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Aiming for The Bull’s Eye Rami Darwish is the founder
and chief executive officer of Arrow Labs. He’s an entrepreneur with over 16 years of experience in the technology sector.
How has the pandemic highlighted the importance of digitisation? Much debate has taken place, globally, about the changes – positive and negative - forced upon different sectors by the pandemic. For the hospitality industry, the pandemic has created a unique set of circumstances. Pressure has been forced upon foreign businesses as international travel has all but ground to a halt and borders have been closed. For domestic businesses, citizens’ movements have also been heavily curtailed. The fallout has led to significant cuts in operational costs with human capital suffering the brunt, particularly back of house staff. In turn, this has led hospitality venues – and in some cases very large facilities - to be understaffed for servicing consumers. This phenomenon has brought into sharp focus the importance of digital efficiency management tools – which increase productivity to maintain service levels expected by guests. Tell us more about your offerings, and who you have worked with in the hospitality sector.
At Arrow Labs, we constantly research capabilities to deliver enhanced productivity and efficiency. Our platform provides workflow automation and productivity management for deskless workers. It optimises the deskless worker’s ‘day’ via machine learning-based scheduling, task management and collaboration, to worker safety and performance assessment. Last year, we pioneered one of the first solutions to introduce
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a purpose-built wearable watch device. By connecting seamlessly to our cloud software, it became an easy, cost-effective method to digitise mobile workers. Cove Beach, the leading Dubai hospitality venue, has deployed our digital tools to increase server staff efficiency and their response to customer requests. Customers use a wireless IoT button to request service (a towel or the bill). The platform automatically finds the nearest available waiter and sends request details to his wearable watch device. Our platform optimises the waiter selection to fulfil the request in the shortest period of time. Do you think that the hotel sector is yet to fully adopt the technology it requires?
Whilst the hospitality sector is making progress in adopting technology to enhance digitalisation, there is still a lag, especially re: back of house operations. Very little has been implemented here, and investment has favoured front of house operations/the guest-facing side. Venues have adopted digitalisation in areas such as menus, allowing guests to scan QR codes to view menu content on their devices, or enabling guests to access a venue’s mobile app to book/order services. These are all important tools promoting venues to guests. Conversely, on the operational side, we still see manual and paper-based systems dominate the scheduling of staff, the safety and security of facilities, and in managing maintenance. For hotels to fully realise the benefits of digitalisation, this disconnect between the front and back of house, must be addressed.