Digital Signage to Enhance the Guest Experience | with Shawn O'Connell
GAIN Momentum episode #65: Digital Signage to Enhance the Guest Experience | with Shawn O'Connell
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the GAIN Momentum Podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, food service, and technology. Our cohost today is Vincent Somsen, joining us from Valencia, and our special guest today is Sean O'Connell. Of sales, Americas for Uni guest. Sean, how are you?
Shawn O'Connell: I am doing fantastic morning all and uh, thanks. Uh, thanks for having me today. It's great to see everybody.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. Well thanks for coming on. And right before we started recording today, I was talking that, uh, you're actually our first guest to come on to talk about the category of hotel technology, about digital signage. So I'm wondering if you could give us a background on that category, how it ties into the.
Main tech stack of core commercial systems [00:01:00] and, uh, uniguest uh, elevator pitch.
Shawn O'Connell: Absolutely. Um, so again, dig, digital signage is a, a critical part to, you know, customer engagement, uh, across all verticals. Uh, you know, including, including hotels and hospitality as a, as a whole. you know, historically this segment has always been fragmented, um, as compared to, uh, guest room experiences or mobile experiences or f and b experiences.
And so what we've been seeing over the, the last number of years has been about. Consolidating all of that and, and controlling those endpoints in a way that makes it easier, uh, and frankly more cost effective for hotel operators to operate. And so at the end of the day, for them, it's about converging it in a, in a, a responsible way that, uh, you know, creates those end, end user and, and consumer engagement, experiences, whether it's.
In a restaurant or, or in the lobby or behind the front [00:02:00] desk, or, or frankly, and this is the, the movement that we're, we're all seeing in the market is, is still being able to control that guest room experience, which is different from the touchpoint and the, and the experience that they're, that they, they would have in, in, say, the lobby as an example.
Adam Mogelonsky: Okay, so we're talking about doing that if cost effectively nowadays, and essentially what we're talking about is less manual labor, being able to control these endpoints through some form of unified platform, and then a marketing team can therefore load up all the assets. Right in there, or, within that platform, is there a lot of dynamic creative optimization that can occur?
where is this category going in terms of how it makes things better from a frictionless labor standpoint, as well as the experiential standpoint and the ability to grow revenues?
Shawn O'Connell: Yes. To all of the above, right? I, I think what's really, really important for, for all of us in the industry is, [00:03:00] uh, first of all, you know, personal. And localization as well, right? So if you think about, about, the preponderance of, of brand and you, you know, the marketers of the major brands need to have their brand story being told consistently, from property to property, venue to venue.
So there needs to be a certain amount of control that those brands have with the templates for lack of terms. But at the same time, you don't wanna rip it away from the franchisee or, or the operator on-prem who still needs to be able to actively and properly promote their property because they know it best.
So the flexibility in these tools that, that we, we built, are driven to, to do that so that the template allows both, above property. Um, customization and, and, and brand related. 'cause brand equity is super important with that localization layer, uh, that allows, uh, on, on-premise folks to be able to do some things that they need to do that is specific to their property.
And I think the trend is gonna be, continue to be, to be just like that. so that the customer realizes that they're a part of a, a [00:04:00] bigger picture brand story, but still being in the moment personalized and local. Wherever it is they go for business or pleasure.
Vincent Somsen: Innovations in your specific sector, um, and around artificial intelligence. Have you seen, the creation of the content? Have you seen that being influenced by AI at all the last couple of months?
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, absolutely. I, I think that everyone has been obviously kicking a very, very close eye on, on all things ai and I, I think that, uh, you know, it, it's gonna continue to grow and scale and evolve in, in a very rapid way here over the next few years. think for, for us, like so many, uh, so many, you know, corporations, it's really been about trying to figure out how to first apply it for internal.
For internal things, right? So I'm, I'm just already seeing transformation in, in the impact that a AI is going to have on sales, sales behavior and, and recommendations on steps that need to be taken in, in, in like CRM related [00:05:00] activities to drive that sales behavior that ultimately is to drive, growth for starters.
