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A recent study by the FCSI (Food Service Consultants
International, USA) states that there are over 3 million
restaurants worldwide and about 20 million persons employed
therein.
It
is my assertion that these numbers will grow rapidly in the next
five years due to
-
Increased
literacy in countries like China and India- statement
of life style
-
Higher
incidence of eating out of home with increasing number of
couples working-convenience
-
Increased
awareness-Hygiene
-
Higher
availability of reasonably priced food outside of home
worldwide- technology
and economics.
The
convergence of technology of Internet, software and
telecommunications will necessarily make competition intense in
spite of growth.
The
hospitality business will need to concentrate on increasing
revenues and sticking to it’s core competence of providing
food, room, entertainment, lifestyle statement and leisure to
the clients. The industry being highly fragmented and diverse in
terms of size,location,
tradition and ownership will most likely be free of monopolistic
procurement. A substantial percentage of these businesses will
outsource their procurement process to remain profitable.
A
large number of software and communication technologies are
available to provide services which are beneficial to the buyer
community. These services would be available for existing
business as well as new businesses. These services will provide
products and services customized to individual needs.
These
services will
-
Increase
the speed of delivery,
-
Improve
the product offering,
-
Increase
the product offering,
-
Increase
the value of individual transaction,
-
Reduce
inventory,
-
Vary
the product mix,
-
Enable
purchase of better quality inputs through awareness and
affordable cost,
-
Reduce
cost of procurement and
-
Reduce
cost of the products and services through bulk purchases by
the service provider.
At
the same time by designing and providing a wide range of
solutions, through a large number of consultants worldwide, to
diverse everyday real business problems, in quick time through
chat and messaging, the service provider will become a trusted
advisor, who applies the available technology to the customers
needs and is not just another source. This will bring about
loyalty to the service provider. An initial focus on small
businesses and their needs would actually lead to developing new
solutions for larger corporations.
The
vendor community will be helped in adopting and adapting to E-
Commerce, increasing it’s sales volume at lower prices. The
service provider will leverage the relationship network by
enabling vendors to vary the product mix and to reduce there
costs to goods sold by providing E-CRM solutions and services
like data warehousing and data mining ,CAD services, lower
marketing and warranty costs by setting up shared call centers
for messaging etc.
The
service provider through its network of buyer and vendors can
also help individuals in the hospitality industry who in there
current job situation will be using these services for their
organisation, meet their personal career goals. This can be done
by creating awareness of new opportunities, speeding up the
hiring processes and getting the right person for the right job
through automatic, efficient and targeted computer matching of
individual job opening with experience, education, skills, and
work attitude of prospective employees in the database.
The
future of the hospitality industry lies in adapting itself to
the ICE Technologies. |
