Surviving the Technology Jungle: 6 Must-Ask Questions When Choosing Tech Tools
Joshua D. Hayes MA, Nikhil (Nik) Kundra, David K. Hayes Ph.D.
You do not have to be a corporation's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to know that today's owners and managers are encountering an ever-increasing array of technology-driven tools designed for use in hospitality operations. That's a good thing.
But, for anyone who has ever struggled with getting all of the features to work properly on their smartphone, or who has gotten frustrated or even defeated by the vast array of remote control devices needed just to watch TV in their own homes, it's also clear that to be truly valuable, technology has to be useful and not just advanced. That's especially true in the business world. As professionals who design and deliver training programs exclusively for the hospitality industry, we can attest that not all progress is easily achieved; so experienced business professionals must look for proven ways to distinguish solid business decisions from potentially costly mistakes.
For managers, the value of any technology tool is the result of much more than simply whether that tool is digitized, wireless, blue-toothed, or even what it can do. But that's also why managers who don't know the difference between the "Cloud" and the "Fog" can still determine the usefulness of an advanced technology product prior to buying it.
Even before the important factors of cost and quality of vendor are considered, all buyers should ask themselves (and their technology vendors) six key questions when considering the wisdom of purchasing a technology-driven product.
Six Must-Ask Questions for Choosing Tech Tools
1. What problem does it solve?The first question buyers must ask is "What problem will be solved by the introduction of this technology?" To be truly useful a tool should allow work to be done better, faster, more often, or by lower-cost workers. Before buying, managers should have a firm grasp of exactly how the organization will use the product to solve one or more of its existing problems.
2. Can my staff incorporate it?Managers must be realistic when considering whether staff members working with the tool actually possess the skills needed to use it. It is especially important to note that technology salespersons have a vested interest in portraying their products as convenient and user-friendly. However, these salespersons are trained and experienced users specializing in their own products. Savvy technology buyers should ask themselves if their own (average) staff members have the skills required to utilize a product and, if they do not, whether an upgrade in technology could actually result in increased employee frustration, decreased efficiency, and increased costs.
3. Will my staff actually utilize it?
Knowing how to use a tool is not the same as using it. Most hospitality managers know how to use a shovel... but most don't (at least not at work!). Buyers must consider all potential obstacles to adoption. Unless staff members can be clearly shown how a new technology-related product is of direct benefit to them, their normal resistance to change can make the implementation of new technological tools a real challenge.
4. Will it save us time?
The best technology tools address a task that management should be doing, or is already doing, and allows that task to be done better, faster, or cheaper. Automating and digitizing manual tasks that already are, or should be, undertaken to improve operational performance most often makes good sense. A tool, however, that asks a business to do things it has never even felt the need to do; (e.g. collect, assess, organize or report on data of little known importance) must be considered very carefully or employees may rightly conclude the new tool makes their jobs harder, not easier.
5. How will it save us money?
In nearly all cases, unless an advanced technology tool can be shown to save more money than it costs to buy and implement it, the purchase may be unwise. You must answer this question before you can possibly assess the purchase price of an advanced technology tool. Savings can be in product costs or labor. However, unless individuals using the new tool can be assigned additional tasks or have their scheduled work hours reduced, labor savings achieved may be in convenience to the employees only; rather than increased business profits.
6. How will my customers benefit?
If an advanced technology tool is to be truly useful it should be easy to show its direct benefit not only to the organization buying it, but to that organization's internal or external customers as well. In some cases external customers may not notice a technology upgrade. But if that is the case, managers must carefully consider if the proposed purchase truly enhances their customers' experiences.
Put Into Practice: Is Partender Up to Par?
We know people learn best by doing. So, to demonstrate the practical application of this six key question analysis tool we decided to apply it to a problem area common to many hoteliers and F&B professionals.
These professionals know that frequent and accurate recording of liquor inventories are an important cost control tool that can help reduce product loss in bars caused by theft and improper portion control. But they also know accurately determining the amount of stock in inventory is difficult and very time consuming.
