The Top 15 Reasons To Use Biometric Technology In Workforce Management And Retail Point Of Sale – Reason #12 – Increase Speed

Blog Series – “The Top 15 Reasons To Use Biometric Technology In Workforce Management And Retail Point Of Sale”

Leading up to our participation in the National Retail Federation’s 2011 “Retail’s Big Show” from January 9 – 12 in New York city, M2SYS Technology is publishing a blog series on the top 15 reasons that biometrics is a smart choice for retail organizations to consider as an authentication technology in workforce management and retail point of sale applications.

In case you missed it, here are the links to our prior posts in the series:

Reason #1 – Stop Buddy Punching
Reason #2 – Increase Productivity
Reason #3 – Enhance Loss Prevention
Reason #4 – Establish Accountability
Reason #5 – Going Green
Reason #6 – Build Customer Loyalty
Reason #7 – Achieve Higher Return On Investment
Reason #8 – Airtight Access Control
Reason #9 – Solidify Role Based Security
Reason #10 – Boost Operational Efficiency
Reason #11 – Peace Of Mind
And now on to our next post…

Reason #12 – Increase Speed

RightPunch™

Affordable Biometric Time Clock Software for Kronos and ADP

Key Features:

· Increase Accountability and Boost Productivity

· Eliminate Time Theft | Reduce Payroll Expenses

· Prevent buddy punching

Learn More

Defining The Optimal Business Environment

Ask any business owner how important it is to achieve an optimal flow for their business and most will tell you that it’s a goal, but often times hard to achieve.  When everything works in sync and processes run without a hitch, optimizing staff time and enabling them to focus on their core responsibilities becomes easier and pays dividends for you and for your customers.  In the real world however, there are bound to be technological and communicative breakdowns and snafus that cause delays and leave a business owner feeling frustrated and searching for alternatives.

The goal for most is to offer a customer experience that hinges on the delicate balance of quality products/services at fair prices with superior customer service.  Often times, technology employed in a business limits the ability of staff to deliver on these tenets and counteracts the objectives set forth by a business owner to maximize their profits and create loyal customers.  Business owners invest in technology for the purpose of creating efficiencies, establishing accuracy and generating a concrete audit trail.

It’s no wonder then that many business owners seek out technologies that are reliable and offer speed as a key attribute to maintain a consistent operational flow.  Speed can mean a number of things from turning tables at a restaurant, to keeping the lines moving at a retail establishment, to ensuring that employees are not constantly mired in troubleshooting which may have a detrimental effect on their ability to offer superior service.

Speed Is Key

When a business owner is thinking about investing in technology as part of their internal infrastructure thoughts often turn to what will bring the highest value while offering the strongest return on investment. They want to employ a technology that not only works smoothly, but works quickly without any margin for error.  Take employee time and attendance for example.  Many businesses that rely on antiquated punch clocks or manual sign in sheets run many risks of creating backlogs, errors and delays which can disrupt the flow needed to keep employees productive and focused on their responsibilities.

We offer a prime example of this by identifying a current end user of biometric technology who had previously relied on paper timesheets to keep track of employee time and attendance.  Here is a brief excerpt from one of our recent case studies that highlights some of the challenges that their outdated technology presented:

“Yarco’s employees were manually recording their time in and time out on paper timesheets. Their Payroll
department would then have to collect these paper time sheets from each of the 100+ properties across the
company and manually transfer the data to Excel spreadsheets. The entire process was extremely time consuming,
often taking the Payroll department an entire weekend just to input the data and reconcile any discrepancies.
Furthermore, the handwritten and faxed timesheets were often hard to read; there was no review and approval
process in place – the timesheets were assumed to be legitimate. Yarco realized that a change was in order to a
more modern, technologically advanced payroll system that not only automated the time and attendance process,
but also held employees accountable for accurate time tracking.”

Clearly, the paper timesheets were creating inefficiencies that caused more work than necessary to process and reconcile payroll.  The company decided to implement biometric finger vein technology for time and attendance which transformed their payroll process from a multi-step, time consuming unsecure system into a quick, efficient and accurate payroll system.  Here is another excerpt from the case study which details the after effects of incorporating time and attendance for payroll processing:

“The most tangible benefit realized since implementing the biometric time and attendance system using vascular
biometric technology is drastic increases in efficiency. In fact, Yarco has seen a 90% efficiency increase when you
compare their old manual payroll system to the new automated process. A large part of the efficiency comes
through time saved from not having to manually enter the payroll sheets into Excel for export to the payroll
processing interface. This has allowed Yarco to cut their Payroll department in half and allocate more time to other
HR functions.”

The Versatility And Speed Of Biometric Technology

From time and attendance to recording point of sale transactions to establishing substantial security checks and balances, biometrics is becoming the technology of choice.  Its unique ability to combine unequivocal identification accuracy with rapid results makes biometrics a one-of-a-kind technology.

Fingerprint biometric system verification speeds can search 20,000 records per second.  Finger vein and palm vein biometric systems have the ability to scan 4,000 records per second.  Biometric systems are inherently designed to offer fast matching speeds to deliver accurate results at a rapid pace to help maximize flow and minimize delays.  It’s also important to remember that biometric systems can be customized to match the characteristics of end users based on factors such as age, ethnicity and environment.  If you are unsure of which biometric system is the right fit for your business, please contact us and we can help.

What other processes in your business could be augmented by a boost of speed?  Share your thoughts and comments with us below.