Executive Insight: How a Powerful Network Allows Brands to Respond to Changing Expectations
As we look toward hospitality’s “next normal,” how can technology help by delivering efficiency, security, and ROI?
Driving standardization of the network is a foundational step to help deliver efficiency and security for restaurants. As network requirements continue to increase and more applications move into the cloud, restaurants are relying on SD-WAN and Unified Threat Management to have visibility into the health of the entire network and to help protect the increasing data volume coming in and out of each location. Having a standardized network across the entire brand helps with security controls. Additionally, standardization ensures the network foundation is positioned to be scaled quickly and implement new technologies that will emerge as the industry progresses.
As restaurants adopt and refine drive-thru and delivery, what new challenges can technology help with?
With speed of service and convenience continuing to drive purchasing decisions, moving more guests thru the drive-thru while decreasing the average handle time is critical for a brand’s success. While line busting has been around for several years, more restaurants are finding it is key to minimizing customer abandonment and improving customer experience and loyalty. With solutions like high speed internet and managed indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi, restaurants can arm their employees with tablets for both order placement and payment to serve customers more efficiently. An outdoor Wi-Fi solution also helps address the challenges with deploying curbside pickup successfully.
The increased use of mobile apps and third-party aggregators to place delivery orders means more orders are being generated outside of the restaurant. Reliable internet connectivity, with failover to cellular or alternate access technology, is a critical technology investment to help prevent delivery orders from being missed.
How should restaurant operators start thinking beyond the pandemic as they chart their tech roadmaps for the coming years?
As we have observed over the past 15 months, restaurant brands that had the ability to implement new technologies quickly during the pandemic fared better than those that did not. Investing in a standardized, managed technology foundation will help restaurant operators introduce new applications as they become available without having to make significant network foundation changes. Choosing cloud-based applications that can be integrated into a reliable and secure managed network will allow operators to push out new technologies quickly. Technologies that power or further expand contactless engagements, personalization and operational efficiencies will play a significant role over the next several years.
Complimentary, reliable Wi-Fi remains a high priority for restaurant guests. How are technology suppliers helping to meet that demand?
Technology suppliers are providing restaurant operators with a fully managed, bundled Wi-Fi solution that provides the high-speed, flexible internet connectivity needed to power a robust Wi-Fi network. Additionally, suppliers are providing and managing access points that can support multiple SSIDs to power the free guest Wi-Fi traffic, while enabling the restaurant to leverage the Wi-Fi for business-critical applications such as grab-and-go lockers, line-busting tablets and self-serve kiosks. This allows restaurant operators to focus on serving their customers while trusting technology suppliers to design, implement and manage the ever-evolving needs for complimentary Wi-Fi.