We all know that hospitality was one of the most affected industries of the covid pandemic, so it’s not surprising that the market is now inundated with multiple solutions to help you meet the government imposed restrictions and guidelines for re-opening.

But how do you choose the right one for your business?

There are lots of organisations offering innovative technology to support the new operational challenges faced by hospitality with social distancing in place.

Of course, the functional fit will be important to meet the many challenges, such as: mobile and table ordering, track and trace, delivery using multiple channels. All of these will ensure your business can thrive post lockdown.

But functionality isn’t the only consideration, there are APPS appearing all the time to handle these challenges so what else should be considered?

What are the challenges?

- Costs

Understandably each supplier needs to fund a development and support team through customer support contracts.

Seeking individual solutions to separately handle operational challenges can result in multiple support contracts and significant monthly fees, limiting your ability to operate financially with reduced covers imposed by social distancing.

- Operations

What’s the use of having the best technologies unless they integrate well enough to communicate with each other. Systems which are not properly integrated can cause operational problems. Re-keying information often results in errors and wasted time trying to identify problems.

- Support

Systems developed independently of each other can be a support nightmare. With multiple providers it becomes difficult to know where to go for support. Who has responsibility for the systems working as a whole solution, not only now but in the future? What happens when the operating system is upgraded but not all the solutions are compatible? What happens when one party changes their APP and it no longer communicates with the POS?

- Pedigree longevity

You might be somewhat surprised to see such a surge in APPS over a short period of time. This is explainable because the APP is remote, it handles one operational issue so unlikely to be tested with other operational necessity’s such as your POS system.

All the above are important considerations. Technical innovations are there to help the business thrive, but the wrong choice could deliver more expensive problems than solutions.

Choosing systems that will work together and come from an established technology company, will ensure minimal disruption.

What to look out for

Clearly a long-established company with extensive hospitality expertise will be more equipped to address the guidelines and provide the support for the whole system. Technology companies such as TISSL, have addressed all the new operational requirements as additional modules to their HORIZON POS system. This not only reduces cost but also ensures a high level of support all in one place, because things have been designed to work together.

Keep the infrastructure simple, ensure everything is fully integrated and all works on the same platform. Deploying all functional requirements from one supplier if possible, let the supplier take responsibility for the technology enabling you to keep your staff and customers safe while still providing that culinary experience with seamless service.

TISSL HORIZON EPOS has been developed from the ground up, ensuring simpler on-going development without the constraints of most older legacy systems. There is no glue holding it together, it all works together on one platform. TISLL has always developed their platform using the latest technology so were able to react quickly to the covid requirements set out by the government.

All government guidelines are met using an additional integrated module, TISSL’s Consumer Ordering Platform (COP), provides all the functionality required for re-opening with social distancing. Customers can link easily to your POS, viewing menus and modifiers to place an order and pay using their own phones from anywhere in the restaurant.

We can also offer a track and trace system so you can provide the NHS with the required information should there be any problems with a visitor to your premises contracting covid-19.

All this comes in one solution and from September this year the TISSL HORIZON solution will also include a fully integrated interface into Oracles’ Opera property management system, PMS.

For more details visit the TISSL website:

www.tissl.co.uk or contact 01908 525800.