The POS Market is exploding worldwide for three main reasons: the sunset of Windows 7 support, the expansion of retail in emerging economies, and retailers are re-architecting their systems for Unified Commerce (the systems that enable the procurement, sale and delivery of merchandise independent of channel) and Cloud computing (along with its cost efficiencies).

While most views of the of the market tends to focus on those largest accounts or the smallest accounts, the mid-market currently comprises a significant population of the installed units on a worldwide basis. Combine this with the fact that emerging retailers are both the greatest area of growth and also represents the largest population of retailers that are not using any technology, it is easy to understand the importance of this underserved area of research. This research specifically addresses this area – fast growing retailers that are between the startups and the giants.

IHL has been advising the retail community (vendors and retailers alike) since 1996 in retail information technology evolution and strategy.

Over the years we’ve amassed a tremendous amount of primary- and secondary-source data through first hand consulting experience in this pursuit. From this ever-growing knowledge base,  offerings like our Sophia Data Service, The Worldview IT Sizing Forecast Model as well as custom research projects have been developed and successfully launched.

The IHL Insight Market View series of research studies build upon all this knowledge and add analyst insight to graphically display vendor positioning, drive for innovation  and projected growth.

The goal of this report, as well as the entire IHL Retail Executive Advisory Program (REAP), is to provide the retail community with the most detailed and complete picture imaginable of the retail technology landscape. We do this to assist retailers in vendor selection and to help the industry understand the trends, drivers and barriers that are fundamentally transforming our industry.

This particular report looks at the overall Retail Software and SaaS Market Worldwide.

Who are the real leaders?  What are the real software rankings?  Who is leading in the Retail software market? Which vendors are leading in sales, innovation, market reach and can implement a complete Unified Commerce approach?  It’s all here.

Retailers are encouraged to use these charts in discussions with their vendor partners. It is our intent that they provide unique insights into vendor strategy and provide thought-provoking questions as we all move though and prosper in the Era of Intentional Innovation.

Vendors covered in this research with positioning charts are the following: (alphabetically)

Auto-Star, Cegid Group, CitiXsys, Diebold Nixdorf, ECR Software, Epicor, Epos Now, Fujitsu, Gilbarco, Global Payments, Granbury Solutions, Infor, iQmetrix, Jonas SW, KWI, LivePOS, LS Retail, McKesson RX, Mi9, Microsoft, NCR, NEC, Oracle, Panasonic, ParTech, PDX, Inc., Petrosoft, Posera, Retail Pro, Revention, SIR Solutions, Squirrel Systems, Toast, Tokheim, Toshiba GCS, Verifone, Vista Entertainment, Windward Software and Zonal.

NOTE: This study is available individually or at a discount as part of the IHL Retail Executive Advisory Program.