So I think there's, there's a huge conversation around that alone. Um, but then when you start talking about product, right, and we're already doing this, like one of our, one of our product suites is called E Stream, and it's starting to do things like leverage AI to make recommendation on, on video capture and recordings and things that we're doing within our product base.
That then makes it easier for, you know, training to occur for companies. You know, record a training, and then they need to, um, you know, present it back to a user in a way that basically says, you really need to take this training. So we're already leveraging AI like that on the video side of things to help out as well.
Adam Mogelonsky: So Shawn, I'm wondering if we can can take everything you've just said and give our listeners or viewers a good visual of how this works in practice. IE an example, we talked about the difference between the guest room experience versus the [00:06:00] restaurant experience, and above property versus on property controls, and as well the emergence of how AI is gonna be used to guide a lot of that content direction.
Could you give us. An example, you don't need to name the hotel, but geography, size of the hotel, specific use cases onsite, upselling, uh, take it whichever direction you want.
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah. No, I, I think, I think we're. Not all, we're not all the way there yet. Right? I mean, in, in the example that I know is, is, uh, in front of us right now is, is more for, education, whether it's K through 12 or, university related or, or corporate learning. it's about, um, it.
Using video to, to basically educate and reeducate your keep, keep your staff, um, trained where you want them to, to be trained. You know, in the hospitality market, I see application for this in, for like housekeeping, right? Video tells a thousand words. You, you video record a proper way to make a bed.
I'm just using that as a, as a very simple example, and then use, you use the tech. [00:07:00] to make it applicable to a housekeeping user that logs into our application that they don't need to see how to, how to make a martini, right? They don't need that video. They need to know how to make a bed, how to properly stage the guest room for, for the next, for the next visitor, right?
So our application does that sort of thing. And AI is the layer that would then go in and say. This is a housekeeper only presented them housekeeping related assets versus a manual, you know, folder system that a body would be, you know, needed to go and, and format all of that stuff. AI is going to help streamline that in a, material way.
I, I think you know, Adam, to your question, I, I think we're all, or everyone's trying to figure this out, is, is at what point does the signage and the display experience and the mobility experience now start to really impact that personalization for the consumer? Because, you know, newsflash, the consumer is driving everything that we're doing and when they, when they're leveraging this AI technology at home, in their living rooms and, throughout their house, [00:08:00] they're going to expect it when they show up at a hotel.
Whether it's a select service, whether it's luxury, whether it's a convention property, whether it's a casino, hotel, it doesn't matter. They're gonna want to take that at home experience, leveraging whatever AI tools they're using at home and make them applicable in their, journey throughout, throughout hospitality.
Vincent Somsen: I think that makes a lot of sense. And in general, video, um, demand has increased so much with, you know, the likes of TikTok, the likes of YouTube shorts. Um, LinkedIn now has shorts, right, and video. So people consume a lot of, uh, videos and. When guests do that every day on, on all their social media, and your housekeeping, your front, your front desk agents also do that.
They also expect, a certain level of intake. They, they got accustomed to a different kind of education, learning different things and learning, uh, different methods and, um, yeah, that, that, that makes a lot of sense. And I wonder how. How that will evolve as well. Would it be, you know, some kind of [00:09:00] interactive, um, uh, way of, uh, of learning, right?
You, you see it with immersive technologies, right? with the metaverse, right? Where, where it is an entire video, DO with virtual reality or, uh, ar right. Or even mixed. so I think there's a lot of opportunities still and a lot of, um, a very interesting future for the space. Yeah.
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, totally, totally agreed. I I, I think you, you just said something about that, like, like virtual concierge for a full circle. Of us property, again, is another, is another great example. I know that these tools have been out there for a long time, but it, it's getting very mature and very sophisticated in a, very, very fast, in, in a fast way.
So, um, again, I'm, I'm a, I've got hospitality in my DNA, uh, I, I like the human element of what we do. So I'm a little cautious on whether or not we wanna replace a human, with an ai, uh, engine that is like real, but just on a, on a pane of glass. We'll see what happens there. I think there'll be a, a mix of, of the personal, uh, human touch [00:10:00] versus, you know, artificial, artificial intelligence and technology.