Full bottles of spirits can be easily counted for inventory purposes. Opened containers of spirits, however, are a good bit trickier. In the past, the "manual" method of inventorying these products called for weighing or measuring their contents, hand-entering those product amounts on a spreadsheet and then calculating their monetary value. The process is subject to high levels of error if the amounts in the open bottles are not estimated accurately or when data entry errors are made. It seems like there should be a better way, and several companies are offering technology-based solutions.
Like many problem areas in the hospitality industry, the technology-driven products and services designed to address this specific inventory problem fall somewhere along a spectrum of valuable resource to glitzy gimmick. To assist F&B managers in effectively addressing this key problem, Silicon Valley innovator Nikhil (Nik) Kundra founded Partender; (www.Partender.com) a company that has developed a very creative app for smart phones, iPads, and tablets to help managers take and record their total liquor inventories. The app can even help managers inventory beer, wine, food, and smallwares. Literally, anything you can take a picture of can be inventoried on Partender.
Essentially, Partender uses its specially-designed software to leverage the power of digital cameras, internet sources of product data, and built in touch screens to streamline the process of recording beverage inventories (full and open bottles), forecasting beverage product need, creating instant, auto-populated purchase orders and analyzing operating costs.
After we evaluated the Partender product on our own, we asked company founder Nik Kundra to give us "Vendor's Input" to help better answer the six critical questions we utilized to determine just how valuable a product like Partender could be to a beverage manager's operation. Here's how we answered the six key questions:
1. What problem does it solve?
Inventorying open liquor bottles is time consuming and prone to human error. If the total effort required to assess inventory, type data into an Excel spreadsheet to determine what product is in-stock and then determine what must be ordered is considered, the process can take a tremendous amount of time. That's a big problem.
Since this paper-pen-spreadsheet process takes so long, most bars only do inventory once every week or month. But the same reason why they count the cash in their registers at the end of the night is the same reason they should count the liquid cash that's sitting on their shelves. When they don't, product losses in the typical bar can be extensive; averaging nearly 25%. That's almost 1-in-every-4 drinks going out the door. In fact, poor inventory practices are a major reason employees are able to abuse and bypass procedures designed to help control bar costs.
Nik's Input: We have found that most operators know the value of increased frequency and accuracy of their beverage inventory taking; they simply need an effective and easy tool for addressing the problem; and especially helpful would be one that provides detailed information on beverage product consumption that will help show exactly where theft or loss is occurring.
2. Can my staff incorporate it?
Yes, if they know how to use a smart phone/device (and most young folks do!). Even older staff members, those seasoned veterans who would not normally be considered highly tech-savvy, are likely to be owners of a relatively newer model smartphone or tablet and using it has become second nature to most of them.
Nik's Input: The level of tech-sophistication required to implement Partender is not prohibitive. Partender's interface is literally as simple as tapping where the liquor level is on the on-screen image of that bottle, and then swiping to the next bottle on your shelf. You can split up the work of inventory (and the initial one-time setup) across multiple devices/people, so when you're done and tap "Finish Inventory," everyone gets emailed an Excel Spreadsheet, auto-populated with your Purchase Order, so you can literally print this out and go shopping at your State-Controlled Liquor Store or forward it to your sales rep and be done with inventory and ordering in about 15 minutes.
3. Will my staff actually utilize it?
Experienced managers know that staff can sometimes be resistant to any form of change, particularly if they feel it may complicate or add to their tasks. However, since Partender is a clear improvement over manual entry in terms of speed and simplicity, most beverage staff should be excited about the transition once they learn about the product.
Nik's Input: We have found staff resistance to be low when staff is fully informed about the reasons their managers have chosen Partender and how easy it is to use – just tapping & swiping. In addition, the Partender website (www.partender.com) allows potential buyers the chance to view and actually "test drive" our software.
4. Will it save us time?
Most beverage managers would agree that accurate and more frequent inventories of open bottles would be beneficial. In the past, the time required to take inventories would be the main factor limiting the frequency with which inventories were recorded. Partender should easily reduce the time required to take inventory. However, a short amount of time will initially be needed to learn the product and configure your specific bar-setup in the app, as well as train staff in its use.
