Tom Weaver, chief executive of Flypay, the mobile technology provider for the hospitality industry, has said that restaurants have been quicker to adapt to technological solutions than the pub sector.
Weaver, who will unveil a partnership with a major pub company at the Managed Pub Summit on 23 June, said restaurant companies had historically been able to be “more nimble” in adopting technological solutions.
However, he said he thought the pub sector was now primed to catch up with eating out establishments.
He said: “It is a really interesting time for pubs and I think you are likely to see changes in the way they respond to situations and how they use technology to do that over the coming years.
“Restaurants have had the advantage of being smaller and don’t need to worry about the limitations that come as a very large publicly listed organisation. Restaurants can be more nimble with how they respond. The larger you are the bigger boat you have to turn.
“But having worked with both sectors, we see equal levels of desire in terms of innovation. The truth is the whole industry is still a way off where it needs to be.
“Companies have spent the last few years refreshing the POS systems and concentrating on those basics of making sure you are as efficient as you can be. Now they are starting to look to what else technology can do for them and there is a lot of excitement out there about that.”
This morning, M&C Report revealed that Flypay is working with Apple on a project that Weaver said would be ‘a roadmap of change for the sector’.