Adam Mogelonsky: To go down a tangent. Here 'cause Vincent did raise the key word here, which is the metaverse. And when that term was first announced, uh, unveiled by Mark Zuckerberg, uh, it was got all this hype and now the hype's died down. But Uni Guest is perhaps one of the few companies that's best positioned to really take advantage of VR XR and apply it at scale through the.
As controlled by the digital engagement platform. So I'm wondering maybe a little bit of, uh, secret sauce here, but what have been the conversations at Uni Guest about emerging technologies in the realm of VRXR Metaverse?
Shawn O'Connell: I mean, at the risk of, uh, over, over disclosing. So, uh, so the market is, uh, uh, you know, getting a glimpse of where we're going here. it's a fair, [00:11:00] uh, a fair question. Um, we, we manage, uh, over a million endpoints. Globally. Right? And that, and that number continues to grow. So we are poised absolutely to, to layer on some of these next genera, next generation innovations.
You know, for us, it, again, it is different from every vertical. Like my role, um, all verticals roll up to me, including include including the hospitality sector, but like the fan engagement experience in stadiums, for example, and the retail engagement. For example, I think the hospitality market can take some of those learnings and bring them into what consumer engagement means, in a hotel without a doubt.
So, from my lens, like, um, VR and all that fun stuff that is absolutely here and coming and it's going to grow, it's probably gonna start in the, in the pure play, fan engagement experience, like in stadiums. First, for example, we've got the masses out there. 'cause these, you know, this vertical's always looking for ways to create best, the best in class experiences for the consumer.
They've got a short window of time to get them. You know, you think about NFL, [00:12:00] it's, eight, eight games a year, unless, of course they make the playoffs, like my Patriots haven't done lately. Uh, but, uh, you know, you get the point there. They've got a short period of time and, to invoke a consumer engagement strategy.
And that's probably where it's gonna start. And then I'm really keen on, on making sure that the, the hospitality market takes the best of the best from the learnings of other verticals, because I think it's totally applicable. And again, once again, it's all about that end consumer and what that consumer is expecting.
as they, they leave their, their kitchen and, and show up at a, at a stadium or a hotel or, or in a retail outlet or, or in a senior living environment where wherever it is that they're going.
Adam Mogelonsky: So let's devil's advocate what you just said there. You mentioned that this technology is most likely to occur in stadiums. Stadiums have a core. Revenue driver behind this, and so far as the need to deliver ever innovative experiences. And the one thing I see is that stadiums are doing this at scale. Uh, you know, you have [00:13:00] 50,000 to a hundred thousand people entering at once.
Couldn't you make the argument that. Hotels are even an even better place to start off with a metaverse experience because they're more localized and because they have more opportunity for that personal encounter.
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, I think the. Challenge. Um, in that, um, honestly, uh, Adam is is consistency across the, again, just call it the franchise space, right? It, it's, how do you do that at 7,000 hotels? Um, and, and make it meaningful and impactful. And I think it, it ties into something we talked about very, very early on is, is the brand being able to digitally invoke their brand storyline.
Right. Um, and then have that localization and that personalization, uh, piece out there. I, I think that, there's so much fragmentation today in the hospitality market that being able to implement it to scale in a rapid way. [00:14:00] Is the challenge. And I think that's some of why. What we're doing, what we're doing is to consolidate that, right?
You, you can't even, we heard this during Covid, messaging for Covid back in the day when it first happened. Like nobody had the ability to push out what the protocols were in the moment and they were changing week over week because it was so fractured and so fragmented. So the stadium business has a contained and, and is, yes, it is en mass, it's 50,000 people, but it's because their infrastructure has the ability to scale it out.
Whatever it is, um, as it evolves. Whereas in the hospitality market, it's a lot more challenging because you can't do it venue by venue. The casino space does this great as well because it's, it's very, very similar, right? their guest room infrastructure is, is fragmented, but they can, publish all kinds of content to the guest.
