Technology forecast: What's Hot, What's Hype

Sifting through the technology heap can be frustrating. How do you decide whether or not to spend money on a new system and which one is right for you? If you are a corporate-owned

operation, it is likely that there is a team hired specifically to make those decisions for you. But if you are an independent operation, you are probably fending for yourself. No matter what the size of your operation is, gathering information to educate yourself is usually the safest bet in differentiating between technology that will work for you and technology that is hyped to be for you. Following is a list of some of the technologies that are available now or are on the horizon for the foodservice industry:

Web-based POS - Having point-of-sale applications delivered over the Internet would eliminate the cost associated with owning and maintaining a legacy system and would allow for real-time remote access to sales and labor information over the Internet. During a think-tank discussion at FS/TEC 2000, it wasn't a debate of whether the technology is out there for a Web-based POS system that was being discussed — some companies are already offering it — but whether foodservice operations would be willing to accept it. The biggest problem with the solution is resiliency. Matthew Starobin, president of At-Your-Service Software Inc., says, "A lot of people question the merits of an electronic POS. If your critical system is going over the wires and the POS goes down, security issues aside, the information would have to be manually checked, and that's a horror show."

ASPs - An application service provider is a company that hosts applications on centralized servers. For a fee, an ASP will manage the equipment and software the operation uses. An ASP benefits restaurants by allowing computer experts to take care of an operation's computers and applications, thereby allowing the owner/operator/ manager to focus on running the restaurant. Some believe, however, that an ASP's place isn't in the restaurant industry. Fred Ihrer, CEO of Comus Restaurant Systems, says "ASP is something new to hype that is really not new. The technology is actually about 35 years old. The two kinds of ASP applications are online, real-time POS applications, and back office applications. An ASP has no benefit to a real-time POS environment. You don't want to transfer data hundreds or thousands of miles away to control a POS system. If the connection fails, you're out of business. Certain back office applications would seem to lend themselves better to an ASP environment, and payroll comes to mind because payroll processing is relatively complex. But, you are then relinquishing a critical, financially sensitive process in your company to some dot-com somewhere. Are restaurants willing to do this? I don't believe so. I like the term 'technology is a solution looking for a problem.' In my opinion, ASP technology is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist in restaurants."

Wireless - This technology would free a system from cable connections and would enable mobility when using the system within the restaurant. Also, aesthetically, the elimination of cable hook-ups would create a sleeker, more attractive system. In an educational session at FS/TEC 2000, Keith McNally, senior executive vice president of business development for Ameranth Wireless Inc., said that we will see an increase in wireless use within the next five years as standards are now available that offer much higher speeds, and the cost of wireless is dropping steadily. Ihrer believes that "wireless is going to be the best thing that ever happened to restaurant POS. All of the cabling between work stations, computers and peripheral devices are subject to failure, being detached and being cut. Within the next three or four years, we're going to see inexpensive technology coming down the pike using radio frequency spectrums that will eliminate cables entirely, including between computers and printers. Wireless will really help in terms of cost and reliability with systems."

Kiosks - There are three types of kiosks that are currently being used in restaurant settings:

• Self ordering — the consumer enters in their order themselves;
• Survey kiosks — customers can enter information about their visit to the restaurant, allowing the operation to gain valuable information to improve customer satisfaction; and
• Public Internet access kiosks — users can read e-mail, browse the Internet or go to a chat room while sitting at their table.

Tim Peterson, director of kiosk solutions and industry marketing for NCR Corp., says that "because consumers are more used to using technology, people aren't afraid of it anymore. Also, technology is more engaging with the use of icons, graphics and movies."

Ihrer says "Kiosks are a technology that is overdue. In QSRs — especially counter service where customers could order their food themselves — that is the direction we're heading. The technologies that are making this more feasible are touchscreens that allow customers to be led through an order easily and inexpensive tendering equipment where people can pay at the kiosk via cash or credit card."

HTA
Copyright © 2001 Cynterpubs
ISSN 1520-975X

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