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hotel resort poolside

Staying Ahead of the Next Hospitality Technology Disruption

Mar 2017/in , /by

It was 2008 when Airbnb caused an industry-wide double take. Suddenly, technology was disrupting how and where people were booking hotels. Hotel companies navigated the change – by targeting business travelers, redesigning loyalty programs, and, for some, partnering with Airbnb. In a true “if you can’t beat them, join them” move, small hotels list their rooms on Airbnb for a lower reservation fee than traditional hotel listing services. In return, some hotels provide check-in services and amenities for certain Airbnb properties. Now, hospitality companies aren’t taking any chances that technology could disrupt practices beyond bookings. To avoid being surprised again, hospitality companies are incorporating technology on their own and in response to “nearly two-thirds of U.S. guests stating it was “very or extremely important” for hotels to continue investing in technology to enhance the guest experience.” These hospitality technologies range through the top tech trends of the moment.

Not unlike Airbnb, hotel companies are discovering the advantages of a new, mobile-first society, as depicted in StayNTouch’s ebook, How Mobile Technology Will Generate More Revenue for Your Hotel. Many hotel companies apply a hospitality technology, cloud Property Management Systems (PMS) solutions, to automatically offer room upgrades, promote amenities, and provide greater services like early and late check in and out options. This same solution can gather customer knowledge in real-time on arrival time and guest preferences to best manage housekeeping and customer service. The interconnected processes ultimately improve room turnover along with brand loyalty.

Woman wearing an Ocean Medallion wearable hospitality technologyHospitality Technology image from Cruise Critic

Let’s look at three transformative technologies that the hospitality industry is jumping on: wearables, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

1. Wearable Technology Cruising

Following top tech trends, hospitality companies are introducing wearable technology into their offerings. Most commonly, these high technology hospitality companies turn to smart watches that can deliver dynamic guest details in real-time including dining preferences, food allergies, and spending histories. Royal Caribbean Cruises offers smartbands on certain high-end ships that act as room keys, wireless payment methods, and tickets. In response, Carnival Cruises introduced a credit card-connected Ocean Medallion, able to be worn in multiple ways including like a watch as pictured above, that will offer similar capabilities to Royal’s watches but will also power a future, ship-wide gambling platform. The hospitality technology that is the Ocean Medallion utilizes an IoT network of sensors and computing devices along with NFC and Bluetooth communication capabilities throughout the ships and ports. The Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management stated that, “wearable devices will transform consumers from tourists to explorers.” From the company side, wearable devices provide data and access to customers that enhance offerings to stay competitive in new ways.

“Leading hotel companies are … lever­aging advances in data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to increase online reservations, im­prove the return on advertising spend (ROAS), better understand guest pref­erences, and build stronger customer relationships,” according to global analyst firm EY

2. Artificial Intelligence Assistance

In terms of artificial intelligence, Ivy from Go Moment is an IBM Watson-driven system designed to handle guest requests. The cognitive technology can interpret questions to fulfill requests and converse with you by phone. Other AIs take a more dramatic, tangible form in robots. Also powered by IBM Watson, Hilton introduced Connie the concierge in one of their Virginia hotels last year. Connie informs guests on local attractions, hotel features, amenities, and can make recommendations for dining and activities.

3. Virtual Reality Hotel Experience

77% of U.S. consumers are interested in virtual reality (VR) equipment right now, as reported by the Consumer Technology Association. The hotel industry is quickly taking this into account and working to incorporate VR as a hospitality technology. Marriot Hotels & Resorts collaborated with Samsung in 2015 for a virtual reality hotel room experience offering titled VRoom Service that received a headset and headphones. Best Western Hotels & Resorts leveraged a VR experience that allows guests to immerse themselves in the hotels before their stay.

 

Ultimately, these heightened experiences through technology enable hospitality companies to charge higher prices, create up-sell opportunities at each point of the customers’ journey, and stay ahead of the next potential disruption, all the while delighting their customers.

This blog is part of an Industry & Market Series –  analyzing what FirstRain users are tracking at the moment in order to gain advantage for the moment.

car tires

Autonomous Cars That Drive Us Together

Jan 2017/in , , , /by

Few things indicate an industrial revolution better than a controversial topic that ironically becomes a unifying factor. The biggest, boldest, headlines shout that 3 in 4 Americans are afraid to drive in an autonomous car, Uber and the DMV are head to head, and the autonomous car industry has the potential to eliminate jobs in up to 128 industries. However, other headlines have written a different story. From companies to technology to cars themselves, the Autonomous Car market is driving us all into a new, collaborative future.