The casino floor space and the meeting space is all, is all, you know, separate or contained, but they can also push it out to scale. So it's, it's kind of a cross between a smaller hotel and a large stadium. Um, but the casino space does this quite well as well.[00:15:00]
Vincent Somsen: Yeah. Makes sense. so apart from the, you know, public spaces and guest guest rooms, what is your take on how guest apps will really evolve and how? And content, you know, from a centralized headquarters, from centralized brand. how do you see that evolving over the next, uh, few years? Chuck?
Shawn O'Connell: Look, I mean, it's, it's here. I mean, IP video streaming, OTT, whatever you wanna, whatever you wanna call it, it's here. And once again, it's driven by, it's driven by the consumer behavior at, at. You know, the consumers have been, you know, cutting the cord for many, many years. Um, you know, less hardware, less infrastructure, more reliance on, on either wired or wireless infrastructure to consume that content.
you know, that that's here to stay. Um, you know, there's way, way too many signals in the market over the last five years that have been showing that this is the trend that everyone's, everyone's going to. Europe's been been doing it this way for a while, but it's in.
For [00:16:00] me, and I think the market, it's, it's follow the consumer trends. They, they wanna be able to log into Subscriptions and, and bring it with them and consume it wherever they are, and whether they're looking at it on their mobile device, on their tablet, or all the way to the tv. Um, so be it.
And, and even frankly, even in the meeting space, there's enough signals out there where, where, you know, again, going back to. Smaller footprint of hardware. Um, the name of the game is to try to eliminate as much of that hardware and expense as you possibly can and just push everything either to the cloud or to a, a video streaming type solution, whatever the use case may be.
Adam Mogelonsky: So I'm wondering if we can just unpack the process behind that. So it's very easy for us to talk about the trends, but then for a hotel to decide to implement upon those trends is a lot of technical work, especially if we're talking about anything that's gonna modify the physical structure of a room.[00:17:00]
How would you work with a hotel to guide them through the process? To help set them up for digital signage success over the next three to five years.
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah. Yeah, great question. I mean, this is, this is about digital transformation, right? Is how do you make that. either call it the status quo or what the current state is. Right? I mean, the industry's been doing the same thing, uh, for, for many, many years. So, you know, again, you have to get past the emotional side of, well, this is what I know and this is the way I've, I've done it.
And it's a very different story in, in the guest room than it is in, say, the public space. As, as an example, you know, in the public space there's all kinds of, licensing and, and things that are a little bit different in the guest room. And so that has to be sorted out through with the major, with the major content providers.
So it's a, it's a slightly different story. Um, but I think that the trend is showing us that, that there's gonna be some consolidation there. Like maybe I say it a different way, you know, today, if you wanna watch linear [00:18:00] content, it's one infrastructure for the guest room, one infrastructure for the public space.
we see a trend to, to, to converge that. That's one item. Um, the second item is, is, you know, there's demand from the market to say, well. Why do I need all that extra hardware to, to manage and control this content? Why can't I just stream it? And, that's really where everyone is, is, is needing to go.
So the way we help, um, the market. Digitally transform is just by having these open conversations about, about it, right? You know, what exactly does the consumer want? what is your current state? Do you have the right, I mean, there has to be some hardware in play here, right? With without a doubt.
today, there's no magic. Maybe in three years there'll be something magical that changes all of this, but, in the guest room example, um, still need a television. You've gotta, uh, you know, figure out what their current state is and you know, what their contractual obligations are and, and what the timing looks like in order to make sure that the end consumer experience objective is [00:19:00] clearly defined and understood.
and then put them on the path. Relative to, you know, at what point in time can you cut the cord, uh, at what point in time can are you really re really ready to make this pivot? and then frankly, I think the biggest challenge that I'm seeing in this, and I've been seeing this for several years now, is, the constraint on capital budget cycles to be able to do it.
At a pace that is either a big bang, you know, do it once, rip and replace, or you have to sort of slowly evolve into it. And I think the market is slowly evolving into it, and they're just figuring out how to, how to leverage their three year capital cycle plan to get to the promised land versus just doing one massive capital refresh to, to be able to cycle in what the next generation consumer experience looks like.
