS device. It means that instead of renting a number of named users, the retailers rent a POS device license instead.

LS Retail is one of 15 Microsoft ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) in the world that have been cooperating with Microsoft on offering business-specific software solutions on subscription. The aim of this partnership has been to offer a number of benefits to retail and hospitality organizations: minimize risk and cost of software acquisition, minimal investment in standard solution trial, no upfront license costs, reduced capital binding, predictable costs, flexibility to adjust IT use to short term fluctuations in business, no need to purchase software for peak business (Christmas, New Year, Valentines, Sale etc.).

LS Retail will make subscription available to its 150 partners shortly. The first two solutions, LS Fashion^[2] and LS Winery^[3], have been released for the US market in cooperation with the LS Retail partners Oztera and ArcherPoint.

About LS Retail:

LS Retail is a world-leading provider of comprehensive software solutions and services based on Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft technology for the retail and hospitality industries.

These scalable solutions manage the very large and complex operational requirements associated with different types of retail and hospitality organizations, such as fashion, electronics, furniture, duty free, restaurants, coffee shops and many more.

What sets LS Retail apart from other solution providers on the market is the unique use of a single application to integrate the entire business from point of sale (POS) terminals through store management, inventory, merchandising, back office, head office, demand planning, business intelligence and omni-channel retailing to management of sales channels, including mobile and e-commerce.

For over two decades, LS Retail has been developing market leading software solutions for retail and hospitality that are currently used by over 45,000 stores worldwide, and are sold and supported by more than 150 certified Microsoft and LS Retail partners in over 60 countries.

References

1. ^{^}LS Retail Solutions (www.lsretail.com)
2. ^{^}LS Fashion (www.lsretail.com)
3. ^{^}LS Winery (www.lsretail.com)