News Briefs

Smarter.ai, the provider of AI solutions for SMEs, introduces its e-commerce tool, CommerceIQ. Leveraging the power of its marketplace model, Smarter.ai has seamlessly integrated analytical machine learning apps with generative AI capabilities, allowing businesses of all sizes to create unique, personalized customer engagements at scale and compete with large enterprises. With CommerceIQ’s unique combination of generative AI's incredible creativity and analytical AI's deep learning capabilities, it provides prescriptive recommendations that can be automatically implemented, streamlining the marketing process for SMEs. 

71% say the ability to integrate with other systems is driving their POS purchase decisions, according to HT’s2 2023 POS Software Trends Report.

"This technology enables smaller companies to reclaim their space in the e-commerce ecosystem where they have been dwarfed for so long by the e-commerce giants with teams of data scientists and marketing specialists." said Francesco Benincasa, CEO of Smarter.ai.

Designed to connect natively with Shopify and Klaviyo, CommerceIQ provides businesses with the flexibility to connect with other platforms upon request and manually load data via .csv/.txt files. This makes it easy for any business owner to take advantage of the powerful suite's capabilities, regardless of their technical skills or resources. According to Forrester research, with AI, businesses can achieve 3 times faster revenue growth, 50% higher lead generation, and 25% higher sales productivity,

Up and coming QSR  Salad and Go  is expanding in Texas with three new locations opening in February in the Houston markets of Katy, Richmond and League City.

The Katy store located opened February 1, the Richmond location at  is set to open February 17, and the League City store plans to open its doors on February 22. These new locations will mark the start of rapid brand expansion across the Greater Houston area.

These suburbs were strategically selected as ideal markets for Salad and Go as some of the fastest growing communities in the region. Conveniently located in some of Houston's most popular suburbs, the new locations will provide fresh, high-quality meals with quick and easy convenience at an affordable price.

As Salad and Go continues growing its national presence with a strong focus on Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nevada, the brand's expansive growth has it on a positive trajectory to provide fresh and affordable food to communities in more than 125 locations by the end of 2023. Houston is the next step in the brand's expansion across Texas with plans to open additional stores in the market throughout the new year.

Salad and Go's chef-curated menu provides guests with food for any time of the day by offering a variety of delicious and healthy items including salads, wraps, breakfast burritos and soup as well as beverages including hand-crafted lemonades, teas and cold brew coffees.

Salad and Go ensures each meal contains fresh, quality ingredients while keeping prices low by vertically integrating operations and distribution, and sourcing ingredients directly from high-quality local farmers and suppliers whenever possible. The brand's mission to make fresh, nutritious food convenient and affordable for ALL extends beyond its stores and is demonstrated in the work the brand does to donate 4,000 meals every week to those in need, as well as in partnerships with nonprofits to support and fundraise for various worthy causes.

Focus Brands says dual branding is the future of QSR, and the parent company of Auntie Anne’s®, Carvel, Cinnabon, Jamba, McAlister’s Deli, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and Schlotzsky’s, is leading the charge. Today, the Focus Brands portfolio boasts 175-plus open dual branded units with at least 65 more in various stages of development across the country. 

Drive-Thru Convenience

The Focus Brands portfolio brands have signed agreements to open more than 50 dual and tri-brand locations in the coming year, many of which include drive-thrus for added convenience as interest in dual branded franchise opportunities continues to surge.

Flexible Store Formats

Focus Brands is among the brands introducing new store formats, including Krystal, Jack-in-the-Box and Panera Bread, which opened its Panera To Go, solely offering Rapid Pick-Up and Delivery shelves where guests and delivery drivers can easily pick up orders.  

Focus Brands has long pioneered the concept of dual branding, predominately in malls and non-traditional locations with Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon. Now, the company’s portfolio brands have found new opportunities with streetside dual branded units, which is paving the way for immense franchise growth. 

“Dual branding is the future of our brands, especially on the specialty side of the business,” said Brian Krause, Chief Development Officer at Focus Brands. “There will always be a place in malls, but there is an immense amount of growth opportunity in streetside venues, and, by dual branding, there is more opportunity for enhanced revenue.”

The company invested heavily in consumer research to identify how to create combinations of its iconic brands to resonate with consumers and meet them where they want to be met.

Focus Brands has identified four dual-brand concepts:

• Auntie Anne’s/Cinnabon
• Auntie Anne’s/Cinnabon/Carvel
• Auntie Anne’s/Jamba
• Cinnabon/Carvel – Cinnabon Swirl. 

While key consumer benefits vary by dual-brand combination, one consistent benefit has been convenience. Having these brands together in one location makes them far more accessible than they are individually. This convenience also creates opportunity for franchisees, as co-branding leads to an expansive menu that drives enhanced unit-level volume. 

 

Cendyn, a catalyst for digital transformation in the hospitality industry, is thrilled to announce the launch of CRM Analytics, a new reporting feature for Cendyn’s eInsight CRM. This innovative enhancement is designed to drive effective and impactful decision making for hoteliers at scale.

With the addition of CRM Analytics, eInsight CRM has simplified the process of transforming hotel organizations’ marketing data into actionable insights to help drive revenue, engagement, and direct channel share. By combining industry-leading business intelligence capabilities with CRM data, CRM Analytics delivers critical, transformational business insights in seconds. It enables decision-makers and hotel managers to track and visualize their KPIs and analyze hotel marketing data to get the deepest view of their campaign, sales, and customer data across all channels.

