It’s nothing short of amazing how some executives can’t get enough of taking on challenges that feel far too much like climbing a mountain. This is just the type of hefty (perhaps even mind boggling) challenge Gary Warren, formerly commercial director at HMV, took on when he accepted the offer to serve as Blockbuster’s new managing director. He doesn’t seem timid about taking on the tasks of turning around a company whose product sales plummeted after online movies and companies like Red Box took off as evidenced by reports generated by retail point-of-sale programs.

Warren will have his hands full revitalizing Blockbuster, working to bring the retailer back to life following its January collapse. Oddly, it’s this type of challenge that can get some senior executives’ juices flowing. That’s not to say busy senior managers take pride in beating a dead horse. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Proof of this might be best revealed when retail executives beef up their data tracking and reporting systems, reaching out to distributors and sellers of mobile POS systems.

After all, when every sale and all revenues count, are depended upon, getting numbers right is critical. Counting inventory and sales by hand or using spreadsheets lends itself to mistakes, despite how well meaning workers and managers might be. This is where systems like NCR Silver could help. In fact benefits of using the systems include having the ability to process actual customer sales in real time as well as having the tool to track and record each sale and remaining inventory, factors that directly impact a retailer’s bottom line.

NCR Silver can process customer sales using large stationary cash registers or mobile devices like an iPad, iPod Touch and even an iPhone. The retail point-of-sale program does this after it is linked to a cash register or after software is downloaded onto checkout systems. So, let’s say a customer comes into a retail store located outside a popular mall at two o’clock in the afternoon on December 23 and purchases four movie videos.

The date and time the customer purchased the movies, as well as the specific movie titles the customer bought, would be tracked in the point-of-sale systems in seconds as the system scans each movie video’s bar code. Not only does the system record individual customer sales, it can also store the details of each sale. The process is automated, simplifying the check-out, sales and inventory management process.

Processing, tracking and storing customer sales isn’t, of course, the first step in turning a business around or taking a start-up from unknown to household name status. Marketing, advertising and public relations are frontrunners, so too is training a talented sales team. However, after these steps have been taken, point-of-sale programs  be used to help retailers find their footing, get on track and prepare to move up, enjoying more success.