Definition of Cloud Computing
Please refer back to our group blog introduction.
Definition from The National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST)
Technical Information from Microsoft
The status of Food and Beverage industry
In Hong Kong, food and beverage industry is
one of the core service industry in this city named “food paradise”. It
included restaurants, cafes and bars which have small business and large chain
stores. They served their customers with food and drinks as well as service.
Therefore, food quality, atmosphere of the restaurant and service were all
important in this industry.How Cloud computing impact Food and Beverage industry
In the concept of cloud computing, it can provide “anything as a
service” for business users. Service providers can sell their cloud service
like selling an IT solution cover some or all business functions or sharing IT
resource for many companies who scribe their service. Unlike the traditional
times, companies needed to acquire the whole set of infrastructure to go for
any IT solution. The maintenance and training cost is also high as they need to
maintain their own specify system. Especially in F&B industry for food
ordering process, full manual process with pen and paper may be more efficient
than using computer ordering system for smaller restaurants. It is even not
possible for SMEs in food and beverage industry with low profit margin to invest so much money for whole set of infrastructure like
server and terminals while they cannot utilize them as their companies scale is
not big and limitation on physical space. So, cloud computing created many new
business opportunities and cost reduction ideas for food and beverage industry
as the business owner can have small investment with large benefit. For large
corporates, maybe they have existing infrastructure, cloud computing can help
to organize and streamline the current IT environment. With cloud computing
facilitates, it can better use of existing resources and do more with fewer
resourcesImpact to Food and Beverage Industry
Thin Clients in Cloud computing
Cost was always the barrier for SMEs in food and beverage industry to adapt IT. With cloud computing, it can allow
smaller business to subscribe required resource as they needed without excess. Therefore,
thin clients would be a good concept for smaller business in food and beverage
industry to enjoy the benefit of cloud computing. Thin clients are bare bones
computer with minimum hardware that allows users to access programs, files, and
functionality that is hosted on physical server or cloud server. The server
pushes the operating system, programs and information to the thin client when a
user logs on (Tricerat, 2015) . So, it is just like
a device to access the server with computing power. If you still don’t
understand, please think of our classroom computer in the lecture. They are all
thin clients with display and network function only, all computing power were
from the physical server controlling all clients.
Thin clients can impact food and beverage industry a lot as it is a
very small device with low power consumption which can be installed anywhere.
Even in the market, some thin client manufacturers can add conformal coating in
order to add a layer of protective coating that further protects computer
components, making them impervious to dust, oil vapors and water vapor Centralized decision making system for management
For cloud computing, it can allow all restaurant branches with
different business locations share the same company server and database. It can
share internal software and information without time lag. The main advantage
for management would be able for them to have the real time status of all branches
including operations figures like stocks, sales and customer information like
customer preferences on menu. It can increase the response time on the whole to
minimize the chance of out of stock which may lead to customer dissatisfaction.New concepts to Food and Beverage industry by Cloud computing
With cloud computing, food and beverage industry recently adapted
some new concepts such as online mobile restaurant reservation system like New
Town Plaza app. It is a booking system allowed people to connect to the cloud
server of the shopping mall. The cloud server centralized all booking of
different restaurants in the mall. So customers can use the app to access all
booking of restaurants in the mall easily. All restaurants shared the same service
from the cloud so the cost of each restaurant is much lower than setting up the
own online mobile reservation system. Also, with this kind of system having
real time information to customers, it can also boost the sales of all
restaurants in the mall and become more competitive than those restaurants
nearby but not supported by the system. Apart from New Town Plaza, Food GULU
would be another app involved cloud computing which have the same concept.
Another new concepts is online ordering system supported by cloud
computing, such as the latest ordering app from Café De Coral. It allowed
customers to order meals from the mobile app by showing specific branches menu.
Customers can pre-order online and pay with electronic payment at the self-serviced
terminals in the shop. The whole concepts was linked all mobile apps and point
of sale terminal in the restaurant with cloud server. Each branches updated
their specific menu of that day to the cloud and allow customers to pre-order.
The whole concept can reduce waiting time of customers, reduce handling of cash
and reduce workload of employees. Apart from Café De Coral, some full service
restaurants also used an electronic ordering system which connected to the
cloud with real time updates of the menu. Such as Gyu-Kaku in Hong Kong, they
provided dine in customers an iPad mini to order food themselves. All menu and
ordering information is processed by cloud server. It can also reduce workload and
reduce human errors.Cloud Computing Stories: Restaurant Point-of-Sale Systems
In US, Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen adopted cloud computing in his 18
restaurants chain business. Their cloud computing model was included mainly
private cloud. With cloud computing, the company can centralize all information
put in the cloud server and have the information readily at hand. As the
example mentioned in the case, “ if we notice an item running low at one
store—maybe salsa or chips or tamales—we can easily see what’s on hand in other
locations and quickly take from one store to get through the busy time. We can
also change our delivery schedule to get a shorted item to another place within
hours if necessary”
However, there is also noticed fact that the network traffic
increased with cloud computing adapted. The restaurant needed to invest on
network infrastructure to maintain a high and stable bandwidth to make sure the
cloud computing system work properly and work in high performance. Although the
investment on restaurant IT infrastructure can be reduced, network stability
and bandwidth would also be another limitation and important factor for adapting
cloud computing.
Conclusion
Thanks to cloud computing, food and beverage industry can mainly
benefit with some new concept providing better customer experience such as
mobile reservation system. Management of food and beverage industry can have
higher responsiveness to all business situation with centralized tools from
cloud computing. Also, smaller business in the industry can also afford to use
computerized management system with subscribing cloud service at an affordable
cost. Cloud computing benefit the whole industry from SMEs to large corporate
with different new concepts and cost efficiency.
Reference
Ebbers, M. (2009). Cloud
Computing: Save Time, Money, and Resources with a Private Test Cloud .
New York: IBM Red Books.
Gould, D. (2015, 4 25). Technology
Will Drive Food Industry Growth, Finds KPMG Survey. Retrieved from
Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daniellegould/2013/08/16/technology-will-drive-food-industry-growth-finds-kpmg-survey/
Ramanuja, R. (2014, 9 26). Thinlabs
Thin Client Solutions For The Food Industry. Retrieved from ThinLabs:
http://thinlabs.com/blog/thinlabs-thin-client-solutions-food-industry
SchnoorLee. (2015,4 26). Cloud Stories:
Restaurant Point-of-Sale Systems. Retrieved from Intel:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/cloud-computing/macayos-mexican-kitchen-cloud-story.html
Tricerat. (2015, 4 26). Thin Clients
and Cloud Computing. Retrieved from Tricerat:
http://www.tricerat.com/resources/topics-library/thin-clients-and-cloud-computing
