Food service & hospitality

Business Challenges
In an increasingly challenging retail segment, food service and hospitality retailers face four main challenges. They must:

Build loyalty

An engaging atmosphere with just the right ambiance keeps customers coming back and generates positive recommendations for your restaurant, bar, café or hotel. On demand retailers in food service and hospitality create this with:

• Point-of-sale (POS) systems that help you manage communications with headquarters, inventory control, and employee sign-in
• POS systems integrated across multiple touchpoints, from the front desk to the bar to the gift shop

• Web-enabled POS systems that accept online orders and reservations
• Wireless kiosks where customers can place orders upon arrival
• Table-side kiosks for customer self-ordering and targeted incentives
• PDAs that allow staff to process orders more efficiently
• POS displays that automate upselling or run ads for vendor partners
• Wireless POS terminals that help reduce wait time during rush periods
• IBM Business Partner software for cashless payment and digital merchandising

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Take Out Costs

Driving down costs requires that you manage your facility, workforce and service quality efficiently. In an on demand world, you can achieve this by deploying:

• IBM Store Integration Framework, a common framework for store and enterprise-level management that helps provide critical infrastructure for re-engineering business processes, integrating multiple points of service and establishing a unified way to manage data in real time
• Upgradeable POS platforms designed to expand with your business

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Improve productivity

The retail on demand roadmap includes technology designed to help improve employee productivity, make it easier for staff to deliver attentive customer service, and minimize the time and cost of training.

• Web-ready kiosks broadcast daily employee updates about specials, menu changes, or new amenities and services
• Kiosks provide a convenient touchpoint for scheduling, time and attendance and other HR concerns
• Handheld devices deliver realtime messages to managers about schedule conflicts, menu shortages and outages, or the arrival of loyal customers
• Touchscreen technology and intuitive graphical user interfaces (GUIs) help shorten training sessions and reduce errors at the POS

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Operate resiliently

Every minute of downtime can compromise service, erode loyalty and reduce revenue. On demand retailers are equipped with in-store solutions that can handle extremely challenging operational conditions.

• Retail-hardened POS systems are designed to withstand exposure to food, grease, smoke, dust and liquid spills
• Open infrastructure, built through the IBM Store Integration Framework, lets you replace existing technologies easily and cost-effectively
• Store-based and Web-based tools help safeguard personal transaction data
• Systems management tools help you monitor enterprise-wide operations and route alerts automatically, reducing the burden on your IT team
• A technology partner, IBM, with a proven track record in food service and hospitality, which helps you make a smooth transition to new solutions

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