“CRM Analytics delivers a deep understanding of business-critical marketing data that empowers hotels to gain impactful, actionable intelligence about the interactions with each property’s unique brand and customer needs,” said Michael Bennett, President & Chief Marketing Officer at Cendyn. “This is just the latest enhancement in our ongoing mission to keep eInsight CRM at best-of-class level for our customers around the globe.” 

For more information, click here.

Customer-centricity is at the heart of High Return Hospitality. Resort and leisure activity customers expect experiences that go above and beyond the norm to keep them returning for more.

In fact, Gallup reports that fully engaged customers — those who are 23% more likely to spend at a facility — expect property employees to know more than just their name. They crave easy-to-book rooms and activities, simple ordering and payment solutions and more emotional connections.

To create guest and staff champions at every touchpoint, from booking to re-engagement to referral, UK-based Serco Leisure Operating Limited has selected a suite of intuitive, integrable solutions from the Agilysys Hospitality Cloud™. Agilysys, Inc. is a global provider of next-generation SaaS hospitality software solutions and services that will empower Serco Leisure to optimise Return on Experience (ROE) for guests and staff so they can achieve High Return Hospitality. ROE measures how technology creates more engaged and empowered staff members as well as guests that return more often, spend more, and leave stronger reviews.

Serco Leisure is one of the UK’s leading national operators of leisure centres, destination venues, and elite sporting facilities. Founded in 1988, it is part of Serco’s UK Citizen Services business unit, which has 6,000-plus employees. Serco Leisure provides leisure services on behalf of Community Leisure Trusts, local authorities like Nottinghamshire County Council and the Wheelpower Trust, and Sport England. The organisation provides world-class facilities for elite athletes, supporting them with resources to help in their pursuit of becoming part of Olympic teams and/or perfecting their sport. The leisure properties are also open for use by the general public.

Agilysys will provide hospitality solutions that range from a cloud-based property management system (PMS) to a booking system to a sales and catering solution for Serco Leisure’s current 550-bed estate, which includes:

• Holme Pierrepont Country Park, home of the UK’s National Water Sports Centre and base for amateur and world-class athletes in a variety of sports set on 270 acres.
• Stoke Mandeville Stadium, known worldwide as the birthplace of the Paralympic Movement. It boasts on-site accommodations and catering, an air-conditioned gym, a 25-meter swimming pool, an outdoor track, floodlit tennis courts and more.
• Lilleshall National Sports Centre and Lilleshall House & Gardens, the former of which is one of the UK’s National Sports facilities for elite and community sports and the latter of which is a stunning 19^th-century stately home and an idyllic venue for weddings, events and private parties.
• Bisham Abbey, which provides similar services as Lilleshall, plus accommodations, and was once home to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The historic property sits on the borders of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

Serco Leisure is investing in Agilysys’ intuitive and easy-to-use PMS and its latest modern point-of-sale (POS) system, which combines highly interactive terminal and tablet touchscreen applications supporting Windows, Android and iOS devices and includes strong information security for data protection. Its robust reporting and analysis features, extensive enterprise-grade menu and item configuration capabilities and multi-language support help drive service flexibility and increase operational efficiency. The company expects to scale up the cloud-based technology in other divisions in North America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, as well as the larger corporate organisation that includes Serco UL and Europe PLC.

Additionally, Serco Leisure will also adopt and implement three hospitality solutions from the Agilysys Experience Enhancers^™ Collection:

• a commission-free booking experience that encourages upselling unlimited amenities, such as room upgrades, and activity appointments — as part of an integrated itinerary that makes it easy for each customer to see and manage their trip details.
• an Activities booking system for experiences that enhance revenue per guest while creating loyal enthusiasts.
• a comprehensive sales and event management solution enabling an intelligent view of every group, event and attendee to optimise outcomes.

“Our previous system provided a less-than-ideal experience for customers and staff. Also, it did not integrate with other applications or provide proper reporting functionality,” said Steve Nelson, Operations Director of Serco Leisure’s National Sports Centres. “With Agilysys solutions, we’ll be able to deliver a more personalised service for our diverse range of customers, which includes Olympic and Paralympic athletes as well as members of the public. We’re looking forward to working with Agilysys, which will allow us to provide an end-to-end customer journey in a secure environment.”

“Serco Leisure understands the need to modernise its hospitality solutions to be the best in the market,” said Ben Curtis, Managing Director – EMEA for Agilysys. “We are grateful to help the company improve its offerings, which will attract more guests, customers and employees, enabling the company to maximise guest and staff experience and ultimately increase revenue.  

Effective today, Laxman Narasimhan has assumed the role of chief executive officer of Starbucks and will join the company’s board of directors.

Narasimhan was named incoming CEO on September 1, succeeding company founder and now former CEO Howard Schultz.

Starbucks Reveals Roadmap for Reinvention

Narasimhan joined the company as incoming ceo on October 1, 2022, bringing nearly 30 years of experience leading global consumer goods businesses and advising retail, grocery, restaurant and e-commerce companies. Over the past five months, he has embarked on a unique immersion experience, traveling to work with partners (employees) in over 30 stores, manufacturing plants and in support centers around the world, earning his barista certification along the way. He became immersed in the reinvention plans for the company led by Schultz who returned as interim ceo effective April 4, 2022.

Since Schultz returned last year, Starbucks unveiled a company-wide reinvention strategy and continued to deliver on more than $1 billion in investments in retail partners and stores for prioritized areas such as increased pay and sick time accrual, new financial well-being benefits, modernized training and collaboration, store innovation and equipment and the celebration of coffee. 

Schultz shared a letter to the company’s senior leadership team on the eve of the announcement – viewable here.

Narasimhan will lead Starbucks Annual Shareholder Meeting this Thursday, March 23.