We talked to Mathias Nielsen of Oliver POS about the software to carry out all the WooCommerce store and POS functions of small and medium sized enterprises, and he had the following to say:

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Oliver POS.

Mathias Nielsen: The story of Oliver POS began when I, Mathias Nielsen, a native Dane, moved to St. John’s after an eight-year stint in Beijing. A serial entrepreneur, I set up Creative Maple, an IT consultancy that targets small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). From this work, I learned that retailers were setting up websites and could not find a single piece of software to carry out all the POS functions that they needed. This is how Oliver POS came. 

How does Oliver POS innovate?

Mathias Nielsen:  We are working on building the world’s most adaptable POS System with a Global POS market in mind. We will do this by utilizing the power of applications and apps run in our system to change the way merchants sell forever. 

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Mathias Nielsen: When Covid first hit, it did have an impact on us. Our business is directly related to the retail industry. When Covid hit the retail industry, we felt the push back. We pivoted and innovated technologies that help businesses affected in this way. During the initial stages, we worked on self check out and launched this to help businesses sell better by keeping a safe distance. We also built and launched a mobile solution where businesses were able to deliver to the customers instead of risking themselves and selling from a store.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Mathias Nielsen: One of the biggest challenges was to keep the team growing at a time where most were scaling back. I made sure that nobody in the organization would be subject to being laid off, and the company did not downsize. In return, we have a team that successfully pivoted with Oliver and are still moving forward, stronger as a company and stronger as a family.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Mathias Nielsen: As a tech company and dealing with bridging distance already (India/Denmark/Canada), we are well used to dealing with online systems. Analytics, sales, management tools, and other online software are all apart of our day to day lives. We are always updating on tools to increase the team capacity regardless.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Mathias Nielsen: Competitors include LightSpeed, Vend, HQ, and many other similar competitors that are all great POS solutions. There is a similar market; however, we are as adaptable as a merchant’s webshop and deliver on a case by case basis instead of a ‘one size fits all.’