Rising Star Makes a Positive Impact on Guest, Employee Experience
Beth Olson, Director, IT Restaurants Engagement, Inspire Brands, received the Top Women in Restaurant Technology - Rising Star Award.
Olson was among 15 women recognized for their accomplishments at MURTEC in Las Vegas. Hospitality Technology's Top Women in Restaurant Technology Awards, sponsored by Paerpay, are now in their seventh year.
Olson, who is based in Atlanta, didn’t set out to pursue a career in restaurant technology. “Over the years in the restaurant industry, opportunities kept presenting themselves that made me realize this was the path I wanted to be on,” she recalls.
“...In my role on the Training Team, I found myself signing up for any tech related project, test or rollout that I could get involved in. I knew that technology was the way of the future and wanted to be in a role that could impact how users receive, adopt and use technology. Technology can empower the end user to run their business and positively impact the experience for employees and their guests. Moving into a role on the Restaurant Technology team has been extremely rewarding.
Her colleagues describe Olson as “extremely skilled at building partnerships with stakeholders and creating win, win, win situations. …She has a skill in building systems, processes and procedures that make all aspects of our technology platform easy to use, easy to understand and most importantly used by our team members.”
Among her accomplishments, Olson was directly responsible for the implementation of the brand standard point- of-sale system as well as the brand's first system-wide online ordering platform.
“I have been fortunate to be part of so many amazing projects and teams in my years at Inspire Brands and Arby’s,” Olson says. “One project that I was honored to lead was the first year of the Inspiring Smiles Challenge contest for Arby’s. The challenge was an 8-month long restaurant competition in 2021 that resulted in the top 35 teams across the Arby’s brand being awarded the title of Inspiring Smiles Challenge Winner. Designing, deploying and executing on this challenge was an extremely rewarding experience as I watched restaurant teams work so hard to gain their spot at the top of the leaderboard.”
Meaningful Connections
Connecting with others, either in an official or unofficial mentoring relationship has been “extremely rewarding and valuable” for Olson, who has been both a mentor and mentee. “Whether your mentor is official or unofficial, they can leave a lasting impact on your career trajectory,I was fortunate to have a mentor early in my career as a general manager that supported me in my career goals even though they were quite different from my peers. Without her support, my career trajectory would have looked a bit different.”
When it comes to technology, Olson is passionate about the user experience. “In the restaurant industry, every minute away from the floor taking care of a guest is time that our teams can’t get back,” she explains. “Keeping the end user in mind, creating technology that is intuitive and requires as few steps as possible to complete a task enhances the end user experience and in turn impacts the guest experience.”
Olson is jazzed about the future possibilities. “There doesn’t seem to be a problem that can’t be solved or supported by technology. I’m excited to see the direction of guest-facing technology such as frictionless guest ordering or artificial intelligence in the restaurant space as well as technology that empowers business stakeholders through automation of processes.”
On receiving HT’s Top Women in Restaurant Technology - Rising Star award, Olson says she’s honored to have been nominated. “Winning the award is extremely fulfilling. I know that the pool of talented women within my own company is not small so to know that I was chosen from a pool much larger than that makes me feel very proud and motivated to continue driving technology forward.