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If you anticipate growth or change, a cloud-based POS system is better enabled to grow with you. 

Instead of printing out lengthy reports for every shift, now you can access your insights from any smart device—such as your computer, phone, or tablet—and get updated sales, inventory, customer feedback, and more, no matter where you are. 

Legacy systems only allow on-premise access to data, which means you have to be in your restaurant in order to access the information on your POS system.

Real-time data means real-time solutions to situations before they become problems. Just think of the time and money you’ll save by identifying issues before they blow out of proportion

While buying up all of the necessary technology to get a cloud-based POS system off the ground may seem expensive, they tend to have cheaper operating costs in the long run and some, like Upserve, offer free support 24/7/365. 

With a cloud-based restaurant POS, you have the ability to add on a mobile POS unit that provides a number of benefits.

That decrease in time spent waiting for their check or credit card to return to the table also increases guest satisfaction, boosting your reputation. A mobile restaurant POS also provides contactless payments with a built-in EMV reader, minimizing the exchange between servers and guests – something that is particularly important in this moment.

Cloud-based POS systems update automatically and for free, just like the apps on your mobile device, while traditional POS systems require manual updates that can be labor intensive and costly. 

The beauty of the cloud-based POS format is how scalable and customizable it is—it can work for single-location full service and quick service restaurants, multi-location restaurants, and restaurant groups alike. 

Thanks to the cloud and its encrypted online storage, there’s no risk of hardware or software incompatibility or failure, no viruses or driver hiccups, and no risk of a hard drive accidentally deleting a weekend’s worth of sales reports. It’s all backed up, automatically. 

If the internet ever goes down, the system that your legacy POS relies on will be offline and non-functional. Luckily, on a cloud-based restaurant POS system you have the option of switching to offline mode as a back-up. You’ll stay up and running until the internet is able to connect again.

Whether it’s updating your menu on the regular, launching new or improved loyalty programs, or requiring more precise inventory tracking, the more your needs will shift over time, the more sense it makes to opt for cloud-based.

Plus, younger generations of workers—think millennials and Gen Zs—will be able to get right on board with a cloud-based POS solution with little-to-no training.

Customers will feel good knowing their credit card information is secure and encrypted with the most up-to-date technology. 

No matter what type of establishment, your cloud-based POS can track every last drop of product, allowing you to spot discrepancies in an instant and fix gaps before they become problematic.

Hardware costs are separate from service, and maintenance and support services often come with a hefty fee. 

While traditional POS systems certainly have lower start-up costs, they tend to come with plenty of hidden costs that reveal themselves over time.

upfront costs are kept to a minimum and monthly subscription fees are lower. 

Best of all, instant free upgrades mean no lost revenue from downtime or inconvenient hardware upgrades as your business grows. Instead, plans can be upgraded or downgraded at will, and most providers don’t even charge a fee for the trouble. 

If you have existing setups in place, many third-party vendors have upgraded apps for cloud POS systems to help you maintain your current rewards and promotions planning. 

Most studies are showing that those who switched are sticking with a cloud-based solution, and that legacy POS systems will only decline moving forward.

After over three decades with a legacy POS system that only slowed them down, they made the move to a cloud-based POS to bring their restaurants into the future.

“Our restaurants are chef-driven, so we have specials that change every day. We need to add buttons every day. We change pricing every day. Having to stop and reset all the terminals because it’s not instantaneous was a headache.”

Not only did constant resets of the system create roadblocks for the team at Homegrown Hospitality, but service was also less than stellar and cost more than what it was worth.

We went through a lot of pain—our system would crash all the time, credit cards wouldn’t spool, and data would be lost. Our IT department would spend numerous hours a week just trying to recover data,” Simon explained.

“That was pretty much the breaking point: we were at the point where we needed to upgrade, but it would have cost us several hundred thousand dollars. So we decided to source something new. The functionality and capability of Upserve won us over.”

Your all-in-one PMS system should be accessible wherever you are, through any device. This means it should be cloud-based. That way, you can go about your day and still keep an eye on your reservations. All you need to do is bring your smartphone or tablet with you.