Adam Mogelonsky: It's very great that you mentioned the CapEx term because that's the big thing that's gonna drive. What to do with the actual guest rooms is all's well and good until you gotta start ripping out walls [00:20:00] to change your, your low voltage hardware. And then you're looking not only at a larger magnitude of budget per room, but also you're taking product offline, so it affects your, your year over year revenues.
And to that point, just to drill a little bit further into what you just said, could you. Walk us through how you would, what you would advise for a hotel who wants to have a digital transformation, but doesn't necessarily want to go through a massive pip, a massive property improvement plan to start ripping out walls.
What can they do for the proverbial low hanging fruit?
Shawn O'Connell: I think, the market, um, driven mostly by the brands, but I, I think generally speaking, the market has done a very, very good job of embracing. You know, the wireless and broadband infrastructures and, and video and video compression has changed quite a bit over the years as well. Making it easier to rely on, on wifi in [00:21:00] particular, so you don't have to go and, and rip up walls and, and, you know, literally knows what you find behind, behind those walls and, uh, you know, right.
So, the wireless move has really, has really done the industry a. A big favor. Again, we all know with video, depending on if it's 4K or, or even more in some cases, you know, wired is definitely the right, the right way to go. But by and large, you know, new builds are the only ones that are gonna be running, running, wired and wireless infrastructure to, to the guest room, uh, to avoid the pip that you're referring to.
So, uh, again, there is a path to do this over a property structured wired infrastructure, and I think most of the brands are already there, right? Because at the end of the day, the consumer's already walking into these guest rooms, you know, hitting the wifi, SSID, you know, consuming their content anyways, right?
So the, the broadband is getting consumed, whether it's for free or, for payment. It's already happening. Now it's just a matter of, of taking that next step and getting it to the glass.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome.
Vincent Somsen: I was [00:22:00] just thinking, okay, what is the opportunity, what is the opportunity for an independent hotelier versus a, uh, flagged property, for example? Right. you know, a property that is not, doesn't have a centralized marketing, director or, or, or like.
Shawn O'Connell: I, I, to me it's the same, it's the same thing. It's just different players, uh, d different players that need to be involved and, and honestly, they, and we're, we're seeing a, a, a trend or a movement, if you will, of, of more, more independent properties and, some growth in that area as well. And, you know, they're, while they're not.
They're not confined to, brand standards. They create their own brand standards. And so if at the end of the day the owner or the operator of that particular independent says, I want the consumer, uh, experience to be, or guest experience to be this, and nine times outta 10, it's, they're at home experience what they're asking for.
Everyone's asking for it, right? So it's like. Sean and team, how do we get the at-home experience to, to the lobby? How do we get it to the guest room? And so, they basically, we just, we, we create [00:23:00] that brand experience with them. Um, and you know, they, they still have to have their IT folks and their markers.
They still have to have some, some, some wherewithal on what infrastructure needs are. But you know, we guide them towards that. And by and large they do anyway. So. you know, again, I, I think it's much easier and faster to implement this in a independent environment, uh, because they have absolute control and say over what they want.
Adam Mogelonsky: Vincent, you raised a very interesting point about. To flag or not to flag. That is the question. And there is a very interesting movement nowadays that with the democratization of technology, it is much easier to be an independent and still drive that throughput of occupancy without the support of a flag for international distribution.
That said, Shawn, could you give us an example about. What an independent can do with Uni guest to really create that incredible [00:24:00] onsite experience through digital signage?
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, there's no, there's no end. I mean the, the rich content and, and video assets that, that can create engagement and, and personalized related experiences in an independent, there, there's just no end to it, right? I mean, you, whether it's in the lobby, in the public space, um, in the guest room there, there's no behind the front desk.
There is no end end to it because, again, the only, the only limitation there would be would be creative thinking. Um, and, and financial, financial wherewithal to go and, and create these, these unique digital experiences, uh, you know, through, throughout, throughout the guest journey. so again, I mean, everyone's got a, everyone's got a budget, but there is technically no, no end to it.
You know, we, we have a lot of passion for these kinds of projects because you can get, really let your, your creative juices flow. Um. And you can, you can implement quickly as long as, the marketers are on board with it. And as long as they get the budget to help create some of the, some of the digital assets and content that, that, [00:25:00] you know, is happening in market.