Considered an initial stretch on the roadway to fully autonomous cars, V2V technology, vehicle-to-vehicle, is a wireless network enabling cars to converse with each other. At the next level, the technology would extend to V2I, vehicle-to-infrastructure, enabling cars and say, stoplights, to communicate as well. Consider a future city that is completely connected, from autonomous cars to smart buildings.

Collaboration is not just in the future. Even now, auto manufacturers and car service companies are establishing surprising relationships in order to win this grounded version of the “race to space”. Industry giant General Motors has reached out to carpool service application, Lyft, to test self-driving taxis. Alphabet, Google parent and Autonomous Car technology leader, may now be an Autonomous Car social leader as well in its car project, Waymo. The company already paired with Chrysler Pacifica minivans and is now in talks with Honda on accommodating Waymo’s self-driving technology in an upcoming model – a significant change from Google’s small, bubble cars I pass on our Bay Area roads. In a recent development, Audi and Nvidia have united over autonomous cars.

firstreads

Those large companies seeking committed relationships, are resulting in start-up acquisitions at every turn:

  • GM spent $1billion on Cruise Automation for their self-driving technology
  • Uber spent $680 million on Otto for their self-driving truck
  • In the second biggest tech acquisition in history, Qualcomm spent $39 billion to takeover NXP Semiconductors for a path to make chips for autonomous cars

Why do Autonomous Cars drive such cooperation? Maybe it is the cars’ origin – a unique world of technological cooperation. Founder of Comma.ai and iPhone unlocking, 26-year old George Hotz, has published open-source software and hardware driving agents in an effort to “become the Android of self-driving cars”. Consistent with this approach, Linux has devoted a foundation project to the mission of “creating open source software solutions for automotive applications.” The project, Automotive Grade Linux, or simply AGL, recently released the most advanced version of its platform yet. The AGL community is made up of nearly 90 companies with an impressive roster of Ford, Honda, Toyota, and more.

“This unprecedented level of collaboration is a clear indication that the automotive industry is adopting an open source development methodology that is resulting in faster innovation with more frequent software releases and new features.”

Dan Cauchy
Executive Director, Automotive Grade Linux

Maybe you’re not a fan of jumping on bandwagons. But with expectations of 21 million autonomous vehicles sold globally by 2035, it might be time for all of us to take a seat in any wagon pulled by the Autonomous Car.

 

This blog is part of an Industry & Market Series –  analyzing what FirstRain users are tracking at the moment in order to gain advantage for the moment.

manatees

An Internet for Our World, Not Just Our Things

Dec 2016/in , , /by

Across the globe, big data and IoT are revolutionizing Conservation efforts.

A concept first named in 1985, the Internet of Things (IoT) is undergoing a modern revival thanks to advances in big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. As consumers rush towards the benefits of wearable technology and smart house applications, a handful of revolutionary thinkers are applying the technology to benefitting our earth.

 

smart city

Smart Cities
30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2014 came from electricity and heat production. In reaction, cities are incorporating climate change, resilience, and sustainability goals into their smart city aspirations. By 2020, half of all smart city objectives will include these concerns, as reported by @Gartner. Part of the smart city movement, Atlanta, Georgia has already begun incorporating sustainability into its city grid.

A smart cities innovator, Ingenu recently announced an Atlanta project. The Atlanta Machine Network intends, as stated by Peter Murray of @Dense Networks, to connect and monitor “everything from street lighting, traffic signals and parking” in an effort to reduce energy and water usage city-wide.

 

manatees

Conservation of Marine Mammals
Marine residents of the Indo-West Pacific waters, dugongs are threatened by “local fishing, destruction of habitat and illegal hunting” rendering them vulnerable for extinction. To help, IoT cloud provider, @Kii, has been supporting @Smart Earth Networks (SEN) and @Community Centered Conservation (C3) in a “citizen science” conservation project in the Busuanga region of the Philippines. The project equipped fishermen with basic smartphones, provided by local company @Cherry Mobile, enabling them to take photos when they spot the vulnerable marine mammals. Photos are uploaded via SEN’s app to Kii’s cloud, indicating dugong location through GPS. This allows C3 to map and evaluate the local dugong population for future, actionable, protection recommendations.

