CategorySocial Responsibility

The free QR code check-in platform that we released weeks ago has been embraced by plenty of retailers with some attracting huge numbers of uses as their customers scan the QR code unique to the business and then track their details for possible future contact tracing.

Setup is simple, security is strong and privacy is ensured.

We are grateful to have been able to help retailers to bring this home to a solution while governments stored out their own options.

We are proud to have delivered practical help rather than sitting on the sidelines and moaning.

We are grateful for the small business owners who believe in us, those who have been with us for decades and those who have joined us in recent weeks, and all those in between.

Every customer means a lot to us and all who rely on our business for income.

We are also grateful that we can take this moment to be grateful.

Business is challenging, especially in 2020 and especially in the small business space.

So, thank you … if you are a customer of ours passing by here. If you are not a customer, we hope we can be of service some day.

Today, as we should every day, we say thank you teachers! We rely on you to develop the people we will hire and rely in in business. So, thank you teachers!

This is a serious question.

Do you really want business to get back to the way it was?

Let’s start by saying – no, we don’t want business to get back to the way it was. The future is bright thanks to change as we have found and so many we work with have found.

Business back the way it was represents no change, no learning from the last 8 months, no reflection on what Covid normal may look like, no consideration of societal change.

Whether we like it or not, things have changed.

• More businesses will allow more people to work from home, long after Covid, because of what they learned through Covid.
• More businesses will continue with less the in-person engagement with their customers learned through Covid long after Covid is dealt with.
• More businesses will sell to new people they discovered during Covid long after Covid.
• Plenty of businesses and individuals who cut costs during Covid will continue with a tighter focus on cash.
• Plenty of people who have worked from home will want to keep working from home.

Businesses that have benefited from these and similar Covid related changes will want that experience to continue rather than getting back to the way business was.

To us, the calls for business to get back to how it was are regressive. The future is always in front of us, never behind.

This is why we think that the businesses that have a good Covid are the ones best positioned for a brighter 2021 and beyond. They are most likely the businesses run by people who have not complained and moaned their way through Covid.

We get the calls to open up, get the economy moving and the like. However, for plenty, their economy has been moving. This is especially true in regional and rural Australia as well as in the high street.

It’s critical that all retailers are focussed on the (cliché alert) new normal of more people working from home, less CBD / business centre foot traffic, more online sales and the associated changes in what sells and when. That is where good business will be found, in those areas of change, not back the way things were.

The year presents us excellent opportunities for embracing change, leveraging what we have learnt since March this year and rapidly leaning into what we see emerge as we expect the pace of change to increase. This will be a consequence of Covid, what people have themselves learned through Covid and also a consequence of the Covid recession.

No, we are not looking for business to go back the way it was, we are too busy looking to the future, which does look exciting.

Teachers are the most wonderful people. They educate, nurture, encourage and celebrate students who get jobs and work in our businesses and the businesses of folks we know. teachers are so important in society and that importance has been more evident in 2020. So, today, we thank teachers…

Tower Systems is grateful to serve many charity shops and community group run shops with POS software that helps them manage inventory, customers and other aspects of the businesses.

Community enterprises are a vital part of local communities. While they are charity businesses, they are enterprises and need enterprise software. Tower Systems leverages the facilities of its small business focussed POS software to serve the needs of charity shops and community group run retail businesses.

Through our POS software we can help community group run shops to:

1. Track inventory.
2. Easily sell.
3. Manage product returns.
4. Track sales by fractions.
5. Handle GST reporting.
6. Support flexible discount options covering a range of situations.
7. Support charity fund raising.
8. Track performance in non-standard ways that may suit specific needs locally.

Community group run shops and charity shops need POS software partners that connect with their mission, that serve the local community focus of what they do. Tower Systems works in this space, serving plenty of these groups in a range of ways through the software, through training and beyond. We will help in any way we can, as much as we can.

We have a track record of work with community run shops, church run shops as well as other social enterprises that operate in retail. This work is part of the broader focus on Tower Systems and our work serving the needs of local communities.