But a lot of passion projects going on within that, that luxury boutique and independent, um, segment for sure.
Adam Mogelonsky: I mean, it's, it's huge growth area and it's happening all over the world in various places. So it's hard to, you know, quantify directly without looking at it in hindsight, two years from now, to see how that, how that's worked. So, uh, I'm wondering if we could switch gears here because we're, we're talking a little bit about where we're going in the industry and, uh, particularly your hotel category, uh, of technology.
But you did mention something earlier that was interesting about how Unicast helps K through 12. kindergarten to grade 12, and I'm wondering if we could talk about specifically what hospitality can learn from other industries that you've seen through your experience at Unicast and before that and, where you think that those have the most applicability going forward.[00:26:00]
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, it's, it's, it's always funny to me because, uh, you know, hotels and frankly, even their corporate offices, these are corporate learning environments, right? I mean, this is, education, but just a, a slightly different audience. We're a little bit older. Uh, you know, it's a corporate learning environment.
So, so everything that's happening in the classroom K through 12 or or otherwise is applicable for a convention center, or convention hotel, or even a small meeting space in a, in a selecter in the select service segment. Um, it's conducive. Environment and help invoke the way people ultimately learn and retain information.
Um, you know, we're missing the boat. So, you know, I, I think about things like, like our EE Stream product, which is designed to, to, you know, capture. Capture meetings, capture the story, capture the message, retain it, make sure, you know, edit it, make sure that you're, you're invoking the, the training and education message that, that you want.
It's totally [00:27:00] applicable inside of hotels. It's inside of, in like for, for guest facing purposes. It's applicable for their back of house operations. Um, it's applicable in their corporate offices, wherever, whether it's an ownership group, a management company, or big brands, as a baseline starting point.
You know, I also think about things like, we have a, a product that's called reserva, which is, you know, out, out front of the meeting, uh, of the meeting space environment where, you know, again, it goes back to automation. You know, in theory like a, a select service could have our reserva product on front and they could actually go and, and book and reserve and pay for, the office space.
For a period of time. As another example, you know, we've got dig digital menu boards that integrate into their, their sales, sales and catering. Um, you know, module that basically, you know, customizes messaging and story, you know, welcome uni guests, your meetings from nine to 5:00 PM uh, by the way, your cocktail hour has been moved to the lobby bar.
Something to that effect, right? So all of those kinds of things I think are, are part of the corporate education and learning experience that we're [00:28:00] leaning into.
Adam Mogelonsky: You've mentioned Reserva, you mentioned DStream and Uni Guest has acquired a lot of other companies and a lot of other pro products. So I'm wondering if you could talk about the post acquisition process in terms of integrating teams, how you work across different. Brands or companies within Uni Guest and how you've seen that progress to really get that synergy across the different brands that you have.
Shawn O'Connell: Great, great question. So we, we've obviously been very, very deliberate and strategic in our acquisition strategy over the last several years, right? Like our, our, our very blunt approach was, was. Looking at, um, product and brands that had, uh, a good product and good brand equity inside of a vertical space, that was a growth, engine for us.
So, you know, that really drove, you know, the lion's share of these acquisitions. So what we've been doing is, doing that and then figuring out [00:29:00] where, their product. Compliments our existing base of, of product and then how to transform it as we take that next step into the next generation of, of product.
You know, we're, we're branding that hub, right? Hub is gonna be our, our unification product and brand that takes the best of the best of all. The feature sets that generally speaking have been vertical centric. Unifying them into one cloud-based platform. We also have on, on, on-prem, where on-prem is absolutely needed, but basically unify it under one platform and take all of the feature sets, um, and functionality that we know, um, are relevant segment by segment and, and unifying it.
Right, because what, at the end of the day, like the stadium use case is different. Um, a hotel guest room is, is different. The retail experience is, is different. So that's where all of these acquisitions have basically taken that feature, set functionality by vertical, and is helping us unify and scale within each of those verticals under a unified platform.[00:30:00]
Adam Mogelonsky: Just to color that some more, could you mention some names of some of the companies that have been acquired and then how you've really helped drive that, drive, that synergy and that scaling within, within select verticals or taken the best features added to hub.