Close relatives of the dugong, manatees are also at risk. A project started in November, applies AI technology to manatee conservation efforts. Owned by @Google, AI protocol @TensorFlow is being taught with the aid of machine learning to spot manatees in aerial drone-produced photos. The ability would save hours of researchers’ time and lead to quicker, more frequent conservation efforts.

 Tree_lion

Anti-Poaching Efforts

Most threatened species, including the manatees and dugongs, lose a large number to poaching. AI platform, @Avata, is being applied to anti-poaching efforts in Uganda. AI learns poacher behavior and how to arrange effective security patrols so wildlife rangers can stay a step ahead of poachers.

 

lights

Self-Awareness

Though IoT, AI, and big data are becoming extraordinary tools for environmental efforts, they are innately part of the problem. In the U.S. alone, data center electricity consumption is expected to reach an annual 140 billion kilowatt-hours by 2020, equivalent to an annual 100 million metric tons of carbon pollution. Fortunately, many of these companies are working towards self-improvement.

For example, with data centers accounting for 6.9% of all energy consumption in Singapore, active data companies are applying environmentally friendly practices:

  • A modular approach to data centers that utilizes just-in-time principles
  • Waste reduction through adoption of renewable energy sources
  • Alternate cooling techniques such as reclaimed water

In America, @GE and @Intel combined their respective offerings, Predix and gateway technologies, to create intelligent lighting – a networked lighting system that aims to improve efficiency. Each have applied the system to their own infrastructures including GE’s factory, Intel’s Arizona plant, and, soon, at Intel HQ in Santa Clara.
 The Market
Through IoT, it is thought that information technologies can reduce carbon dioxide emissions globally by 20%. With major companies entering the IoT market, the percentage may be even greater. From telecommunications companies like Verizon to platform providers like Salesforce to IBM, companies across the board are making moves into IoT.*

*Entry moves provided by FirstRain market analytics

 

This blog is part of an Industry & Market Series –  analyzing what FirstRain users are tracking at the moment in order to gain advantage for the moment.

Introducing Orion

New FirstRain Orion Architecture Release Shakes Up the Business World

Jul 2015/in , , /by

The wait is over. The FirstRain Orion release is causing quite an impactful stir in the world of technology. Orion, released on June 17th, is the world’s first analytics platform that brings together external and internal unstructured data to coach teams and professionals on key business developments that affect their go-to marketing strategy, business relationships, and investments.

Recognition for this universal architecture is coming from every angle, including senior executives from Racepoint and top 10 global pharma company who highlight “smooth integrations” and “increased productivity” driven by FirstRain solutions. The primary topics of discussion displayed Orion’s ability to elevate the delivery of information by:

  • Introducing new families of business analytics, such as marketing campaign enrichment, diverse fact extraction, opportunity and business risk triggers and financial risk analytics to create rich and concise real-time business insights, and enable executives, sales, marketing and finance professionals to make higher quality decisions.
  • Using a modern, dynamic and adaptive architecture that builds high precision business data analytics from a broad spectrum of content, delivered together into one user experience.
  • Easily integrating into the client’s business workflows and existing platforms through each step of the revenue process – whether building go-to-market strategy, creating smart context-aware lead generation campaigns, discovering and developing new sales opportunities, or identifying business risks.
  • Automatically personalizing and configuring the insights for each user, team or for enterprise-wide initiatives.
  • Being fully mobile native and responsive to create a powerful, compelling information experience on smartphones or tablets.
  • Incorporating both external unstructured data, from the global web and social media, with internally created unstructured business data.
  • Rapidly deploying through Web service APIs to increase both internal user engagement and the customer value delivered through commercial solutions.

“We are delighted to bring the new FirstRain Orion architecture to our Fortune 1000 enterprise customers,” said Penny Herscher, FirstRain president and CEO. “The seamless integration of critical and personalized customer and market insights into their enterprise-wide solutions and mobile-first initiatives will help them grow revenue by dramatically improving the speed and quality of the employee’s daily business decisions.”

Review some of the articles covering the FirstRain Orion:

New analytics platform from FirstRain

FirstRain Extends Analytics Reach to include Internal Data Sources

brand strategy

Build an Effective Brand Strategy: Understand Your Targets

Jun 2014/in /by

Developing a strong brand is an essential part of building value. Your brand is the most outward-facing, recognizable element of your company, and in the end, that is what people respond to. Of course, a good product is the building block of a good brand, but the brand itself is what conveys trustworthiness and quality.

