WITH lockdowns lifting and vaccination rates rising across the region, leisure activities such as traveling are picking up pace. With the advent of virtual education and work from home, consumers today are considerably more connected and consume digital products and services extensively, relying on connectivity to a much greater extent.
In fact, according to mobile network operator Globe’s latest data, there were more than 560,000 customers on 5G devices in March 2020 in the Philippines. In April, the number went up to more than 620,000 or a 10.7 percent increase and more than 700,000 or a 12.9 percent surge by the end of May. There was an average of 11.8 percent increase in device count during the same period just last year (2021).
As such, customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry today depends greatly on the organization’s ability to fulfill the need for fast and efficient connectivity. Organizations are also investing in connectivity capabilities, not just for their customers, but also because it enables these organizations to better collate, analyze and harvest customer data from an ever-expanding source of digital touchpoints and channels.
5G’s capabilities are multi-faceted; if deployed effectively, 5G has the potential to thrust businesses towards growth, and this is particularly true for businesses in highly competitive, customer-facing industries such as hospitality. With the capability to enhance various offerings and services, 5G has the potential to significantly impact guest convenience, engagement and the modernization of hotel operations.
Before delving into the specifics of what businesses need to consider when it comes to deploying 5G effectively, it would be pertinent to first unpack a few points on how 5G could be a game-changer for businesses in the hospitality industry.
5G connectivity in hospitality
Enhancing streaming capabilities. People are watching more content on more devices than ever before. With mobile viewership on the rise and the rollout of 5G mobile networks expected to drive even higher stream viewership in the coming years, the future for video streaming technology is bright. Hotels need to stay ahead of these tech trends as providing the latest in connectivity is essential when it comes to bringing quality service to customers. As connectivity standards rise, customer expectations rise as well.
Leveraging AI/machine learning toward increased sustainability and operational efficiency. From an operations perspective, with 5G, hotels should have a greater ability to monitor and track hotel assets, such as room temperatures and lighting throughout the hotel, enabling efficient and sustainable energy consumption. To add on, new asset tracking capabilities mean that operators could easily locate equipment, luggage racks, and cleaning carts. And robots, unified through a speedy 5G network, could be implemented for routine tasks such as cleaning common areas, security, delivery services and guiding guests.
With effective 5G capabilities, hotels would be able to increase the amount of throughput, significantly reducing the cost of delivering a stream, thereby, helping to potentially reduce the total cost of ownership.
Furthermore, 5G enables organizations to gather and analyze customer data more effectively as the time needed to process data is significantly reduced with greater connectivity.
It’s no surprise that emerging technologies such as 5G are being increasingly used for the aforementioned projects. The connectivity that underpins them is critical. To ensure cloud migrations happen smoothly, enterprises need to focus on flexible, high bandwidth, low latency connectivity.
To do that, it is pertinent to identify the right partners with the necessary skills and expertise in emerging technologies like 5G to elevate your business offerings. Organizations need an ecosystem of partners working together to deliver for them and their end customers. Led by capable professionals with over 19 years of experience in elevating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) standards in the hospitality industry, FID Solutions is an established, leading ICT service provider with extensive experience in elevating communications technology. With a range of highly competitive offerings, superior design and exceptional support, FID Solutions strives to take what’s always been in your DNA to create an environment of constant transformation that puts organizations in the best possible position to tackle today’s business challenges.
The right platform
5G would elevate customer satisfaction and enable businesses to process data more effectively — enjoying lower latency even with the most data-rich retail analytics. 5G is bringing about transformation, but to reap the benefits of transformative technology such as 5G, a fundamental re-assessment of approaches and architectures is required.
For organizations to keep up with rapidly evolving technological trends, IT leaders and business owners are prioritizing one characteristic as they upgrade their infrastructure — flexibility. First and foremost, the key to accomplishing your communication network goals is putting the right CPU at the heart of your infrastructure.
In addition to flexibility, other key characteristics to consider when modifying the infrastructure include performance, efficiency and security. AMD EPYC processors were designed to provide the flexibility, performance and value needed to implement new opportunities, and capitalize on the full potential of existing, nascent and evolving technological trends, including 5G.
Improved workload performance and seamless integration. AMD EPYC processors could help enable the superior performance of Network function virtualization (NFV). Furthermore, the x86 architecture enables smooth interoperability with virtualized network and data center infrastructure, streamlining development and management efficiencies.
Advanced security features: AMD Infinity Guard and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization Technologies. AMD Infinity Guard adds layers of security features from the core to the edge with virtually zero performance impact, while AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization Technologies helps ensure the integrity of your infrastructure. With Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV), AMD EPYC processors help safeguard privacy and integrity by encrypting each virtual machine with one of up to 509 unique encryption keys known only to the processor. This aids in protecting the confidentiality of your data even if a malicious virtual machine finds a way into your virtual machine’s memory, or a compromised hypervisor reaches into a guest virtual machine.
Customer needs a shift in accordance with rapidly evolving technological trends; to provide a straightforward example in line with the topic of this article, the emergence of 5G has generated the need for faster connectivity. Anything slower than what customers are used to has the potential to cause great frustration. Customer-facing organizations, such as those in the highly competitive hospitality industry, are in need, like others, to constantly stay ahead of technological trends.
Tesa Paras-Bognot is the founder and managing director, Fix n IT Design Solutions, while Peter Chamber is the managing director for sales at AMD Asia Pacific & Japan.