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Home News Center Blog Login Create Account United States United Kingdom France China Front Page Arts Business Education Environment Government Industry Lifestyle Sports Tech OtherAutomotiveComputerEventsHealthHome and Family Legal / LawMediaMiscellaneousOpinion / EditorialPodcasting ScienceSociety Friday, March 22, 2013 RSS E-mail Newsletters Put PRWeb on your site NoWait Helps Restaurants Master the Wait in Augusta Mobile waitlist technology to replace outdated restaurant pagers and grease-pen wait list systems to manage massive crowds; NoWait to donate to Augusta Warrior Project

The company, NoWait, is working with Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver to equip the city’s restaurants with an army of iPads outfitted with NoWait’s seating management technology.

Because NoWait’s system is phone-based, customers can move freely between local establishments while they wait. That is revenue we wouldn’t normally receive...revenue that means jobs.”

"The Miami brand is stronger than ever reporting records on records in 2012, including 13.9 million overnight visitors," said Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau President & CEO William D. Talbert, III, CDME.

Miami's metro area is among the highest performing U.S. hotel markets, achieving recording occupancy and ADR in 2012, and ranking fourth in terms of RevPAR performance.

Miami draws in a massive influx of tourists from around the globe, and during the past 20 years the market has emerged as a crucial commercial hub linking the United States to Latin America, and eventually Asia with the imminent expansion of the Panama Canal.

EMSs can also hold down costs by making maintenance more efficient. “Our system is recording the run hours of the unit by the second. If we say after 200 hours runtime, that’s when we want to set our filter change, we can create reports for our maintenance staff [saying] that maybe these are the rooms that are occupied the most,

or the lighting control system, we would replace current light switches and receptacles and have that communicate wirelessly with the occupancy system.

Energy Management Systems have the ability to talk to Property Management Systems

Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced the availability of social sentiment measurement capabilities within the Infor Hospitality Management System dashboard.

Built through a new strategic collaboration with TrustYou, a market leader in online reputation management for the hospitality industry, hoteliers now have the tools to integrate TrustYou's data into Infor's existing Hospitality suite

providing real-time access to social sentiment that will aid staff in improving guest satisfaction to encourage more bookings.

The eCommerce world is undergoing significant changes and consumers have higher expectations. Because of this if eCommerce websites are going to be successful they need to adapt to the new realities of the market. Izzonet CEO, Tallya Rabinovich, offers guidance for both existing and aspiring online sellers.

However, as those numbers continue to increase, overall customer satisfaction with online shopping experiences seem to be on the decline. Recent surveys have shown a general downward trend in satisfaction over the past few years, something that appears to be the result of increased customer expectations. “In the past retailers thought it was enough to simply have an online store, but times have changed,” says Tallya Rabinovich.

When asked what eCommerce websites need to succeed in 2013 and beyond, Tallya offered a few useful tips. “First, it is important that eCommerce store owners are not only looking at next year, but also looking 5-10 years down the line. Keep abreast of events and developments in both the technology and business sectors so that your site can continually grow and adapt. Second, my observations show that the one thing that customers want more than anything else is personalization. As much as customers appreciate the convenience and lower prices of online shopping, they sometimes miss the personal experience of a brick and mortar store. To overcome this, make sure your online store is as personal and interactive as possible. This means have a good “contact us” page that makes you seem accessible, and, even better, have a live chat option to show your customers that there is a real person who is there for them.

IT professional services provider OSF Global Services announced today the delivery of a dynamic, redesigned and re-platformed webstore for L'Oreal Canada's luxury skin-care brand Biotherm.

The user-friendly e-boutique is based on the Demandware® Commerce platform, a robust cloud-based solution, and offers visitors a completely personalized shopping experience thanks to the integration of responsive designed webpages, comprehensive analytics and a new product reviews platform.

"L'Oreal Canada's ecommerce goals were an ideal match for our methodical, customer-oriented approach to platform migration and application development," said Gerard Szatvanyi, President and CEO of OSF Global Services. "Our forte is delivering scalable, customized solutions that result in a superior shopping experience for consumers while supporting exponential growth for our clients."

Revel Systems announced the release of an iPad-based restaurant POS system specially designed for food trucks on the go, complete with Twitter integration.

The food-truck solution includes Revel Systems' new Revel Router—a "made-for-iPad" device developed by Revel Systems in conjunction with Apple that allows customers to run their iPad POS systems without additional Internet connection hardware or wiring. Instead, Revel Router accesses an Internet connection directly via the user's Verizon 3G- or 4G-enabled Apple iPad, eliminating the need for an Ethernet router or a MiFi 3G hotspot.

"Customers talk and Revel listens. Our customers were expressing frustration with installing other systems inside food trucks, so we set out to help them with a purpose-built solution," said Revel Systems CEO Lisa Falzone.

