4 Advanced Technologies For Small Business Owners

Ever been served a cup of coffee from a robot barista? A South Korean cafe uses robotic baristas to support social distancing. Robots in the hospitality industry are a reminder that AI is already being put to work in brick-and-mortar businesses worldwide.

Following the rise of those robotic baristas is one small example of corporate foresight. As FSR Magazine puts it, corporate foresight is a mix of processes, tools, and methods company leaders use to understand drivers of change, predictions, and what each one means for their business.

“Corporate foresight is a mix of processes, tools, and methods company leaders can use to understand drivers of change, predictions and the implications of each for their businesses.”

FSR Magazine

Delightree believes in knowing where your industry is headed. The future is moving toward technology, which means your business should be moving there too. Here are four advanced technologies every franchise owner should know about, plus one bonus.

1. The Internet of Things

Smart kitchen systems are the newest trend in hospitality. Commercial equipment like refrigerators and ovens can now connect wirelessly to a cloud and report real-time temperatures, helping you keep food safe around the clock. Connecting your machines and devices this way is what people mean by the Internet of Things, or IoT.

Connecting your devices through IoT lets owners track food safety and compliance while managing energy use. Many food retailers will be wary of making this jump, but that does not mean it is not worth making. A smart refrigerator connected to IoT can store different food categories in the same appliance, so ice cream and juice can sit in the same unit. The technology controls each shelf in the freezer individually.

2. Training Apps

Training apps let you digitize your training procedures. Many large franchises have already made this move to protect quality control, because it ensures everyone across locations is trained the same way. Digitizing training also keeps your business adaptive. In manuals and binders, procedures stay set in stone unless someone reopens, revises, reprints, and refiles them, and those handbooks are hard to distribute evenly across locations. So how should you do it now? Serve up checklists, video tutorials, and interactive forms using an app like Delightree.

3. QR Codes

Technology that makes your place of business as contactless as possible is where the future is headed. Hospitality businesses are using QR codes to adapt to these new norms, and the little codes are popping up in restaurants because of how much they can do. Best of all, most QR generators are free, so if you want to innovate at a low cost, this may be your best option. A QR code can lead to a menu, a reservation system, a loyalty program, and more. Some restaurants have dropped physical menus entirely in favor of these codes.

4. Augmented Reality

Take your corporate foresight one step further by looking into augmented reality for your store. Augmented reality creates a digitally enhanced view of the real world, so objects that exist in real life are layered with extra digital information. You can use AR to project product reviews over an item a shopper is viewing in store, or to launch in-store price comparisons, among many other uses. The technology has grown over the past several years. Timberland was one of the first to catch on, launching an augmented reality campaign in 2014.

Consider AR when you think about where your industry is headed.

Bonus: Free WiFi

Last on the list is one of the most practical technologies you can offer: free WiFi. Owners may balk at giving customers internet service, mostly because of the cost. Free WiFi does not require much foresight, but customers tend to stay longer and spend more in locations that offer it, which makes it worth the price.

The best way to stay competitive is to stay ahead. Keep these technologies in mind as you use corporate foresight to stay competitive in your industry.