The global pandemic has proven an accelerant for technological applications across many industries, and hospitality businesses are poised to battle headwinds or reap the whirlwind of consumer evolution.
According to Forbes, the past two years have generated 90 per cent of the world’s data, which now amounts to 2.5 quintillion bytes of information created each day.
The meteoric shift to digital brought about by economic disruption has meant the Australian hospitality industry has had to scramble to meet the progression.
Clive Humby coined the phrase “data is the new oil” back in 2006, and this has never been truer than in 2022.
For 15 years hospitality-focused consultancy Quantaco has been helping Australian businesses invest in technology and find ways to channel information. The company says there are plenty of opportunities to add value to a business through data.
High labour costs continue to impact profitability, often equating to more than 40 per cent of revenue.
Customer experience is a staple of hospitality, but research by Amore Social found 32% of consumers would be willing to walk away from a business they love after just one bad experience. If a pub is understaffed or operating on inefficient rosters, it could mean the loss of a repeat customer.
Quantaco offers its proprietary Salesline solution as a way to optimise staffing in near-live conditions, allowing businesses to monitor sales in coordination with rostering and managing staff on-shift.
As a highly regulated industry, pub operators have seen an increased management burden around compliance, including recording and tracking of incidents, as well as mandatory training, regulation and accountability.
The Star Compliance platform by Quantaco aims to simplify these processes by becoming part of daily operations. It collates data for real-time decision-making, while enhancing record retention, to create a compliant and consistent approach to mandatory incident reporting.
Market and economic conditions have driven escalating insurance costs, up by as much as 100 per cent post-COVID, with some regional pubs seeing premium increases of $16k in one year.
Quantaco suggests collecting and understanding data on the business means an operator is able to quantify the loss of sales and revenue from downtime, if required, whether that be from breakdowns and outages, or even brand damage or customer compensation.
The company says it uses data to give businesses insight into the right insurance at the time, and to construct an informed risk mitigation strategy to ensure the right coverage.
The data-driven approach gives hospitality businesses the power to “unlock their full potential”.
“The new age of data is already here, and the hospitality industry is primed to seize this opportunity with both hands,” suggests Quantaco.
