While many restaurants/bars used the simplicity of third-party integration, others took advantage of third-party software development teams writing new code for proprietary systems. When the business need presents clearly defined requirements, technology has an outstanding ability to respond.
With vaccines distributed and a return to normality in sight, what happens next? After such a massive wave of innovation implementations across multiple industries, where do we go from here?
Lessons from last year provide useful information for the next. One of the key reasons for such a massive investment in innovation was a lack of choice. If you didn't have the technology, you couldn't open your business. So we must ask ourselves, "Where else will there be a 'no choice'?"
In the hospitality sector, once the pandemic is over, subsequent extinction-level threats likely to drive further technological innovation may include:
Technology to deal with the increase in the minimum wage:
With the minimum wage going up, expect businesses to aggressively focus on eliminating all non-customer-facing activities in the restaurant/store. Technology strategies will prioritize automating the tasks of the store manager and frontline employees. IoT solutions will be implemented to eliminate mundane tasks, such as temperature checks on food preparation lines, and gamify operational activities, such as minimizing food waste wherever possible.
Conversion of third-party delivery services
As restaurants are forced to adopt third-party delivery services, high service fees are becoming an untenable obstacle to a profitable recovery. The only way to avoid shipping fees is to convert third-party customers to direct customers. The next wave of technology initiatives is focused on motivating customers to favor direct engagement. Initiatives can include AI solutions to offer a discount sufficient to persuade a customer to order direct while optimizing profitability.
Enhanced cybersecurity
When it comes to market threats that could end a business, nothing moves faster and inflicts more damage than a ransomware attack. Given the exponential growth in the frequency and magnitude of loss, restaurants must adequately protect themselves from cybersecurity threats. Technology has created a huge dependency on that technology. Cybersecurity attacks disrupt a restaurant's ability to use technology.
Flexible multi-service APIs
The pandemic has shown that it is simply not possible to fully prepare for an evolving future. Restaurants must design with agility and flexibility to accommodate the unexpected. Knowing what to do is not enough. It must also have the ability to adapt as the market points in a new direction. APIs will play a crucial role in enabling an ecosystem response to threats in this sector.
The pandemic has shown us that when business is on the line, the restaurant industry can accelerate innovation at an incredible rate. In the aftermath of a pandemic, it only makes sense for the industry to carefully align near-term technology roadmaps with actions to address immediate market threats.