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, absolutely. Like if you look at our ultra, our ultra acquisition, right? This was our, basically is the foundation for our hub, our hub platform. And generally it was a, a guest room type platform. But the architecture was absolutely the right architecture for us to scale and, and grow and, and, and pivot some of the legacy, legacy examples.
You know, it's probably like one of the biggest challenges in any acquisition environment is, is that transfer of knowledge in getting, in, getting that transfer of knowledge on that products. Suite to, to then scale to other, other regions in other, in other country. But oms a great, a, a great example of that.
You know, we do some things with our one land product that in retail for example, that is just, it's amazing. It actually checks, it checks all the boxes, uh, [00:31:00] for what retail. Is looking for as, as an example, um, you know, uc v is another great example where whereby the, the menu board application that we have for like food and beverage and, and restaurants and bistro and, concession stands and things like that, you know, a lot of thumbs up.
So there's another good example where we're taking, taking it and taking the best of the best of that particular feature set and baking it into our hub. Uh, infrastructure, um, so that we, make that transformation, you know, occur. if you look at the product like triple Play, right?
Really dominant product and dominant brand, um, inside of the stadium space, mainly driven by its A-I-P-T-V feature set and functionality. but you know, there's a great example where, you know, I. Everyone loves this product. It is a terrific, it's got terrific brand equity. it's rock solid, whether it's on-prem or cloud already.
So we're, we're pretty bullish on making sure that we, we handle that the right way as we transform into the hub, ecosystem environment. Just a few examples. We've got [00:32:00] plenty more.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, and, and that is one thing EST does have a lot of brands and names they've, they've acquired. So when you're. When you're selling a, big part of this is giving a simple, unified message. Do you lead with uni guests and all these verticals or, do each one of these names still have enough brand equity within their select vertical where you acquired them?
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, it's not one size fits all. James, James Keen, who's our CMO, has done a f fan. Fantastic job in marketing, uh, uni guest as as the parent. Um, you know, I, as I engage, uh, in the market with partners and, and end users, uh, throughout the country. You know, it's, it's really starting to resonate with them where they, they know us as uni guest, you know, the, the vernacular of, uh, you know, we once you knew, you as one of the sub-brands.
They're now recognizing that that's still product that's out there. and it's still, it still exists, but they recognize that in, in some cases it's going to go away and just, you know, roll up under Hub as the product. But they know us as uni guest, as the, brand, and, you know. [00:33:00] Big brand, uh, equity background and branding, it really, really matters.
And so we're gonna keep leaning in on, on Uni Guest as the parent, and Hub, as the, product to help simplify it because it can get a little bit confusing both internally and externally with all the different sub-brands. But we're making that change.
Vincent Somsen: Services and your products, how do you think it will play a role? And it plays a role wi within ancillary revenue and, and total revenue, per favorable meter. Right, because we touched upon, uh, your product. Right? And I'm thinking, okay, there is' an angle there where, uh, a lot of hotel think about selling beyond their room or selling beyond their f and b department.
And I know Adam is also.
Um, so yeah, I just wondered if you, uh, have any thoughts around that.
Shawn O'Connell: Yeah, I mean, we're, again, we're being very deliberate in, , a pivot that we're making this year and like we're a software as a service. Company [00:34:00] first. Right? And I think that it plays back into the need for capital, capital infrastructure. We all know that the capital cycle comes once a year.
you know, hopefully you get it right. It always gets cut, and then you don't really know until it's too late that you've cut and then, and then surprise if you don't have the capital and, and you need to pivot quickly. You're kind of outta luck. You have to wait another capital cycle. And again, I'm generalizing here.
So again, we're being very deliberate in the SaaS movement. Um, in order to help make it an operating expense where we can, there's certain verticals that it, it's, it's gonna be a little bit trickier than others, but generally speaking, we move to SaaS. it'll help the, every vertical, frankly, deal with some capital constraint problems that they, they may have along the way.
