We’re past the time where business owners can dismiss new technologies as toys says Profitable Hospitality’s Ken Burgin.
Ken’s Profitable Hospitality website is a must read for anybody in the industry and I was lucky enough to be the the guest of his 99th podcast where we discussed payment systems, marketing and the challenges facing restaurant and cafe operators in a changing marketplace.
In the podcast we discuss PayPal’s plans for the retail sector along with how startups like Stripe look to disrupt the sector and what Apple’s announcements last week will mean to the payments industry.
The key message from the podcast is the entire sector is facing massive changes both from technology and changing consumer behaviour.
Like many other industries, the successful restaurant and cafe businesses over the next decade will be those who have the flexibility to adapt to a very different world.
Chefs, waiters and waitresses already exist within China, South Korea and Japan (Australia’s 3 top trading partners) as well as Thailand, Israel and others. Mobile payments existed more than 10 years ago within Europe and within many of the other nations too including emerging ones, they have been there between 5 and 10 years. Australia sadly is hopeless when it comes mainly to innovations, ICT & transportation systems (couple of things). Australia has come out with some innovations but not many compared to the rest of the world which is why it’s getting blown apart with regards to many of its sectors. Though if one looks at the jobs, most of them still are towards sales and/or customer service. Not many with regards to innovations, ICT, analytics, etc including marketing/PR which focuses more on relationships or creativity rather than focussing also on ICT, analytics, integrated skills including of journalism and strategies, etc. Those days of just customer service/relations and sales have been over for 30 years or so as Google, FB, Apple, Samsung, Tesla, Lavazza showed. Don’t always need customers to innovate though most of the times do require ICT to innovate but not always too like in the case of Lavazza edible coffee cups or innovative processes. After innovation, attitudes and needs of people including customers are changed.
I mean ROBOT CHEFS, WAITERS AND WAITRESSES