News Briefs

Mark Shambura has joined Panera Bread as Chief Marketing Officer. Shambura will lead all aspects of marketing at Panera, including Brand Building, Digital & Loyalty, Product Strategy & Consumer Insights. An accomplished marketing leader with broad expertise in the restaurant industry, Mr. Shambura has previously held marketing leadership roles during pivotal growth periods for top brands including Chipotle, MOD Pizza, and most recently Papa Johns.

"Mark brings an impressive background building brands and leading marketing teams for fast-casual restaurants, and we’re thrilled to welcome him to Panera Bread,” said José Alberto Dueñas, Chief Executive Officer. “As Panera continues to evolve our brand, guided by listening to our guests, Mark’s depth of experience and ability will help drive our growth as a brand that serves great food you feel good about eating.”

Shambura previously served as CMO at Papa Johns, where he led a revitalization of the brand by enhancing its iconic “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza” platform, and developing a more modern, innovative omnichannel approach to transform how Papa Johns appealed to both new and loyal consumers. As Executive Director at Chipotle, Mr. Shambura guided the marketing function through periods of both sustained growth and transition, providing leadership over brand strategy, advertising, digital, social, events/sponsorships, promotions, and field marketing, including playing a key role in spearheading its “Real Ingredients” brand strategy.

“I’m proud to join the Panera Bread team and excited to build on the momentum of the brand's transformation as it continues to evolve in service of our guests,” Mr. Shambura said. “Panera propelled and cemented its position at the top of the fast casual restaurant segment through its promise of high-quality ingredients and freshly prepared food, and I’m thrilled to join a highly talented team to help shape its next chapter.”

Prior to his tenure in the restaurant industry, Mr. Shambura gained extensive marketing agency experience, working with a broad array of top global consumer brands for over a decade. Shambura will report directly to José Alberto Dueñas, Chief Executive Officer, and officially assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer on July 29, 2024.

New research published today by Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, has uncovered the importance of a frictionless payment experience for hotel customers, with over a third (37%) of consumers admitting to have left the booking process because they haven't been able to pay the way they would like.

The findings published in Adyen’s first Global Hospitality Report, suggest the payment experience could be impacting hotel revenues. Despite consumer sentiment finding otherwise, over one in ten (12%) hospitality businesses said offering guests a variety of payment options is not important. In addition to this, nearly a third (31%) confessed that they can’t currently accept payment options like BNPL and Apple Pay.

New global payment trends are emerging across the hospitality sector in 2024, as research found that one of the most popular ways to pay for a hotel experience online was via a digital wallet (15%). One in ten (10%) guests said they had booked a stay via social media for the first time over the past 12 months, and 6% said they had done so using BNPL over the same time period.

The majority of consumers (59%) said that a seamless experience from booking to check-out was important to them when choosing a hotel. The report pointed towards three new trends:

1. Payment flexibility is a deal-breaker

Offering a wide range of payment options is important to almost half (49%) of consumers surveyed, with four in ten (42%) admitting greater options would support them making bigger purchases. Four in ten (40%) hotel guests said they don’t like paying the full cost of a hotel upfront - reflecting a broader shift towards careful budget management and mirroring the rise in popularity of BNPL services.

2. Cancellation policies are well researched

Flexibility in cancellation policies also emerged as a critical factor in hotel selection, with 59% of travelers considering free cancellation 24-48 hours before arrival a deal-maker. The data underscores a traveler's desire to ensure plans can be adapted last minute.

3. Financial experiences affect returning travelers

Four in ten (44%) of hotel goers have not rebooked a stay due to finance-related issues or grievances. Specifically, problems with payments, such as card declines or incorrect charges (13%), being requested to share card details over the phone (11%), experiencing delayed charges or refunds (11%) and overpayment due to error (10%).

“Travel expectations are sky high, with payment options playing a critical role in shaping the overall guest experience and influencing future booking decisions,” said Mark Rademaker, Head of Hospitality, Adyen.