However, according to an article in The Economist, research shows that decision-makers feel that brand is a central element of the seller’s value proposition. B2B products, do not elicit the same kind of emotional connection that consumer product do—but a strong brand can nonetheless facilitate access to prospects and speed up the sales cycle by clarifying benefits and reducing perceived risks.

Needless to say, brand strategy is something to take seriously. Chief Outsiders offers a look into how to make your brand as strong as possible:


  1. Determine what the criteria are for your target customers’ decision-making. What are the things that they care about most? What business problems are they trying to solve? When you truly understand your target customers, you can position your product and develop your brand in a way that speaks to them most.
  2. Assess where your brand is currently positioned. Are there gaps in your brand strategy, and are there new opportunities to be had? Being able to make an accurate evaluation relies on a complete knowledge of the current trends in your target market, as well as a good view of where the market is heading.
  3. Choose where you would like to be positioned and adjust your messaging accordingly. You should be able to relatewhat your company does and how that’s different from other providers in a way that is supremely relevant to your target. Especially in B2B, one target market could have radically different priorities than another—but they each need to understand the value of your product.

The goal for a brand strategy is to have your brand reflect quality, which in turn will help convince more customers to buy from you. But that’s no easy task—your message needs to deeply resonate with your target buyers. By truly understanding the markets you wish to enter or lead, you will be able to clearly articulate the value your product provides in a context to which your targets can personally relate—winning you more loyalty and more deals.

Work Smarter Not Harder

Work smarter, not harder, to drive more revenue

May 2014/in , /by

Everyone wants to be as effective as possible at his job, and to be effective one needs to have deep knowledge of his or her business. Whether you’re a salesperson or a marketer, your job effectiveness most likely depends on how well you know your products, customers and markets. But people struggle with unearthing the critical information that will take them to the next step, and according to an IBM study “From Stretched to Strengthened Insights,” 66% of companies lack an in-depth understanding of their customers. This leaves them with a huge gap that they try to bridge by spending an inordinate amount of time searching for key insights,  hidden in a sea of information overload.

But you can work smarter, not harder, and drive more revenue by making sure of a few critical things:

  1. Stop searching for information. If the only way you’re getting the information you need on your key customers and markets is by doing a generic search, you’re spending way too much time looking through a bunch of stuff you don’t need. Using a personal business analytics solution that delivers you the insights you need can save you valuable time, while bringing you up to speed on the things you care about most.
  2. Make sure every meeting is effective. Too much time and energy is wasted in meetings that accomplish nothing—and if they happen with a client, that’s a surefire way to slow down the sales cycle and make it harder to close the deal. By having information that is extremely relevant to that particular account, you can ensure that every meeting is strategic and valuable.
  3. Stay in sync with your team. When the entire team is on board with a particular strategy, you’re all pulling together to achieve a goal, resulting in your team running like a well-oiled machine. Everyone having the same information means you are able to formulate a cohesive strategy and run with it. Less time is spent in discussion and in trying to get each team member in line—your team can do better work and use it to drive more revenue.

Having the right information at your fingertips is key, but what you do with it is just as important. Our own customers report a 17% increase in productivity increase for Sales Reps using Personal Business Analytics. By making sure that you use the information to your advantage, you to can drive more revenue while spending less time on tasks that are killing your team’s productivity.

dreamforce

Come See FirstRain at Dreamforce!

Nov 2013/in /by

Step into Your Customer’s Reality with FirstRain

 

FirstRain is ready and excited for Dreamforce—and we want to see you there! We’re doing a lot from Sunday to Thursday, so take a look below to see everything we’ve got going on… then follow us @FirstRain!

 

Booth hours are:

 

Monday        12:00pm – 8:00pm

 

Tuesday        2:00pm – 5:00pm

 

Wednesday  9:00am – 5:00pm

 

Thursday      9:00am – 2:00pm

 

Our booth is going to be our home base, and we’ve got some great activities going on constantly. Swing by Booth N1924 to:

 

 

  • Be served a drink by Chassis the robot. How many people do you know who can say a robot bought them a drink?

 

 

 

  • Win a FitBit Flex. We know you’ve been eyeing them… and maybe it’s on your Christmas wish list. If you come by the FirstRain booth and get a demo, maybe you won’t have to wait until the holidays to get one!

 

 

 

  • Learn how you can make your sales and marketing teams more effective—and help a great cause. For every demo we give of our product, FirstRain will donate $2 to Soles4Souls and provide shoes to people in need.

