In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments.
They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Top of the Tech Stack” and “Which Came First.”
Listen HereIn this episode they feature a Best Of Top Of The Tech Stack with special guest, Sterling Douglass, Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc. Top of the Tech Stack first made an appearance in season 2 and held up strong through season 6. Branded is all about the tech stack, each guest who played “Top of the Tech Stack” was asked, what areas of hospitality technology would they recommend that operators have on the top of their tech stacks?
Alex Canter, CEO of Nextbite and Ordermark was the first guest to to get the top of the tech stack question. What do you think is the number one piece of tech that an operator should be looking at right now in their tech stack? Cantor starts his answer by saying it’s not about whether delivery is a friend or a foe but how to make sure operators have a successful delivery program. Delivery is no longer an option, even for high end restaurants. His best advice is that operators should take an omni channel approach and use every platform consumers are using. Not just the big marketplaces, but your local platforms as well as larger platforms like Goldbelly too.
Their next guest was Kelly MacPherson, Chief Technology and Supply Chain Officer for Union Square Hospitality Group. MacPherson’s response to the question was robust analytics. She said creating actionable insights to really drive your decisions, not making decisions based on your gut.
Savneet Singh, CEO of ParTech, when asked what operators should have on top of their tech stack, replied that your digital footprint is as important as your physical footprint. If you were retail fifteen years ago and did not embrace e-commerce, you were gone. Don’t get left behind now.
There are so many components to tech, on top of mind is how to really position to be successful in the off-premise world. Consumers will be relying more on delivery, pandemic accelerated ordering in. That trend will continue. This is how John Rigos, Founder and Co-CEO at Aurify Brands responded to the tech questions.
Atul Sood, Chief Business officer at Kitchen United says, you have to empower your restaurant to allow for native channel digital ordering and protect your margins. Giancarlo Fiorarancio, formerly CTO at HHC at the time of the recording is now the Principle Consultant at RHR Advisors responded, online and mobile ordering solutions must be dialed in. He says look at BOH and get your costs in line by using great inventory and purchasing solutions. Get your financial house in order and get your costs under control.
The President and CEO of Wow Bao, Geoff Alexander closes out the top of tech stack best of series. He said that the phone is the new POS but you have to have integration, especially 3rd party integration, loyalty or retention marketing and SEO has to stay front of mind.
To check out the best of episodes head over to Hospitality Hangout.
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