“Today’s guests demand easy booking processes, transactions and hassle-free cancellations, otherwise they may decide to go elsewhere. We spoke to senior leaders at hotel businesses worldwide, and it was encouraging to find 60% saying that their company would be looking to enhance and improve their payments journey over the next 12 months, and 58% stating that investment in financial technology capabilities could offer a differentiated service over competitors.”

“With potential guests abandoning bookings due to payment inflexibility, and some not returning due to finance-related issues, the hospitality industry must urgently look at how experiences can be enhanced in an era where every touchpoint matters and payments are no longer just a transaction.”

You can read the report in full here.

Darden Restaurants Inc.,  and Uber Technologies Inc.  have entered into an exclusive multi-year delivery partnership, set to begin with Olive Garden in late 2024. The agreement will enable restaurant guests to order on-demand delivery via Darden restaurant channels, with delivery handled by Uber Direct, through Uber's national delivery network.

An initial pilot of first-party delivery from a limited number of Olive Garden locations will begin in late 2024. Upon the completion of a successful pilot, national expansion at Olive Garden is expected to be complete by May 2025.

Once live, guests will be able to order delivery through Olive Garden's website and app at more than 900 company-owned locations across the U.S., giving Olive Garden fans access to stress-free delivery while guest data and insights will remain with Olive Garden. Uber Direct, which enables merchants to tap into Uber's delivery technology and logistics network, will power deliveries enabling couriers to bring guests their Olive Garden favorites at home.
 

• 85% say integrations with other systems is driving POS purchasing decisions, according to HT's 2024 POS Software Trends Survey

"Guests have been asking us for home delivery options and they continue to show they are willing to pay for the convenience," said Rick Cardenas, Darden President and CEO. "As we continued to evaluate delivery, it was important for us to find a way to address this guest need state without disrupting the team member or guest experience and without compromising our competitive advantages and simple operating model. Uber is a partner we believe shares that vision and can meet our expectations. Their investment in a custom-integration, commitment to Olive Garden's first-party delivery growth, and efficiency and speed at a national scale, made this exclusive partnership a clear choice."

"We're excited to announce this partnership and look forward to bringing guests the excellent, convenient and reliable experience that is foundational to both of our brands," said Sarfraz Maredia, Vice President of Delivery, Head of Americas at Uber Eats. "On-demand delivery is increasingly a core expectation for consumers. People also expect a great experience, especially when it's from a brand they love like Olive Garden, and that doesn't change whether it's at the restaurant or at home. We're confident our teams can deliver on that promise together and continue to grow first-party delivery as a channel."

Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has chosen Deepki, an ESG platform for real estate, to support its transition to net zero. The Group is leveraging actionable insights from the Deepki platform to define and evolve its sustainability practices worldwide. 

Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has an established sustainability roadmap, which was launched over a decade ago and continues to evolve. The Group actively aligns its strategy with the Paris agreement, which sets a target of limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. To achieve this, Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has committed to cutting its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 46,2% by 2030, compared with 2019 levels.

Looking ahead to 2050, Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has committed to reducing its company-wide emissions by 90% across the entire value chain, to become a net zero Company. Both targets have been officially approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

With Deepki, Minor Hotels Europe & Americas will be able to track and monitor the success of its decarbonization goals, define energy efficiency measures to be taken, and measure the impact of those implemented, as well as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. By leveraging one platform to address the entire decarbonization process, from data collection and analysis, through to reporting and action, real estate players are best equipped to achieve impact and reach net zero.

Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has begun using Deepki to gain a complete overview of their portfolio’s environmental performance, in order to streamline all actions, thus ensuring coherence and consistency across the company. It collects and monitors data of over 350 buildings in more than 30 countries around the world, centralizing energy and environmental KPIs in one collaborative platform. The objective is to achieve 100% data coverage through technology and digitization - another key focus for the Group. This thereby ensures greater harmonization, visibility, analysis, optimization, and forecasting of all data in an automated manner, enabling it to reduce its carbon footprint and improve its environmental performance, through greater energy efficiency.

By automating the collection of consumption data and invoices using Deepki’s SaaS solution, Minor Hotels Europe & Americas can report its environmental performance transparently and accurately.  It will also enable the Group to identify assets exposed to physical and climatic transition risks, which could result in them losing value and becoming stranded assets, a widespread phenomenon that is hitting European real estate particularly hard. Both a decarbonisation plan and a resilience plan can be implemented to help reach net zero and mitigate this risk, using Deepki’s complete ESG platform for real estate.

