In a bid to ensure its product roadmap tracks the market demands of its partners and end-customers, STS Payments has once again released a product survey to help decide how to build its new Smart TMS (Terminal Management System).
Following initial discussions with partners, STS had already identified a need for smarter Terminal Management Systems within the industry; however it needed the input of those with the requirements to determine what functionality would be useful, how it should be provided, who should operate it and ultimately whether STS should invest in developing it.
With the complexity of the “terminals” a.k.a. “PEDs” increasing over recent years with the introduction of Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE), key management, contactless acceptance and chain of custody administration, the demands of existing TMS’ has significantly increased. Respondents believe that any current systems will require additional functionality to meet the needs of the market.
From the responses received, many organisations have developed and operate their own TMS and want to continue doing so, however they felt that their current TMS would only partially meet their future business needs. The majority of these TMS were developed in-house with some of the more-recently developed systems making use of generic IT products and toolsets.
Respondents felt there is a definite gap within the market for a new TMS product offering, although their level of commitment to this wavered. There was a more positive, though not unanimous, response that STS should develop a next generation TMS, but reservations centred on a bigger picture view of merchants’ overall estate management of which STS’ Smart TMS could only form a foundational but nevertheless vital role.
The overall conclusion taken from the responses was that STS should develop a TMS as proposed, with further consultation with its partners to refine the functional requirements and establish how the TMS should fit into the bigger picture of the merchants’ estate management. To this end, STS’ TMS will be designed for ease of integration with other management systems.
Steve Turner, CEO of STS, said, “As always, STS wanted to involve its valued partners in the development of its product roadmap and we put together this questionnaire to help define the needs and mode of operation of a futuristic, smart TMS. For the most part, respondents thought the specified functions would be very helpful and although some further discussions will need to take place before the TMS is fully developed, we are thankful to those that took part as it has provided us with some excellent feedback we can build upon when continuing these conversations.”
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