Technology has to be invented or adopted

Thomas Hesse Managing Director, Micros-Fidélio (Mauritius) Ltd

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We often think of technology as being too complex to be integrated in our daily activities despite of us being surrounded by many examples of how technology has brought about sense and simplicity, a pun to Philips’ famous tag line. The washing machine, the refrigerator, the Internet, the mobile phone are all examples of how technology has revolutionized the way we live and communicate.

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The most innovative technologies over the past decades met with a lot of resistance before being adopted. An interesting example is touchscreen technology. Basically, a touch screen is a display screen which is sensitive to pressure and is used as an input device : a user interacts with the device by touching pictures or words on the screen.

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Touchscreen technology emerged in the second half of the 1960s and started gaining momentum only in the 1980s. Hewlett-Packard’s HP-150 was one of the first commercially available touchscreen PCs in 1983. The ViewTouch point of sale (POS) software was first shown in 1986 at the Atari Computer demonstration area, Las Vegas, and was the first commercially available POS system with a widget- driven color graphic touchscreen interface. Touchscreen smartphones only grew in popularity in the 2000s: Nokia’s Symbian handsets, Windows Mobile and iPhones have all helped move the technology forward. Touchscreen technology met with initial resistance, with many non-users wondering whether switching from keyboard and mouse would slow people down and make them less productive?

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Bill Gates’s engineers brought him an e-reader in 1998, he told them to forget about the ‘unimportant’ device. The Microsoft founder rejected the gadget, which featured a touchscreen, because he thought the future lay with keyboards.

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Today, countless supermarket checkouts, restaurant tills, automated-teller machines, airport check-in kiosks, museum information- booths and voting kiosks use touch screens. Business leaders are constantly on the look-out for less costly and more integrated customer- friendly systems.

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However, before investing in technology, business leaders must well understand business processes involved related to both input and output requirements. For instance, a small capacity server will not do justice to a large organization. Likewise, all the best technology in the world will never meet any business challenges if processes are not initially well defined.

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As a result, at MICROS, we study the type and size of each business before proposing the best adapted system to our customer; our vision is to enable companies of any size to become better-run business operations, namely in the hospitality, retail and travel sectors. In our actual economic reality of declining margins and narrowing competition which is slowly giving rise to a more customer- centric market, the key to a business’s success lies in establishing a solid relationship with its customers.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a valuable software concept which needs to be regularly updated for latest customer profiling. This feature enables intelligent information processing which caters proactively for any customer demand at any delivery channel.

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It is interesting to observe that the nature of the dialogue with customers has changed; it is now less about prices and items on the menu and more about ingredients being used and special plates that can be prepared by the Chef : less about selling and more about relationship development. In this new type of interaction, the dining room becomes more integrated with the kitchen to create a unique customer experience.

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In the past, hotels and restaurants adopted operation templates which were rather standard without any value added features. However, this trend is radically changing as hotels and restaurants compete more in design, service offerings and quality of customer experience. A critical part of being unique is in the interaction between customers and the organisation. The customer experience revolution which is taking place in the marketplace must also take place in the workplace.

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The focus is less on operation processing and more on customer relationship management. This requires a different approach to training and recruitment. Not only must businesses provide customers with the best technology, they must also empower and train their staff accordingly. Creating a unique brand is also about creating a unique culture that translates into a unique interaction with customers.

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Technology is advancing at an exponential rate. Many devices are yet to be put on the market which will definitely be more and more revolutionary. Technology is a powerful tool if used well and adapted to one’s needs. Steve Jobs once said: “Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don’t have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car.’’

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The success of using technology that is integral to any business lies at the intersection of installing the right system, training users to work efficiently, and knowing that there is solid customer service to fall back on. At MICROS, we are committed to getting the right matrix between business and technology to yield greater expectations.