Your PMS system must make it easy for you to communicate with your guests in a structured way. This means that you can send pre and post arrival emails, and customises each email template to match your brand’s look and feel.

Utility computing is a broad concept that encapsulates cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS).

“This time, it’s computing that’s turning into a utility. In the years ahead, more and more of the information-processing tasks that we rely on, at home and at work, will be handled by big data centers located out on the Internet.”

The concept of paying a subscription for a utility has gone online as well. Instead of setting up web servers in our home or office, we purchase a web hosting subscription. While interest in personal tax and finance consultants decreases, use of in-the-cloud-solutions like TurboTax and Mint continues to explode.

The current and future dominance of utility computing is evident, but even so, SaaS can be an intimidating concept for some hoteliers

By purchasing a utility, you own all benefits that come with it. You use it, consume it and master it – it is yours. Renting, on the other hand, demands a return.

When I rent a movie from Blockbuster, I have a limited selection (whatever fits in the store) and when I’m done with the video, I have to return it and rent it again to watch it again.

Netflix, I have open access to hundreds of thousands of videos that took billions to produce, which I can stream as much as I wan

When technology advances, SaaS companies pass those latest advances on to their client

Like Netflix, which delivers video content that took billions to produce, utility computing delivers web design built with an information architecture that took millions to produce.

This means that when you embrace SaaS, you gain million-dollar technology that never grows outdated instead of buying a static website built on thousand-dollar technology that can’t help but grow outdated.

My advice is to put in the tough work and choose a solution that delivers amazing results now and adapts to technology changes later, so you don’t have to go shopping again.

With limited budgets and a highly dynamic market, it is critical to stay ahead of the hospitality information technology curve. With cloud computing, organizations can extend the life of their existing systems with new innovations, improve time to market of new systems through affordable pricing, and ultimately gain competitive advantages in the hospitality industry.

Network computing has enormous implications for marketing to customers on a global basis, as well as hotel operations. Consider the potential for the industry to connect with vendors worldwide for electronic purchasing, potentially achieving economies of scale and leveraging not yet possible. World purchasing functions will allow companies to customize their own catalogs. Virtual channels of distribution using computer networking capabilities will also allow hotel companies to market products and services - some traditional to our industry, others not - to customers whether they are in the hotel, at work, or at home. This will require a migration from today's central reservation systems to tomorrow's customer information systems using network-centric solutions. Development of customer profiles and guest recognition will make it possible for hotel organizations to interact in entirely new ways with customers, regardless of their physical location. Clearly, the large hotel companies will need to be the first to address questions raised by global networking capabilities and what this will mean in terms of technology investment. But for many hospitality companies presently struggling with the high cost of technology and the confusing state of our industry's technology affairs, this will not be an easy task. And the decisions will ultimately become further complicated by the opportunity to outsource certain functions into subscription-based networks. It is unlikely that the hospitality industry will be forced to bear the entire burden for networking infrastructure. Strategic alliances with major technology companies will be the catalysts in building this capability as they become strategic providers of networking capabilities to hospitality and other industries. And as network-centric computing comes of age and a company's proprietary information is stored in cyberspace, security will become an ever-more important issue requiring solutions. Whether it is an e-mail gateway through an internal network or customer access via the Internet, network fire walls and encryption systems will be required to mitigate the concern many will have with system security.