Avero Slingshot's server performance tools are designed to provide the operator with detailed and comparative, peer-to-peer insights to help coach, train and challenge their servers. Server performance may also be tracked for selling whole categories of items, such as bottled water, wines-by-the-glass or desserts - an ideal tool for conducting sales incentive programs. In addition, since Avero Slingshot is compatible with USHG's multiple POS systems, it creates a common platform by which to analyze, trend, compare and contrast a company's various businesses. Slingshot not only helps protect the investment operators make in their POS systems, but also extends the useful life of the systems while making the data work even harder for them. Damian Mogavero, CEO and Founder of Avero said, "USHG is a renowned industry leader in service and hospitality so we are thrilled by their continued commitment to Slingshot. USHG's decision to standardize with Avero Slingshot is part of a recent trend that we are pioneering within hospitality, to use business intelligence tools as a way to stay firmly in front of operational challenges. As former hospitality professionals, we have a great appreciation for their accomplishments, and look forward to a collaborative future."

To better understand when and where IT confers competitive advantage in today’s economy, we studied all publicly traded U.S. companies in all industries from the 1960s through 2005, looking at relevant performance indicators from each (including sales, earnings, profitability, and market capitalization) and found some striking patterns:

Most industries have historically been fairly immune from this kind of Schumpeterian competition. However, our findings show that the internet and enterprise IT are now accelerating competition within traditional industries in the broader U.S. economy. Why? Not because more products are becoming digital but because more processes are

One interpretation of our findings might be that IT is, indeed, inducing the intensified competition we’ve documented—but that the change in dynamics is only temporary.

the new team will be dedicated to the expansion and customization of unique e-commerce and omni-channel platforms for the sandwich chain.

SUBWAY® Digital is building the framework for a comprehensive digital strategy around the world. With the creation of SUBWAY® Digital, the newest division for SUBWAY® restaurants, the brand is looking to add at least 50 jobs this year, and up to 150 total over the next few years, including five on the new team in Vancouver.

“Being the only provider that has deployed online ordering at such a large scale, in multiple countries, has put us in a great position to pursue our mission of providing convenience while bridging the in-store and online experience for brands and customers alike - a real omni-channel approach,” says Jason Strashek, Avanti’s founder and CEO.

One goal of the new guidelines was to recognize the increasing globalization of the hotel industry, Temling said.   “Many of the changes are reflective of what’s happening in the world in our industry,” he said. “Chains based in the (United States) have generally adopted the guidelines; that’s not the problem. But we also hope chains domiciled outside this country will accept the changes outlined in the book.”   Some of the changes are small, but symbolic, Temling said. In previous editions of the book, accounting for some employee benefits reflected terminologies used by U.S. companies.   “Up through the 10th edition, we called it FICA or social security for employees’ benefits,” Temling said. “This time around we call it social benefit contribution, which is more universally acceptable.”   Large hotel companies might have more difficulty adopting the new guidelines than will smaller ones, said Michelle Russo, founder and CEO of Hotel Asset Value Enhancement, a hotel asset management and real estate advisory company. She is a member of the financial committee that created the latest edition.   “It’s actually harder for larger operators because they often have many divisions,” she said. Examples she cited affect reporting of telecommunications, labor and segmentation data.   “We created a new (information technology) department, and in a large company that is worldwide that operates on multiple accounting platforms, the mapping process is massive,” she said, adding that some companies have decided to defer adopting the new IT department guideline until 2016.   The new guidelines created more detail in labor cost reporting, which is important for ownership but a daunting task for management, Russo said.   “Previously, the rooms department (category) had one line called ‘Labor’ and 43 lines called other things, and that included printing, stationary, stamps and other stuff,” she said. “While labor is 60% of that department, previously there was no breakdown of housekeeping labor versus front office, etc.”  

Conventional wisdom that fails for IT

I’ve done several posts featuring what I call “Peterisms”, which are basically aphorisms I’ve adopted that encapsulate hard-earned IT lessons. Let’s turn it around this time, and talk about two sayings that sound equally folksy-sensible, and that I hear again and again, but which I feel are actually dangerous to apply to information technology work. And, of course, I’ll discuss why that’s so.

As with so many things, that situation represented a management failure too. It reflected a willingness, whether explicit or implicit, to live on borrowed time, hoping to stave off as long as possible the certain-to-come outage that would then take much longer to resolve.  It showed a willingness to tolerate unnecessary inefficiency and risk. It embodied an ongoing refusal to insist on (and prioritize) the necessary hard work to keep the clutter out of the equation.

Joseph Turek, Biometrics2000 CEO added: "We are very excited about this win, as a beachfront for our technology in the travel and hospitality industry. We are committed to develop industry specific solutions, wrapped around our technology. By doing this, we will help our customers keep growing, at the same time we ensure safe and smooth operations, and most of all, help our clients to keep delighting their customers as well."

Douglas Rice, Executive Vice President and CEO of Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG), a non-profit industry trade association. "Beyond that, the hospitality market clearly sees the enormous benefits that an IP-based network brings in delivering a better guest experience, new services that will drive customer loyalty and better staff productivity across their hotels."

Ruckus contends that, for many existing hotels, Ethernet cabling is sparse or not available in every guest room. Even in locations such as the front desk, conference rooms, meeting spaces and business centers, Ethernet ports and wireless connectivity is limited.

The wireless provider maintains that, according to industry estimates, running a single Ethernet cable can cost up to $250 per guest room. When Wi-Fi access points, network switches, and other infrastructure products essential to running a computer network are added that cost can rise to $500 or more per room.