TCP080: Redefining the Future of Hospitality

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Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Let's head to the Podcast kitchen as it's time for another episode of the Tech Chef.

I'm your host Skip Kimple and this show is your go to for expert advice on hospitality technology from those who live and breathe it.

We'll explore all that tech has to offer.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, an IT professional, or even a thought leader in the industry, our goal is to help hospitality organizations like yours make smart decisions as you navigate the digital landscape.

In today's fast evolving business world, technology is the key to staying ahead and the Tech Chef is here to help you unlock its full potential.

From traditional tech stack challenges to emerging cutting edge disruptive technologies, we cover the latest trends that can give your business a competitive edge.

Expect valuable insights on using tech to boost efficiency, optimize operations and engage customers.

Let's start cooking up success together.

If this is your first time here listening to the Tech Chef, welcome.

Make sure you subscribe to the show using your favorite podcast platform.

Those of you that have been with us for a while, welcome back.

It's been an interesting ride with you over the years and the fun is only just beginning.

Speaking of beginnings, that's what today's show is all about.

About a month ago I started posting a bunch of announcements and Press releases on LinkedIn in rapid fire format.

I got lots of messages and calls from many of you asking me to explain what this meant and how to decipher what they were reading.

This show is to help you down the path of learning more about Magic Gate Growth Advisors International Network, otherwise known as gain and last but certainly not least, Crew Wire.

Also during the show as a bonus, I am going to tell you how you can win a Quest 3S virtual reality headset.

So make sure you listen so you can possibly be the lucky recipient of this new VR headset released by Meta.

As we start with Magic 8, it is important to understand that Magic 8, Growth Advisors, International Network and Crewwire are all leaders in digital transformation and innovation for the hospitality industry.

That quite simply is the common thread.

Personally, I consider organizations that are leaders in this area means setting a standard for how technology can be used to enhance guest experiences, streamline operations and drive sustainable growth within the industry.

It involves pioneering the adoption and integration of cutting edge technologies like artificial intelligence or extended reality and data analytics to address key challenges and open up new opportunities in hospitality.

Let's break some of these areas down.

Guest experience enhancement is all about using technology to create seamless, memorable and personalized guest experiences.

This could involve AI driven recommendations, virtual or augmented reality for immersive experiences, or touchless check ins and services that make a guest stay smooth and enjoyable.

Operational efficiency is about leveraging technology to optimize internal processes from housekeeping and maintenance to inventory management and staff ScheDuling.

For example, AI and predictive analytics can forecast peak times, helping staff be better prepared, while IoT sensors can manage energy usage more efficiently.

Personalization at scale is based on using data and AI to personalize offerings for guests based on their preferences and past behaviors, enabling a more customized experience that builds brand loyalty.

This could include tailored room settings, targeted promotions or personalized dining options.

Sustainability involves practices through technology such as reducing waste, minimizing energy consumption or using predictive analytics to optimize resource use.

By adopting sustainable technology solutions, these companies appeal to eco conscious consumers and reduce their environmental impact.

Being a leading company in this area also means fostering an innovative culture within the organization.

This involves regularly testing new technologies, embracing agile practices and staying updated on tech trends that could impact the industry, which is hopefully what this podcast also can help you with.

Integration of emerging tech is also a key indicator for early adopters of disruptive technologies like XR Blockchain for loyalty programs, AI driven customer service and more.

They continually seek out new ways to leverage these tools to stay ahead of the competition.

We all know how important data driven decision making is.

Using data analytics extensively to understand customer preference, optimize pricing, improve marketing strategies and enhance operational processes are critical in today's business world in every aspect, not just hospitality.

It is important to rely on insights from data to make informed strategic decisions that align with evolving customers expectations and market trends.

Now, being flexible and agile in a dynamic industry like hospitality allows you the ability to adapt quickly to new technologies trends and market disruptions.

This flexibility ensures the ability to offer new services, address issues faster and respond to changing customer needs.

Last but not least, industry collaboration.

Leading companies in this area often collaborate with other players in the hospitality tech ecosystem.

From tech startups and consulting firms to educational institutions.

This approach enables cross pollination of ideas, faster innovation and a broader impact across the industry.

Being a company that specializes in digital transformation for hospitality means not only implementing these practices, but also inspiring others in the industry to adopt a similar mindset.

It requires a commitment to ongoing learning, experimentation and a future focused vision that embraces the evolving landscape of hospitality.

Believe it or not, the name was born out of a career path.

I was finishing up with the anticipation that this new thing called the Internet was really going to be a thing.