Our POS software has been developed for a select range of niche retail channel businesses. We have found that it also serves the needs of plenty of charity shops, community enterprise shops and church related shops. Indeed, it was operators of those businesses that made the discovers, for which we are grateful.

As an Australian POS software company with years and years of serving local business needs, we are well established to help businesses and, through them, the communities they serve.

Our POS software is not ideal for all social enterprise run retail businesses. It’;s important those in control of such businesses know exactly what they want and that they thoroughly review what our off the shelf software does, to see if it is a good fit for their needs.

We originally wrote this article for another outlet. We share it here as it is relevant to the small business retailer community we serve. The closure of local bank branches in impacting small business retail. While our POS software can help businesses transact cashless, we do understand that for many taking cash is important to the business.

Banks closing branches, removing ATMs, hurting small business retail in Australia

Under the cover of Covid, banks are closing branches in Australia and removing ATMs in a shrinking of banking access. There is no consultation with customers, just an announcement or a sign on a front door.

Local bank branch closures are adding considerable cost to small business retailers in Australia.

While many bank branches closed under the first Covid lockdown back in March, plenty of these have since subsequently closed permanently.

In one of my own retail situations, in suburban Melbourne, our local bank branch, which is in walking distance, is closing. We face a 10 minute car drive, which means a roster change to deal with takings banking and disruption if we encounter a change shortage.

The closure of local bank branches makes going cashless more appealing to retailers. Maybe this is what the banks want. The retail network is expensive to maintain in terms of real estate and labour I guess.

While the closure of bank branches in March made sense, the continued closure after that lockdown ended was the first indication that banks were reconsidering their retail engagement.

Adding to the considerable number of bank branches that have closed in Australia, the closure of ATMs is impacting the shopper experience as well as the business owner experience. In another part of suburban Melbourne, one busy shopping street has seen five ATMs ripped out by banks.

Again, in my own experience, a local ATM at which we banked cheques, which are still a thing, has been removed, necessitating a drive as opposed to what was a short walk.

I get that all businesses are reassessing the infrastructure that is appropriate in a Covid and post-Covid (if it ever happens) world and that it makes sense that banks do this too. However, banks provide key services to Australians and local small businesses. They have a social responsibility to maintain these services. The extent of local bank branch closures in Australia will impact small businesses.

Again, in our own situation, for one of our shops, we are opening an account with a bank we have previously not dealt with as they have a branch a few minutes walk away and that is appealing compared to having to drive. It’s not ideal, but it is better than adding to our labour cost.

While we understand the desire for borders to be open and restrictions to movement to be lifted, there are plenty of businesses that have changed what they do and how they do it so as to not be as impacted by closed borders as they may have been.

We are not writing this to be political. Rather, we are writing it from a business strategy perspective.

What if shutdown / open / shutdown / open is something we have to contend with beyond 2020? What does that world look like? While calling for borders to re-open is one approach, another could be how we adapt for what could be a new normal.

In our own situation here at Tower Systems, for decades we relied on in-person trade shows, in-store demonstrations and in-store installation and training. From early March this year we moved online. Online demonstrations, online installation and training. And, no trade shows. Sales are up. 

Thinking about the calls to open borders, it’s understandable. It’s about going back to where we were, where business was. 

What if there were alternatives for businesses? What is there were other ways businesses could grow that were not as reliant on open borders? Not that we are calling for borders to stay closed, because we are not. Rather, we pose the question because some business people will embrace the exercise to think about how they could adjust their business to do better in that situation.

Through online you can reach shoppers outside your usual catchment area. Through an expansion of range you can reach more people locally.

It’s interesting watching the news and current affairs programs and seeing the conga-line of big business representatives calling for things to go back the way they were. Owners of small businesses are more flexible and innovative and, we suspect, less likely to want things to go back the way they were.

Again, thinking about our situation and other office business owners we speak with, we think that working from home and working regionally is a long-term shift. This one shift presents opportunities to local businesses. There will be other shifts too. For example, big businesses with now decentralised workforces are embracing ways to remain connected with customers. For example, locally delivered care packages are popular.

We have shared this today to encourage considering of thinking about next year and beyond in what could be a new normal business environment.