Nik's Input: Our customers report that tasks which had previously taken them 5-6 hours to complete are now completed in less than ½ hour's time. We even took Antoine's in New Orleans (the second-longest wine cellar in the world and oldest family-owned restaurant) down from 6 people taking 24 hours to do inventory on paper/pen to just 1 person taking less than an hour to complete the inventory using Partender. Time is saved both in recording current inventory levels and in preparing purchase orders at the tap of a button.
5. How will it save us money?
More frequent inventories (including daily inventory of fast-moving items) mean employee theft and errors can be detected earlier. The result should be product cost savings and reduced beverage cost percentages as well as reduced labor costs. If Partender's online portal functionality is also utilized, fast and slow moving inventory items can be assessed, resulting in more efficient use of inventory dollars.
Nik's Input: By using our system, operators achieve up to 99.2% inventory accuracy levels, thus making it easy to quickly spot inventory irregularities. On the portal, you can even see that, for example, 20 shots of Grey Goose were poured out since the last inventory, and then quickly cross-check your POS to see only 12 shots were rung up. Within 10 seconds, you have just identified 8 shots of lost inventory and can now have appropriate conversations with your staff. The amount of savings a manager will achieve depends on the size of the beverage operation, but our customers have reported an average of $1,000 -$6,000 in product and labor savings per month.
6. How will my customers benefit?
Partender was designed to be effective at minimizing loss and generating new profits by providing operators the ability to quickly visualize what their customers are actually consuming the most and optimizing purchasing for those high-yield items.
Reduced product losses also allow operators to minimize price increases. While low price is not the exclusive reason customers choose to frequent a specific beverage operation, providing customers with good value for dollars spent is important to all hospitality operators. Lower prices mean happier, more loyal customers.
Nik's Input: If used successfully, Partender keeps a bar's products where they belong: well-stocked and on the shelf so a customer can always depend on that bar for his or her favorite drink. The result should be a consistent supply available to customers and lower costs, since drink prices do not need to be increased simply to overcome losses caused by theft or operational inefficiencies.
In this example, Partender passes the test for product quality and especially for the quality of vendor-supplied information. Should an operation buy Partender (or any other technology tool)? Only managers who have asked and satisfactorily answered the six key technology questions can know for sure. In this world of expanding technology options, there are a mind boggling number of eager tech providers attempting to meet a complex array of business needs. In the resulting technology jungle, one-size-fits-all technology solutions are increasingly inefficient and unrealistic.
As a leader in your business, you are the one responsible for navigating the jungle and determining which products are worthy of investment. Using direct questions like those presented here to determine the likely value of technology-related purchases is one good way to do that.
It is important to note that these are questions you should ask regardless of your own level of tech savvy. Only you can determine which products and services are right for your business. And you can do that well if you ask the right six questions before purchasing an advanced technology tool.
Note: 1. This article originally submitted for publication to hsyndicate.org and its affiliates. Reuse by other professional media, news outlets or organizations are prohibited without author permission. Personal use and sharing via social media tools is encouraged. All rights reserved by the authors.
Note: 2. Full disclosure: No member of PandaPros is an owner, partner, or investor in "Partender." The authors are deeply grateful to Nik Kundra and his organization for their kind assistance in the preparation of this piece.
About the Authors:
Joshua D. Hayes, (MA Stanford; MA University of California, Davis) is a graduate instructor completing the Ph.D. program at the University of California, Davis and is a Panda Professionals consulting author in the areas of consumer behavior and operating data analysis.
Nikhil (Nik) Kundra is Founder and CEO of Partender, an innovative company whose products assist managers in control beverage and other their operating costs. He can be reached at [email protected]. Web address; www.Partender.com.
Dr. David K. Hayes, Peggy Hayes and Allisha A. Miller operate Panda Professionals Hospitality Management and Training (www.pandapros.com). PandaPros offers custom training programs designed exclusively for the hospitality industry. For information about training and coaching services provided by PandaPros, contact [email protected]
