TALKING

Working practices

Having flexible , scalable , low cost solutions enable these business models to grow quickly and service demand . Organisations will need to spin up and run secure , scalable services and mobile applications .

As organisations focus on recovery , balancing customer and employee confidence , regulatory controls and government tracking and management of future outbreaks will have to be navigated . There will be a demand to implement capable social distancing and safe working practices . This will put an emphasis on not only implementing new best practices but also demonstrating the actual adherence and management of non-compliance .

All these processes will drive requirements to store even more large quantities of data , such as video and compliance reports . Securely ingesting , storing , analysing , and visualising this data at scale will require aggregation of disparate data sources in data lakes with mechanisms for securely exchanging information .

Another example is image processing that will be able to determine an individual ’ s temperature from heat sensitive cameras or that the appropriate personal protection equipment is being worn correctly and social distancing rules are being followed , with real time detection and image tracking that can be applied in the work place .

Delivery and pickup

During recent times , new business models have evolved rapidly , with organisations creating new takeaway , pickup and delivery models overnight .

For example , LRS , built on AWS and best known for its restaurant pager technology , quickly pivoted to help restaurants deploy curb side delivery and pickup .

Examples such as ordering your favourite meal from a restaurant and having it delivered with instructions will lead to growth in the virtual restaurant as dining experiences are transformed . Interacting with your virtual waiter and Sommelier to guide menu choices , dynamically changing and based on real time availability , will continue to revolutionise the digital menu experience .

Interest in delivery is likely to spill over into the hotel space as customers become more accustomed to online ordering and comfortable with the safety of these services . The new normal may accelerate the shift from room service to each individual guest getting food delivered . Hotels may need to start planning for their lobbies to be filled with 5 – 10 delivery companies at a time dropping off food .

How does the front desk handle the security and process of coordinating the delivery of all these orders ? For larger hotels , managing this via their operational systems may become a job in itself , as they may rely on data-driven business analytics insights to determine if they should be offering food options themselves – and if so when and what kind .

Predicting demand

A common underlying theme across all trends will be productive use of data to quickly enable data driven decisions , optimising all aspects of an organisation . This timely , accurate availability of data will underpin all valuable business decision making .

A key area of focus will be really leveraging insights from disparate data sources . Many organisations have excellent historical data and patterns and behaviours of customers . Although still useful data sources , organisations will have to look at more advanced analytical solutions to understand future changes in customer behaviour .

Analytical skills will need to be more sophisticated and dynamic to determine new trends and behaviours . This is where solutions using machine learning techniques such as reinforcement learning to build more sophisticated complex models to learn against market factors and to react in real time will be future differentiators . p

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