The weakest link in IT compliance for newsagents

My software company, Tower Systems, competes with POS Solutions. We are the two major newsagency channel IT players. In their newsletter to newsagents last week POS Solutions claimed:

“Recognized as a leader in magazine management POS Browser continues our commitment to saving time in handling ,magazines. Xchangeit, customer email putaway notifications, detailed bar-coding of titles and Automatic billing of customer and sub agent orders is just a few features built to provide better service and save time. Automatic early returns for over supply of magazines help your cash flow; report on slow selling magazines by distributor to adjust supplies.”

The POS Browser software does not meet current industry standards. It has not passed the XchangeIT magazine management standards agreed by the magazine distributors three years ago. POS Solutions has failed to deliver on these standards for the users of its DOS software – the majority of its customer base.

POS Browser and POS DOS could only make their claim of “leadership” if their software met industry standards as it is these standards which facilitate best practice in magazine management. Crucially, the standards provide for sales data to be passed back to suppliers so they can balance supply.

I doubt that the three magazine distributors consider POS Solutions to be a “leader in magazine management”. I suggest that this recognition is only in the minds of the POS Solutions marketing people.

My company is being let down by magazine suppliers and other stakeholders as they refuse to enforce the standards they established. Their inaction allows POS to claim leadership and get away with it. Outside my company and POS there are two other significant software suppliers to newsagents. As I understand it they also comply, leaving POS Solutions alone at the barrier of non-compliance.

Newsagents are only as energetic about compliance as their software provider. To this end, POS Solutions’ lack of attention to industry standards is holding the whole industry back as the newsagent channel is as weak as its weakest link.

When the Directors of POS Solutions read this they are likely to shoot off an email or two to me, call their lawyer and write to the ACCC. I’d welcome the issue of their inability and apparent reluctance to provide compliant software being debated in a more formal forum.

Newsagents need to carefully evaluate software and ensure it meets the various supplier compliance requirements. Compliant software companies have nothing to fear from such comparison. That the newsagency industry has standards which are not enforced provides POS Solutions a break they do not, in my view, deserve.

Disclosure. I am the Managing Director and sole shareholder in Tower Systems International (Aust.) Pty Ltd and have written this entry as fair comment. The Directors of POS Solutions are welcome to publish a response.