The Technology Divide in Foodservice is Getting Wider Here are some tips for deploying innovations in your business from Sodexo’s senior director of digital development & data.
By Alexandra Zendrian
at Sodexo, looks at the foodservice industry and its usage of technology, he sees some parts of the industry aggressively investing in it with particularly the smaller, independent businesses having a harder time. of digital development & data A s Harpreet Cheema, senior director “That divide is definitely getting wider,” he noted. For companies that find themselves on the less technologically savvy side of this equation, Cheema suggests not trying to reinvent the wheel by creating your own tech solutions. There are solutions that you can purchase straight off the shelf; that’s a perfectly acceptable option, especially since when firms create their own technology, it costs more to keep it up and running and revise it, Cheema notes. Cheema also advises that it’s better to “do one thing well” rather than make a whole tech revolution at their company. “You need to get the fundamentals right,” he said. Firms who are concerned they need to incorporate artificial intelligence into their business can peruse the many free tools that are available versus purchasing something. One key point as companies are becoming more digital is to be cognizant of their data structure. An example Cheema gave is the naming of dishes and that there can be 500 coleslaw recipes.
Harpreet Cheema Senior director of digital development & data at Sodexo.
Tech can provide significant value in some instances, such as with the 500,000 reviews Sodexo received. Machine learning was use to read and bucket comments so operators understood what they should be focusing on. Cheema also stresses that ultimately it’s not the tech that differentiates each company but its people. Tech is a tool used to help give customers choices, for instance, but it’s the people who utilize the tech and how they do so that makes all the difference. Using the same naming convention purposefully across the business will be vital in avoiding having to review, reorganize and eliminate duplicate data.
Page 66 I HOSPITALITY NEWS AUGUST
Powered by FlippingBook