Hotel Esplanade, of St Kilda
POS – OP TECH
ON POINT WITH OPTECH LATEST
MODERN OPTECH GOES FAR BEYOND MERE CASH REGISTER FUNCTION. THREE OF THE BIGGEST MAKERS IN THE BUSINESS TELL CRAIG HAWTIN-BUTCHER HOW THE PUB SECTOR CAN MAXIMISE EFFICIENCIES THROUGH THE LATEST SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE.
“
We are finding more and more venues today are managing multiple styles of operations within one venue,” says James Verlaque, National Sales Director with Bepoz. These large-format, multi-offering venues range from huge suburban venues such as Laundy Hotels’ The Marsden and Parras Hospitality’s The Ambarvale Hotel to Sand Hill Road’s Hotel Esplanade. The different operational demands these place on venues are complex and in many cases rely on different technology solutions to ease operations and maximise revenues. “[Take] the Espy in Melbourne or Howard Smith Wharves in Brisbane,” says Verlaque, where “we have multiple bars, functions spaces, band rooms, kitchens, restaurants and wine bars. With Bepoz these are all managed under one centralised head office solution giving greater control for stock management, reporting and staffing.” It’s not just the scale and complexity of operations that are evolving, but the more central positioning of OpTech within a venue’s planning and execution.
10 | JULY 2019 AUSTRALIAN HOTELIER
“The Point of Sale is now treated like the nervous system of your business,” believes Cashpoint’s Sima Hanimyan. “It allows business owners to manage their business and improve their bottom line because all the information they need is in the one spot – whether you are after stock management, staff management, marketing, accounting or reporting. And if it’s not – it will integrate into an application that you need.” Prominent OpTech suppliers LRS also point to recent technology advances, which are making table locations systems even more accurate. Quickly delivering food to patrons is a key element to providing great service, they say.
LOYALTY OPPORTUNITIES Bepoz’s Verlaque highlights customer engagement and loyalty as being key trends within the OpTech scene. “Most venues using Bepoz take advantage of our advanced voucher and promotional capabilities,” says Verlaque, “but many are now looking to take their loyalty program to the next phase with app-based programs.”
Suppliers such as Verlaque highlight the opportunity to integrate loyalty apps into POS solutions, citing their proprietary MyPlace loyalty app as one solution. Such apps remove the need to employ a third party solution, ideally minimising integration issues and reducing logistical efforts. “We are working with venues in Melbourne such as Transport Bar in Federation Square to speed up onboarding,” says Verlaque. “New members can sign up in the app and join programs pretty much straight away, avoiding paperwork for management teams.” The ability to manage multi-tiered membership directly with Bepoz is a key advantage, says Verlaque, while the ability to integrate customer retention programs directly with core POS software such as Bepoz “has been a big incentive for business[es] wanting to streamline their solutions and time,” Verlaque argues.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Elsewhere in the industry, Cashpoint’s Sima Hanimyan points to some key progress being made across Customer Experience (CX) and