 

 

 

Want more? We’re hosting some great sessions and talks at Dreamforce this year. Come see how our customers changed their sales and marketing game:

 

Women in Technology Table Talk: Achieving Effective Communication

 

Time & Location: Monday, Nov. 18th: 10:30–11:00 AM | Moscone Center West, Women in Technology Salon

 

How can women take a seat at the table with other developers and make sure their ideas are heard? Join us at the Women in Technology Salon for an informal talk, featuring Penny Herscher from FirstRain and Lori Williams from Appirio, on how to get your message across with confidence and persuasion.

 

 

Changing Sales: How Enterprise Sales Use Customer Insights To Drive Sales Growth

 

Time & Location: Monday, Nov. 18th: 3:00-3:30 PM | San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Foothill G1 + G2

 

Arming your sales team with insights and analytics within salesforce.com that actually drive growth and improve sales productivity is one of the biggest challenges most enterprises face—but is essential for positive ROI. Join FirstRain CEO Penny Herscher and Quality Technology Services’ VP Sales Operations Chris Oberkfell as they discuss how QTS is addressing this challenge.

 

 

Become a Mobile Hero: How to Turn BYOD and Multitasking into Revenue

 

Time & Location: Tuesday, Nov. 19th: 11:30 AM-1:30 PM | Yerba Buena Garden, Main Tent, Table 8

 

Enterprise mobility and BYOD have dramatically shifted the work-life landscape, giving enterprises an incredible opportunity to take advantage of how connected people are. With the amount of personal time people spend time on their smartphones and tablets, however, enterprises need to think about how they fit into the multitasking employee’s mobile world.

 

YY Lee, COO of FirstRain, will lead a discussion about the opportunities that the constantly connected environment presents to enterprises. She’ll address the differences between enterprise and consumer apps, what enterprise apps can learn from the consumer world and how to reconcile the two spaces to turn BYOD and multitasking into revenue for your company.

 

 

New Reality: How Big Data Insights Help Cisco Stay on Top of Its Marketing Game

 

Time & Location: Palace Hotel, Presidio | Wednesday, Nov. 20th: 10:30-11:00 AM

 

Empowering strategic marketers to take action in a changing market is challenging, especially in today’s post-recession economy—but to compete, it’s essential. Join us as Cisco’s Charlie Treadwell and Zunesis’ Evan Escobedo discuss with FirstRain CEO Penny Herscher how Cisco uses a revolutionary market insights solution to develop and implement their go-to-market strategy.

 

We’d also love to meet with you. Schedule some time now!

 

agenda

Want to add an interesting session to your agenda?

Nov 2013/in /by

As Dreamforce approaches (it’s November, and that means there are only 17 days left!), we’ve finalized our booth design, have finally all agreed on what we’re going to wear, and have our giveaways ready to go. We’re preparing for a GREAT show.

 

What we’re most excited about, though, are our breakout sessions. This year, we have two—one with Cisco’s Charlie Treadwell and Evan Escobedo, and the other with QTS’s Chris Oberkfell. They’ll discuss how big data insights are helping their sales and marketing teams drive growth.

 

Charlie and Evan will be talking about how Cisco is using FirstRain’s Market Insights to develop and implement their go-to-market strategy. They’ll discuss some of the challenges their organization faced, the goal it’s trying to achieve, as well as the characteristics that were important to them when they were trying to find a solution.

 

Chris, on the other hand, will be speaking to Customer Insights, and how it’s helped his entire sales organization replicate the behaviors of the top salespeople—and why having deep insight into your customer’s business is essential to compete in a fast-moving, constantly changing market.

 

We hope to see you there! To get more information on our sessions, click here. You can also enter to win a Fitbit Flex!

 

So, what are you waiting for?

 

Road to Dreamforce

FirstRain’s on the Road to Dreamforce

Aug 2013/in , , , , /by

FirstRain is revving up for Dreamforce 2013, and to make sure we’ve got all the latest information, we’ve been watching The Road to Dreamforce on Salesforce Live. It’s been really informative and has helped get our creative juices flowing—except they stillwon’t tell us who the band is! Come on, guys!

 

The best part is that anyone can participate. If you have a question, you can easily ask in real-time: just go on Twitter and use #salesforceLIVE during the session. You might even get an on-air shout out and be famous like Justine!

 

 

If you missed yesterday’s episode, don’t worry. You can watch it here.