I remember coding my first website in raw HTML from start to finish.

Yes you youngsters out there, that was a thing.

Heck, even for a while there were CD ROM business cards.

Remember those?

We killed it back then when those things were popular.

We continued down that path for many years with developers using Follow the Sun methodology as we had many projects with governmental agencies that had very tight deadlines.

It was a crazy successful time.

I ended up putting that company on hold for a while as I wanted to explore the corporate life and went down the path of IT leadership in multiple verticals including medical, retail and finally ending up in the hospitality industry where I felt like I was at home.

I quickly excelled in this industry and made a name for myself.

That's right.

Just about a month ago we officially dusted off the Magic 8 name to revive it into a forward thinking consulting company that concentrates on bringing two of my passions together, XR and Hospitality.

Before we go any further, if you missed my last episode featuring John Cunningham, you might be wondering what is xr?

XR stands for Extended Reality, which is an umbrella term encompassing all immersive technologies including virtual reality, otherwise known as VR, augmented reality, otherwise known as AR, and Mixed reality, you guessed it, otherwise known as Mr.

These technologies combine the real and virtual worlds to provide users with new kinds of immersive experiences.

Virtual reality creates a fully immersive digital environment that replaces the user's physical surroundings.

A VR headset is typically used to immerse users in the virtual world.

Augmented reality overlays digital elements like images, sounds, information on top of real world environments.

Examples include mobile games like Pokemon Go or apps like Snapchat filters.

Mixed Reality combines real world and the digital world where digital and physical objects can coexist and interact in real time.

This is more advanced than augmented reality, allowing for a more integrated experience.

The term XR is used to describe these technologies collectively and often refers to the future of immersive digital experiences across different industries, from gaming to healthcare, education and of course, hospitality.

Through my years of working with XR and being involved in many related organizations, I witnessed how XR was being used in other industries.

I know many restaurant owners listening to this podcast said at one point, we will never offer our food for delivery.

You have no idea how many times I heard that famous last words, right?

How many of you scrambled to catch up and quickly put solutions in place because you had to?

There were a lucky few who already had these technologies in place and guess what?

They had a head start and Covid was not as a daunting beast for their business.

There are plenty of companies that thrive during this time for obvious reasons.

So why do I bring this up?

XR is your new online ordering scramble.

The years I spent formulating my concept for Magic 8 as the CEO and President led me into conversations where I found out that this technology was already being utilized.

However, it was not being talked about.

Doesn't sound like our industry, does it?

Normally we are a very sharing community of IT professionals and talk freely about solutions we have found and the results we did or did not achieve from our ambitions.

Xr, however, appears to be a completely different beast where companies are looking at this as a truly competitive advantage.

I say this bluntly as if you have not already started to consider XR as part of your strategy, you will find yourself struggling to catch up.

Magic 8 is here to get you on the path to help you execute your XR strategy.

Now there are five core services that Magic 8 provides.

I get questions all the time Skip.

Do you still do standard hospitality consulting?

The answer simply is yes 100% absolutely.

We all still need these services performed from IT strategy roadmaps, go to market strategies and of course unbiased assistance with system selections.

However, our new main offerings are as XR strategy and solutions help you to develop purpose driven extended reality strategies including immersive customer experiences and advanced training techniques.

The art of creating customized plans for integrating xr, AI, spatial computing, Metaverse and other disruptive technologies into business operations is a daunting task and you should leverage Magic Gate's experience in helping you explore and implement these concepts.

The next area of concentration is VR training and onboarding.

We help you ideate and implement virtual reality training programs to reduce learning curves, expedite employee readiness and minimize travel costs, especially for global operations.

We will go into that in greater detail here in a little bit.

If you are not already familiar with this or looking at this closely to replace or augment your current training program, there is a huge ROI that you are missing out on.

Many times, especially enterprise customers, we are asked to produce a digital twin of their location for a lifelike training environment.

We are going to talk a little bit more about digital twins shortly.

Remote Augmented Reality Support and Maintenance is an area where we are providing augmented reality solutions to facilitate real time remote support, enabling technicians to overlay digital instructions onto physical objects in real time.

This has multiple use case scenarios including kitchen equipment, especially robotic engineering support in hotels, IT infrastructure assistance, real time, the heads up display of efficiencies in the kitchen and helping to improve speed of service.

Just imagine having a heads up display to view all of your operational KPIs in real time while leveraging computer vision to help identify problem areas for immediate feedback, talk about timely, actionable data.

This is an area that we will only see continue to explode in the next few years.

