Swan Online
Swan Online is a new way for the independent retail sector to take advantage of our well-proven retail solution via the Internet. Principally aimed at smaller businesses without the resources or infrastructure to host their own database and server, the service provides significant savings in terms of initial capital expenditure, ongoing support and administration.
Swan Online offers a range of other advantages as well, including access to selected modules of the solution, quicker deployment, enhanced support for technical infrastructure and consequent improvements in the productive use of staff and resources. The service can be accessed at any time, from any location – providing real-time data on essential business functions such as merchandising, financials, retail sales, customer orders, supply chain and logistics – with access provided via a secure online link with unique user name and password.
Since Swan host the system and maintain the technical infrastructure, the potential problems of marrying different versions of database, hardware and operating systems are all eliminated, and with a variety of user profiles available, the service is equally suitable for all types of retailers and for areas of responsibility such as Accounts, Warehouse, Retail Managers and Owners.
Real benefits for your business
- Access to a higher level of software functionality than might otherwise be considered
- Affordable, cost-effective solution that can grow and change in the future
- Elimination of software integration issues
- Greatly reduced cost of servers and databases
- One fixed monthly charge to make budgeting simple
- Faster deployment of solutions
- Selective access to system to meet individual requirements
- Retail system continually developed to provide more and better functionality – delivered within the regular Swan update service
- System kept up to date, available, backed-up and managed for optimum performance by Swan
- Improved reliability, availability, scalability and security of internal IT systems
- Effective redeployiment of internal staff and tools to focus on strategic business functionality
- Lower entry costs
- Better cash flow
- Support for e-mail servers for pro-active delivery of management information
- Suitable for all retail sectors, both big ticket (with true customer ordering and order fulfilment) and small ticket merchandise
- Easy to administer
- Copes with the complexities of three-dimensional stock structures, yet offers informative management reporting
A comprehensive solution – now and in the future
All other products and services provided as part of the implementation can be covered by the fixed monthly fee – including EPoS equipment and licences, hand-held devices for stock check, barcode ticket printing and all the project management, set up and training services. We can also provide integration with other applications such as web sites, stock taking and business intelligence, and these can be hosted by any virtual server.
Our solution is continuously developed and improved, with extra modules and modifications to make the system simpler to use and more efficient. All upgrades are managed for you, so you can start using new functionality as and when the need arises – enabling you to reap maximum benefit without wasting time on areas that are not required. And Swan Online not only has the ability to grow with your business, but also opens the door to integrated multi-channel sales through your stores, across the internet and by phone – giving you an unprecedented opportunity to incease sales and profiability in a critically competitive market.