Pilar Rodríguez Esteban, Senior Vice President Projects, Construction, Engineering & Maintenance of Minor Hotels Europe & Americas, comments: “Minor Hotels Europe & Americas is committed to an ambitious ESG strategy and is partnering with Deepki to improve the performance of its real estate assets.  The deployment of Deepki’s platform across our portfolio has brought a new level of transparency and facilitated reporting, which supports our ESG leadership in the sector. Guests are increasingly taking environmental performance into account when choosing accommodation, and it is important for us to reflect this in our offering.”

Xana Muñiz, Vice President Southern Europe & LATAM at Deepki, concludes by explaining: "Thanks to Deepki, Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has gained a clearer picture of its portfolio’s performance, and can take concrete action to improve their ESG credentials. The application of these measures has not only contributed to reducing the carbon footprint of the hotels, but is also generating economic and social benefits, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and creating healthier and more sustainable environments for their guests."

Paychex, Inc., a provider of integrated human capital management software solutions for human resources, employee benefits, insurance services, and payroll, has introduced a new AI-assisted recruiting tool for small- and medium-sized business owners and HR professionals. Paychex Recruiting Copilot, provided in partnership with Findem, is an AI talent acquisition solution powered by unique 3D data. This new solution will revolutionize the recruiting and hiring process by enabling Paychex customers to quickly find top talent instead of relying solely on traditional recruiting methods.

Paychex Recruiting Copilot analyzes millions of potential employees through a natural-language search engine to quickly produce an active list of qualified individuals for open positions, based on hiring requirements, job descriptions, and filters such as job title, location, skills, experience, industries, and other attributes.

“Recruiting is often a costly and time-consuming process that has traditionally required business leaders and HR professionals to spend valuable resources matching candidate resumes to the needs of the business,” said Beaumont Vance, Paychex senior vice president of data, analytics, and AI. “With our latest cutting-edge AI recruiting solution, Paychex Recruiting Copilot, we are helping SMBs proactively access qualified talent within seconds versus a reactive job board approach. This puts advanced technology that is often only available to enterprise-level organizations into the hands of small and mid-sized companies so they can more effectively compete for talent.”

According to a recent Paychex customer study, 80% of respondents reported that finding qualified candidates is challenging. Paychex Recruiting Copilot enables businesses to:

• Find and contact the best-matched individuals quickly, eliminating the need to post job descriptions and review resumes.
• Create a pool of active talent to generate a pipeline beyond filling current positions.

“We know that speed and quality are essential for SMBs as they balance all the demands of running their businesses while having the right people in the right place at the right time,” said John Phillips VP, GM for Findem. “Through this partnership with Paychex, we’re empowering users to now use AI-assisted search in a pool of hundreds of millions of potential candidates to find matches specific to a company’s needs, ultimately speeding the time to the next great hire.”

Paychex Recruiting Copilot brings advanced, enterprise-level recruiting capabilities to small- and medium-sized businesses and enhances the existing recruiting, applicant tracking, hiring, and onboarding solutions available through Paychex Flex^®, the company’s cloud-based HCM SaaS solution. Current recruiting solutions include Paychex Flex Hiring, a full-spectrum, recruiting-to-onboarding applicant tracking system (ATS) that allows data to automatically flow into Paychex Flex for payroll and HR purposes, integrations with major job boards, and outsourced recruiting and staffing solutions for Paychex customers through a national team of HR professionals.

“Recruiting is deeply tied to business growth and success,” said Ben Eubanks, chief research officer, Lighthouse Research & Advisory, a strategic human capital management advisory and research firm. “In our Talent Acquisition Trends study, our research team found that SMB employers are overwhelmed by the state of hiring today. From difficulties in screening and selection to the shortage of quality of applicants, it’s a tough recruiting market. This new partnership with Findem helps set Paychex up to support employers with award-winning talent acquisition technology. It’s truly a competitive edge.”