The number one question I've been getting recently is Skip, can you help us create an IT strategy roadmap?

Absolutely.

And that is what I consider our AI Powered Innovation Program.

We assist in the discovery, procurement and implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies such as predictive analytics, chatbots and advanced computer vision applications.

I mentioned digital twins earlier.

This is mentioned in the context of creating a digital representation of a restaurant or hotel for the purpose of training.

However, digital twins have many other use cases that are available to you once you have gone through the process of capturing your environment.

The biggest request we are seeing on the restaurant side is being able to take the digital twin and bring the OPS people together to re engineer the kitchen.

Imagine being able to move equipment around in the digital lifelike space and then run AI simulations on that new setup based upon data sets you have previously captured.

You can immediately determine and find efficiencies within your setup and tweak and fine tune it until you have optimal speed of service.

This is only scratching the surface.

All of these core services aim to help businesses embrace the next wave of digital transformation.

In the hospitality sector.

We believe the future of technology needs to be disruptive in nature if we want to grow and push the boundaries already in the short amount of time since launching this company.

It is evident to me that we are on the cusp of this new thought process as being accepted and necessary.

Everything MagicAid does looks to save you money, not spend it.

We obviously do lots of discovery to determine what your true needs are and come back with recommendations regarding how to proceed forward.

Technology in the hospitality space can be very complicated with lots of areas that are touched by these decisions.

Magic 8 helps in this process by bringing not only the expertise to the table, but removes the silos and the politics from an organization that normally struggles with this.

Historically, if you do not have a collaborative organization, previous decisions were probably disastrous.

Let's help you solve for that.

At this point, I'm sure you have more burning questions or want to learn more.

Please reach out and contact me at any point in time.

At the end of the show, I'll give you some multiple ways to contact me, but the easiest way is to go onto my LinkedIn profile and click on the Book an Appointment link.

If you really want to learn about XR technology, we are launching an XR Bootcamp early next year.

I will talk about that later in the show, but for now you can quickly visit bootcamp.magine.com for anybody that signs up.

We will be randomly drawing a name to Win a Meta Quest 3S virtual reality headset seats are limited and this is an awesome opportunity to increase your knowledge and your skill levels.

Okay, now let's chat about Crew Wire it wasn't more than a week after I announced the official launch of Magic 8 that I indicated I became the fractional Chief Revenue Officer for this virtual reality training software company.

See the connection?

Based out of Toronto, this is the first VR training product that was built by restaurateurs.

Made for restaurateurs, this is what got me excited about teaming up with them.

Crewwire provides immersive solutions for training in the quick service restaurant industry.

Their software enables franchisors to monitor, track and evaluate employee training and onboarding after hiring.

Their current solution reduces the cost of training on an average by 60 to 70% per employee.

They can train people four times faster than traditional techniques and is known to have a 60% higher retention rate.

Hang on.

VR training for hospitality gets even better when you start to think about all of the advantages.

This also means you don't have to fly teams of people all across the country and put them up in hotels.

To complete this training.

All you need to do is ship them off a few headsets and away you go.

It removes any dangers or risk when teaching things like knife skills, equipment training, and just imagine being able to teach somebody how to use the fryer without putting them at risk of burning themselves.

Let's also not forget about the food costs associated with the waste during the training process.

Crewwire also concentrates on some of the soft skills and behavioral training you would expect.

Interacting with customers, employees or just teaching brand etiquette is critical to maintaining your brand's reputation.

Combine all of this with a built in LMS system and you have a training solution that will revolutionize the success of your employees.

Okay, let's move on to Growth Advisors International Network from here on out referred to as gain.

This was the third big announcement that I made and once again ties into everything we have been discussing thus far.

The announcement was around the formulation of a new division of their organization built around the food and beverage side of the industry.

As the Global Director of Restaurant Technology and Innovation, it is my job to help build up a series of offerings to existing and future hotel clients that have food and beverage options in their hotels.

Also with creating a brand new vertical of advisory services for the restaurant industry once again, all of these announcements flowing together as one cohesive machine, let's do a little deeper dive into gain.

It is a global advisory firm specializing in the travel and hospitality sectors.

GAIN offers a range of services designed to foster growth and expansion for their clients.

These services include C level executive interim services, commercial strategy development and technology implementation consulting.

GAIN primarily serves tech vendors, investor funds, hospitality entities and startups and scale ups seeking commercial momentum and capital.

The GAIN team comprises seasoned C level commercial, technical, marketing and operational advisors with cross industry experience.

