Omega Software is a leading worldwide Point of Sale company providing Information Technology solutions for the Hospitality and Retail industries. Samer EL Deek, Managing Director at Omega Software UAE elaborates on trends in retail and opportunities for software providers in the fast growth segments

With the retail segment booming in the UAE and the GCC, do you see the prospect for POS solutions as a good opportunity for solution providers? 

Retail sales reached $5.4 billion (AED19.9 Bn) last year and will likely see a 7.7% expansion this year, according to an analysis by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and industry. Dubai’s retail market is set to surpass $52Bn (AED 191 Bn) sales by 2020. Definitely this expectation creates a big opportunity for us as software providers.

Despite all what is going on regionally, the GCC in general and UAE in particular remain the best markets to invest in especially on the level of technology and software sectors. We are witnessing a big expansion in the retail market and tourism sector. Surely it is an opportunity not to miss and Omega Software has solutions that are addressing some core requirements of these growth areas. We are working hard to seize all the opportunities possible.

Comment on your retail management solution ‘O market’ – discuss its scalability features and the inroads it has made in the region’s market?

Our retail management solution ‘O-market’ is a robust and stable solution which are a must for any successful retailer. It has all the features needed supporting pos and back office operations. Plus, it supports 8 main languages (including English, Arabic, French etc) and therefore is a helpful tool for the foreign staff who are working in this region. It is quite user friendly, enabling faster transactions and offering much more including powerful theft control which improve operational efficiency and margins for the retailer.

You have solutions for retail management, hotels and call centres – elaborate are they further customized for different customer types?

Omega Software has a large range of solutions that cover f&b, retail and hotels sectors. We have the O-Live for f&b, O-Market for retail sector and O-tel for the hotels sector.

Under these three categories, there are an additional solutions to empower  any business’ operation like call center for delivery, corporate communication for connecting the head-office to its multiple branches, pos mobile, reservation software, catering, inventory, merits the card less loyalty mobile app, accounting software and others.

Discuss the adoption of Mobile PoS in this market and your solutions for Mobile interface?

It is a fact with the need of advanced sales techniques, any business owner tends to increase his margins by reaching closer to his customers and by faster ways. PoS mobile allows this target to be achieved.

In the restaurant industry, every second counts. With our PoS mobile, you can speed up your service, eliminate inefficiency and free your valuable time to concentrate on your customers. It is a genuine way to increase your sales.

What does O-live focus on as a solution? Is this meant only for the restaurant/hotel segment? 

O-Live solution is focused for any f&b business like restaurants, cafeterias, night clubs, delivery outlets.

It consists of 3 modules: friendly point of sale, advanced back office and easy inventory management. Also, it is integrated with a smart accounting solution O-Impact and/or O-Tel solution for an easy management and consolidation of financial bills.

O-Live solution is the only system that offers mobility, delivery, loyalty and much more in one powerful POS. It is everything a business owner needs for his successful restaurant whether he serves dine-in, takeaway, delivery orders and any customized revenue centers.

Does O-Tel primarily target mostly room reservations and tickets sales for theme parks/event etc?

In fact, our O-Tel solution targets medium-sized hotels, motels and hotel apartments sectors. With our O-Tel, you can manage reservations and guest information smoothly, organize your daily tasks efficiently, monitor business performance, book more revenue and save both time and money. It is completely customizable to fit your business, whether for group or individual reservations, room management, multi-currencies settlement and bill printouts, hotel status by room, room rates and much more features. Further, with integrated solution O-Live and O-market, you can do ticket sales to various type like parks, events or theater.

As a software provider, do your solutions integrate easily with different hardware from windows to Linux interfaces and android to iOS?

Our software is implemented in any windows based hardware like Window 7 to Windows 10. Our mobility solution is only integrated with iOS like ipads and mini ipads.

Do you work with channel partners for increasing market inroads?

Inspired by our owner’s culture, we thrive to be loyal towards our suppliers and business partners, knowing that our solutions can be implemented in any hardware model from PoS touch screen to desktops and laptops. We have gained our trust in the market based on that fact.

For that reason, our partner channels and we work hand by hand to serve our customers in the best way. As our company motto reflects “we make software easy to use so you can focus on your business”, we cannot do it without carefully choose reliable channel partners.