And, and so I mean that's, that's what we're doing. Um, and, and we think it's the right thing to do and we think it's going to help. Um, and it's not gonna be one size fits all, but I think 80% of the time it's, it's gonna help the market scale and evolve and rapidly implement things that are happening in the market across [00:35:00] all verticals, right?
I mean, 15 years ago. I'm probably dating myself here a little bit, but I mean, 15 years ago, the market didn't move as quickly as we're it's moving today, right? I mean, it is going fast. And so if you wait a full year before you can make a decision on, on what you wanna do, what you're gonna go through, four or five different cycles or trends of something that you missed the boat on and you couldn't capitalize because your capital infrastructure, just either they wouldn't let you or you didn't have enough money to go and, pivot as the market pivots.
Adam Mogelonsky: So that's a very interesting point that you, you've both brought up which touches on sales strategy. So I'm wondering if we can close out. Going back to this whole idea of timeless lessons and you, dated yourself, I would say you, you've just shown how great of a vintage you are. Right. And I'm wondering if we could close out this whole idea of moving from CapEx to opex.
That's a strategic sales decision [00:36:00] to close out. What is your advice or sales for. Time timeless lessons of really selling today in today's complex marketplace. When hoteliers are being pulled in 20 different directions, how do you get in front of them? How do you get it through that? They need your technology and they should implement it relatively quickly instead of getting back to you in the next two years.
How do you do that?
Shawn O'Connell: Wow. this is a tough, a tough question, but I I, I do love it. I, I, I try not to overcomplicate things. I'm really big on getting back to BA basics. I, I think that, you know, customer segmentation, you know, really, really matters. So you can clearly identify your ideal customer profile, right? I mean, if you any organization can't figure that out, you, you probably need to take a step back and, and, and go figure that out, because it's consistent across every, every vertical.
So, that to me is the foundation for the baseline of, of, [00:37:00] you know, sales. Sales 1 0 1. In my 25 plus years, it's worked for me. may not be the, the, the silver bullet, but it's worked for me. and now I'm really gonna say that I'm a little old school. I, I, I'm a big fan of cold calling. I, I think it's still alive and there's all kinds of articles and, and, you know, pros and cons to it.
But, you know, my most effective sellers in 25 years are the guys and the gals that have been out there not afraid to, to bang on on the right doors. That's why the ideal customer profile comes into. Into critical play, but, you know, banging on the doors and, and in a meaningful way. And, and that means different things.
I mean, that can be a very strategic email marketing campaign that could be very strategic social media. It's not just, you know, going door to door, uh, like the good old days. But I'm a big fan of, cold calling, uh, without a doubt. and then I also think that from a, like a route to market standpoint, you know, the, philosophical debate of, well, do you sell direct?
You go through the channel. Is it hybrid? I think, you know, good hybrid strategy is, you know, thumbs up. Um, it's not always gonna have to be one [00:38:00] size fits all, but I think it properly structured channel program to give you scale and distribution, of where to go look and hunt is, is a great route to market.
strategy, and then at the end of the day, people still matter, especially in the B2B space. It's a little bit different on the consumer side, right. But in the B2B space, if, you know, people matter and, if we're not doing eyeball to eyeball and, and doing things like this, you know, you can market to your nth degree.
You can email campaign to the nth degree, but it's not gonna shake the tree. And, and especially in the B2B space, especially in hospitality, it's a people first, uh, you know, vertical, which I, I subscribe to very, very deeply. Um, and, and I, I think we just need to make sure that people are, are selling and engaging with people.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. Those are three very important timeless lessons. Know your customer, ideal persona, whatever. Cold calling and really grinding it out. And then of course, hospitality is all about people. Thank you, Sean. Any uh, final thoughts? Vincent?[00:39:00]
Vincent Somsen: I think it has been a great conversation. I think there's a lot of opportunity and there's still, so many opportunities I think for both independent autos and, flagged properties, uh, for the kind of services that unicast, uh, provide. So appreciate your time, uh, today, Sean.
Adam Mogelonsky: Thanks,
Shawn O'Connell: Wonderful. Thank you guys. I really great seeing you. I really appreciate, uh, appreciate your time today. Thanks for having us. So really appreciate it.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. Thanks for coming on.