They work closely with organizations around the globe ranging from tech based startups to large enterprises to deliver real change and drive growth.

This initiative aims to help the hospitality brands engage their guests and staff through immersive technologies and innovative utility driving, loyalty and enhancing experiences.

The new metavisor Group within GAIN offers a client specific tailored range of services including development of VR, AR metaverse and Web3 enabled guest engagement strategies, organizing, vetting and facilitating platform selection and enabling KPI deliverables for guest focused execution and immersive staff training programs using VR and AR and the metaverse design of Web3 technology frameworks to enhance engagement, transactional security and efficiency and loyalty and rewards programs and one of the most important things advising Senior Client Industry Management on related emerging trends and technologies in the immersive and web3 innovation space.

Looking at gains core strengths.

They include C level Executive Interim Services providing experienced executives to guide organizations through transitions and strategic initiatives, commercial strategy development for crafting tailored strategies to enhance market positioning and drive revenue growth, technology implementation consulting assisting clients in adopting and integrating advanced technologies to improve operations and customer experiences and of course XR, Metaverse and Web3 engagement strategies through their Metavisor program that I just previously mentioned.

Wow, we have covered a lot today and talking about these three organizations and bringing it full circle how the combination is leading digital transformation and innovation for the hospitality industry.

If you are still not clear about what all this can mean for your organization or hopefully I inspired you to learn more about how we can help you, please reach out and let's put you on the path to success that makes your brand a differentiator in the industry.

If you would like to reach out to me or the show, you can do so via everything social at Skip Kimple or everything at Magic Gate Tech.

This includes X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

You can go to the website skipkimble.com for all of the archived shows of the Tech Chef.

The show notes are there as well and you can also hear these new episodes on the Magic 8 website@magicgate.com and of course you can email me@SkipAgicate.com now.

Before I go, let's quickly chat about Magic Gate's XR Bootcamp.

You can find out more information and sign up@bootcamp.magic.com this course will start early next year and is a low tech, no tech approach to guide you as business leaders with knowledgeable information to take new ideas to your company and your team members and be able to talk intelligently around the subject matter in this five week course.

P.S.

there's a bonus week we will cover several areas.

Week number one is the Introductory week which provides foundational understanding of Extended Reality, covering its main concepts, history and application across various fields.

It also lays the groundwork for understanding XR's broad potential and its role in shaping the future across various sectors.

Week two provides an in depth exploration of user experience and design principles.

Extended Reality Covering both foundational concepts and practical applications.

This course is aimed at equipping participants with a comprehensive understanding and skill set for designing effective, immersive and inclusive XR experiences.

Week three is the Business and Marketing of XR Week which provides a comprehensive view into the Extended Reality industry focusing on the business and marketing aspects critical to success in this field.

This part of the course aims to equip participants with a deep understanding of the XR market, effective business and marketing approaches, and the necessary legal knowledge to navigate this dynamic field.

Week Number four this is the XR Strategy and Project Management Week and is designed to guide participants through the development and implementation of XR initiatives within organizations.

It also provides a comprehensive framework for strategic planning, team dynamics, project management, funding acquisition and risk mitigation specifically tailored to XR initiatives.

Week 5 is exciting as it allows you to apply all that you have learned as we look at the future trends of xr, which is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of emerging trends in XR and guide participants through the development of a capstone project.

This structure blends learning about the future XR trends with practical project experience, helping participants apply insights through hands on work and collaborative feedback.

Week six is our bonus week as I talked about and you will be given access to a great new tool which is a system selection and research tool that you can use during your growth cycle as you advance with your XR Strategy process.

We are throwing this in for free as we feel it is critical to provide you a research tool that not only helps your immediate needs, but helps you grow and help advance your career and knowledge.

I'll repeat this again, limited seats are available.

Also, when you sign up you will be in a running to possibly win a brand new Meta Quest 3S virtual headset.

And while this type of equipment is not required for the course, wouldn't it be nice to be able to follow along and experiment as you go through this course once again?

For more information and to sign up go to bootcamp.magine.com Next week is Thanksgiving here in the US so we are going to take a one week break from the show, but when we return we will have some captivating content planned for you.

Don't worry, you will still get your weekly dose of hot bites and wired up during this time on LinkedIn.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, make sure you check out my LinkedIn profile for these quick little video clips of technical tips and tasty hot sauces.

Yep, you heard that right.

That's how we roll around here.

Enjoy your time next week with your friends and family and until we meet again on December 3rd.

Thanks.

Did I just say December?

Holy cow.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay hungry.

My friends.