Jan 7, 2015
Just about every business and consumer has experienced an issue with data synchronization. The latest issue with Amazon really caught my attention. On Friday Dec-12-2014, Amazon UK sellers experienced a pricing glitch that affected up to 75 million products. Items ranging from smartphones and tablets to mattresses and TV’s, all sold for a penny. Some Amazon sellers that were unable to cancel the orders in time lost their entire inventory. Since Amazon was fulfilling orders directly, the orders were picked, packed and shipped out by Amazon as soon as the orders were placed. The Amazon sellers that were affected used a 3rd party application to automatically sync and update prices in Amazon in order to maintain competitive prices. The sellers that used the centralized data management application called RepricerExpress have lost thousands and some now claim they face potential bankruptcy as a result of the error. If you store data in a centralized data management application you should be aware that data integrity issues can happen. Storing data in a middleware application with other businesses can potentially introduce cross-contamination issues when trying to sync data. For example, an online toy store could display camping and hunting gear for sale on their website as a result of cross-contamination issues when syncing data with a application that stores data from multiple business accounts. Below is a diagram that outlines how a typical centralized data management tool works when syncing data between applications. First a copy of the data is stored in the centralized application before the data is sent to its destinations. Just like introducing too many chefs in the kitchen,...
Dec 29, 2014
Data breaches will continue to rise. The increasing number of hackers breaching private data is in the foremost thoughts of every business and consumer today. From millions of credit cards and personal records stolen at Target, Staples, Home Depot, and TJX Retail Stores to private pictures ‘Snaps’ you thought were secure as previously advertised from Snap Chat. Now a new cyber attack on Sony Pictures is apparently in retaliation to prevent the release of The Interview, a comedy about the attempted assassination of the North Korean president. The cyber attackers have done everything in their power to inflict damage on Sony Pictures and according to a US official the attack resonated from North Korea. The cyber attackers released Sony Picture’s employee records, private company emails, commercial music, films, personal financial information and private employee records. As a result, Sony Pictures and three of the largest movie chains have decided to scale back and only allow for a limited release of The Interview in a small number of theaters and online outlets. The estimated cost of this cyber attack on Sony is estimated in the millions. How does this relate to syncing data? As a consumer, government entity, SMB or any large corporation you should work to limit the number of locations where data is stored within your private network and online applications. Storing data temporarily, even for brief amounts of time can still make your data susceptible to cyber theft, as was the case with Snap Chat private photos. When syncing data across multiple systems, most platforms today necessitate storing your private business and customer data in order to...
Mar 27, 2014
Kosmos announces partnership with BrilliantRetail. E-commerce for ExpressionEngine CMS. A leader in systems integration, Kosmos eSync’s integration platform can connect BrilliantRetail E-commerce for ExpressionEngine CMS to other applications such as POS and ERP. Read the full article...
Aug 26, 2013
Next generation data integrations offer new opportunities to ISVs and VARs. Companies now have the ability to swap out ERP, POS, ecommerce, CRM, and many other business applications without creating a new integration from scratch. Next generation integrations also allow for seamless data migrations needed due to mergers and acquisitions. It has become a fact of business today that as merchants grow their applications often grow as well. ERPs, POSs, CRMs, payment systems, web carts, sales order management, shipping/tracking, logistics, requisitions, loyalty, automated marketing, and many other software solutions are the tools required to manage and sustain growth in today’s market. However, these are mostly disparate systems. An ISV with the perfect solution for one problem might not be able to integrate with a clients existing system, resulting in one more lost sale. VARs have too many stories of the sale that almost was because the client had already spent a lot of time and money on other systems, and was not willing to start over. Read the full article...
Apr 2, 2013
Kosmos has obtained Sage ERP X3 developer certification and Sage Silver Development Partner status, expanding its partner platform from POS, ecommerce, financial/acccounting, and CRM systems. Kosmos, a leading provider of integrated solutions, today announced it has obtained developer certification in Sage ERP X3, a global enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for larger businesses operating in the mid-market and enterprise space. Read the full article...
Feb 28, 2013
We are proud to announce our next release that allows retailers to easily extend their market to integrated ecommerce web stores. By populating products directly from the Smyth Retail Merchant Plus! system a retailer can very efficiently create and maintain a web site with accurate inventory levels to assure product availability while efficiently removing merchandise from the web store when it is sold out. An integrated order processing tool creates transfers from the inventory of brick and mortar stores into the “virtual web store” where the sale is recorded. Perhaps the biggest benefit is centralized merchandising across channels, managing web stores right alongside brick and mortar stores. Read the full article...
