As the pandemic restrictions lifted, hospitality companies gave a collective sigh of aid. But that aid was short-lived when the realities of the pandemic hangover hit. Hospitality companies are actually dealing with the ‘double whammy’ of rising prices and a scarcity of employees.

Rising prices​

Hospitality companies are reeling from the rising cost of living​. The worth of uncooked components has spiked, together with the gasoline and electrical energy wanted to show them into meals, and to actually maintain the lights on within the venue can also be rising at a charge of knots.

Staff shortages​

At the identical time, the hospitality sector is dealing with an unprecedented scarcity of employees. Fewer worldwide employees, and the ‘great resignation’ of 2021 have led to tons of of hundreds of vacancies for hospitality employees.  

So, what can hospitality companies do? What they can’t do​ is change the worldwide financial system or the climate. But they will not less than minimise the influence of the present state of affairs – by harnessing the facility of know-how. Smart know-how will help hospitality companies to mitigate rising prices and decrease employees availability, and maximise their probabilities of coming by way of these robust instances as survivors.

Technology is the reply​

Some of the important thing applied sciences for hospitality companies to think about to be able to ‘do more with less’ are:

1. Self-service ordering​ – taking buyer orders is essentially the most staff-intensive front-of-house course of. Therefore, placing ordering into the fingers of shoppers, quite than employees, generally is a very value efficient and useful resource saving technique. The know-how to allow self-service ordering features a pill on the desk, an app on the shopper’s personal cellphone, or a self-service kiosk.
2. Online orders built-in into POS ​– on-line ordering is a superb effectivity driver, however integration can save much more employees time. If your on-line ordering system just isn’t built-in into the purpose of sale (POS), then employees must spend time rekeying the orders from the net order system into the POS. Not solely is that this an inefficient use of employees time, nevertheless it has the potential to introduce errors, which then expend extra employees time to resolve. So by utilizing know-how that integrates on-line orders immediately into the POS, hospitality companies can streamline on-line ordering even additional.
3. Cloud​–​ primarily based techniques ​– a hospitality enterprise depends not solely on the employees within the venue, however on the group that helps the again workplace/head workplace, together with IT employees. An rising variety of hospitality companies are realising the efficiencies of transferring their core hospitality platform to the cloud, decreasing the variety of in-house IT employees wanted, together with the prices of buying, working and sustaining their very own {hardware} and know-how infrastructure.
4. Digital media boards ​– printed menus, hand-written indicators and specials boards are time-consuming to handle. Digital signage know-how permits all written communication to be entered as soon as at head workplace, and up to date in real-time. So if a menu modifications, specials are added or promotions supplied, employees within the venue don’t must spendhave spend their time checking the small print and making updates – it’s all carried out as soon as, centrally, saving time and liberating them up tofor concentrate on clients.
5. Virtual manufacturers/Dark kitchen​ – with rising rents, and decrease footfall in metropolis centres due working-at-home, eat-in metropolis centre venues are a much less viable proposition than earlier than. Technology has enabled the rise of darkish kitchens (these which produce meals for supply solely) and digital manufacturers (those who don’t have any ‘store-front’ presence). Online ordering apps with integration to supply companions allow darkish kitchens and digital manufacturers. Hospitality companies can get monetary savings by utilizing less expensive areas, and makeing economies of scale by working a number of digital manufacturers from one kitchen.
6. Automated kitchen administration ​– a kitchen administration system helps to streamline the ordering and meal preparation course of. Orders are captured immediately into the computerised system – both by wait employees with a pill, or by clients utilising self-service ordering. Orders go on to the kitchen administration system (KMS), eliminating the errors that may happen with a hand-written docket, and rushing up the method. Each station within the kitchen has a show, and the KMS robotically sends the orders to the proper station(s) for processing. Each station sees solely their very own data, maximising the productiveness of kitchen employees.
7. Integrations​ – a hospitality enterprise depends on a number of totally different know-how techniques – entrance of home, again of home, rostering, stock, accounting, supply, reservations and plenty of extra. If these techniques should not built-in, and employees must manually transfer data round, or double deal with knowledge, they don’t seem to be being their best. Using hospitality know-how that integrates all of the disparate components makes for far more environment friendly use of restricted employees sources.

Hospitality companies are nonetheless dealing with robust instances – not from compelled closures, however from elevated prices and a scarcity of employees. Harnessing the facility of know-how allows them to streamline their operations, do extra with much less and are available by way of this disaster positioned for the long run.