Network computing has enormous implications for marketing to customers on a global basis, as well as hotel operations. Consider the potential for the industry to connect with vendors worldwide for electronic purchasing, potentially achieving economies of scale and leveraging not yet possible. World purchasing functions will allow companies to customize their own catalogs. Virtual channels of distribution using computer networking capabilities will also allow hotel companies to market products and services - some traditional to our industry, others not - to customers whether they are in the hotel, at work, or at home. This will require a migration from today's central reservation systems to tomorrow's customer information systems using network-centric solutions. Development of customer profiles and guest recognition will make it possible for hotel organizations to interact in entirely new ways with customers, regardless of their physical location. Clearly, the large hotel companies will need to be the first to address questions raised by global networking capabilities and what this will mean in terms of technology investment. But for many hospitality companies presently struggling with the high cost of technology and the confusing state of our industry's technology affairs, this will not be an easy task. And the decisions will ultimately become further complicated by the opportunity to outsource certain functions into subscription-based networks. It is unlikely that the hospitality industry will be forced to bear the entire burden for networking infrastructure. Strategic alliances with major technology companies will be the catalysts in building this capability as they become strategic providers of networking capabilities to hospitality and other industries. And as network-centric computing comes of age and a company's proprietary information is stored in cyberspace, security will become an ever-more important issue requiring solutions. Whether it is an e-mail gateway through an internal network or customer access via the Internet, network fire walls and encryption systems will be required to mitigate the concern many will have with system security. In the final analysis, networking solutions will drive down the cost of technology investment "on-property" where hotel real estate and business interests merge. The solutions that hotel organizations will be able to choose from in terms of networking should also be less expensive than the current profile of technology spending. And we can expect that change to occur sooner rather than later, given the present rate of investment in Internet-based technologies.

2. Although Amazon launched in 1995, the first yearly profit wasn't until 2003, and as of June 2012, the average order value was $47.31.

4. Netflix wasn't the first online DVD subscription service — Blockbuster announced Blockbuster.com in 2004, but it's unclear whether services such as Netflix and Redbox led to its ultimate bankruptcy.

6. Zappos' referrals from social media per order yield $0.75 from Pinterest, $2.08 from Facebook and $33.66 from Twitter.

7. Approximately 46% of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision

9. In 2010, Groupon turned down Google's $6 billion offer and became an IPO the following year.

11. India is home to the fastest growing ecommerce market, and France is home to the slowest ecommerce growth.

From 2011 to 2016, 15% more people will shop online, taking the number to 192 million in the U.S.

17. Analysts say that an explosion in the mobile payments market is just around the corner.

The race for future proof technology is here, let's be honest, how comforting is it to know that when the latest and greatest technology is released you will have it automatically.

Sustainability, a trendy word in hospitality. What are the carbon emissions on your current PMS system?

We only calculate like for like on costs of the servers, the cooling systems in the server room, the electricity to power it but what's the cost to the environment for building it and sustaining it? Why can't your IT systems be green too?

Another key factor to consider pertains to reduction in losses, including losses related to errors in manual updates and delayed or lost room charge postings

deployment of a next-generation PMS should lead to a greater number of repeat guest stays and a higher volume and intensity of positive brand advocacy.

less expensive and require less up-front investment

most cloud-based systems also use a subscription “pay as you go” model, which generally means no long-term contracts and no upfront capital investment for the software or hardware

it is important to confirm which software features and modules, including future upgrades — as well as which hardware components, if any — are included in the base (recurring) price so as to avoid any surprises down the road.

These improvements should be reflected in increased RevPAR and profitability. Better data integration and accuracy should improve revenue management and channel management capabilities, also translating into favorable financial outcomes.  

Oracle Hospitality needs a better offering to address distribution issues

how a hotel company gets its inventory onto the right point-of-purchase at an optimal price with technology that doesn’t need heavy amounts of integration and that has real-time synchronization of data.”

taking real-time rates and inventory and putting more information behind them

o make their brand stand out, rather than sell rooms by lowest price.

But there’s an opportunity to embed more CRM capability inside our applications.

cloud, reference-ability, and growth

Less than 15 percent of Oracle Hospitality’s customers, such as hotels and restaurants, have some sort of cloud product from Oracle

adding features and functions.

Complaints about service and customer support abound

teroperability with other hotel tech systems

end-to-end ownership of a customer’s experience,

Protel is the largest rival and appears to be faster at adopting the cloud and new ways of exchanging data with hotel tech vendors.

agile, innovative, and competitive.”

Similarly, some hospitality technology brands have acquired or developed property management system technology

A.I. [artificial intelligence], which we means we can give hoteliers chatbot technology and data analytics and the best-available security.”

For example, it has approached revenue management software companies to do pilot tests. Oracle streamlined the technical integration work for faster onboarding, Alt said.

Oracle Hospitality has needed to look to the wider market for growth.

SynXis, a booking engine that hotels can add to their website or app. Tens of thousands of small groups and independents use it.