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Techday NZ
6 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Exclusive: How APAC hotels are adopting AI & automation for growth
Hotels across Asia Pacific are urgently rethinking their digital strategies in response to the prominence of online travel agencies (OTAs) and mobile-first consumers. According to Klaus Kohlmayr, Chief Evangelist and Chief Development Officer at IDeaS, the market is seeing unprecedented competition and a technological arms race as properties strive to stand out in an increasingly digital world. "There's a real danger when you have too much reliance on your OTAs or OTA channels," he warned, during a recent interview with TechDay. Kohlmayr observes that many hotels, especially independent operators and those outside global distribution networks, may find themselves trapped in a dependency on OTAs because their primary markets are often far away. "It's all about having the right balance between your indirect channels, your direct channels, and your direct sales and marketing efforts for your own people," he adds. The imperative, he argues, is to invest in technology that allows for direct engagement with guests-platforms with modern booking engines and seamless connectivity across systems. The pressure to adapt is intensifying as mobile devices become travellers' primary planning and booking tools. Yet, Kohlmayr believes the next disruption is right around the corner. "Mobile is the dominant way of searching and exploring and dreaming right now, and also booking in many places. I think that's going to be replaced through AI chat bots fairly quickly." With the rise of generative AI, from tools like Gemini to ChatGPT, the hotel discovery process is starting to shift; consumers are now asking AI assistants for travel recommendations, and hotels need new strategies to ensure they appear in these AI-driven results. "For hotels, it's really, really critical to be AI optimised, not just search engine optimised or mobile optimised. The next wave of conversations... is about how do you AI optimise your business?" This transition requires a major rethink of hotel technology architecture. The traditional patchwork of systems-property management (PMS), central reservations (CRS), customer relationship (CRM), marketing platforms, and revenue management (RMS)-too often fails to operate as an integrated ecosystem. Kohlmayr points to a common mistake: "Sometimes decisions are made based on price, maybe, and on other factors than how well [systems] connect and how well they're future-proofing the hotel… Sometimes decisions are being made in isolation, and it's actually moving the business backwards instead of forwards." The consequences of this fragmentation are immediate and costly. Competitive hotels now expect fully connected tech stacks; lack of integration translates into missed opportunities and an inability to react to market shifts. "A typical hotel needs to make about 5 million pricing decisions, for example. And those pricing decisions need to happen all the time, day and night, weekends and weekdays." When systems aren't properly connected, not only is the guest experience undermined, but revenue lags behind competitors with more modern infrastructure. "We've seen people that had the right technology ecosystem in place were able to react much, much faster to changes in booking markets than people that didn't have that in place, and maybe were not even focused on if their rates aligned with current booking conditions because something changed on the weekend or during periods when people were not at work." Evidence points to the business case for integrated, automated revenue management technology. Kohlmayr references BYD Loft Hotel in Thailand, which has reported a 15% increase in revenue since adopting revenue management technologies. More broadly, research indicates system-driven approaches can lift net operating profits for owners by 4% to 15%. "There is a lot of data out there that proves that having the right technology in place and having the right tech stack in place that's connected... can significantly increase not just the top line, but also the bottom line." Beyond the back-office, automation is transforming the guest journey. With consumer expectations shaped by mobile-first brands and digital-native platforms, hospitality is under pressure to deliver speed, convenience and personalisation at every stage. "Automation enables me to select my room and enables me to bypass the front desk. It enables me to go through my entire journey without actually having to, if I don't want to, talk to a person when I'm on a business trip," says Kohlmayr. He believes that contactless check-in and mobile key access are "no longer futuristic and are becoming standard among global brands", further raising the bar for digital guest experience. This expansion of digital guest touchpoints brings a new challenge: personalisation across the many stages of the customer journey, from pre-booking to post-stay. Successful hotels, according to Kohlmayr, are those that map expectations to distinct phases-dreaming, decision, pre-arrival, arrival, in-stay, and post-stay-and use data to anticipate needs. "The best example of that is if you arrive at a hotel and you're walking through the doors, and when you come to the front desk, somebody greets you by name and already knows who you are before you have even mentioned your name, right?" However, he acknowledges that the industry is still catching up, particularly in delivering robust recognition and tailored service for loyal guests. Looking ahead, Kohlmayr highlights three forces set to redefine the industry: merchandising beyond room sales, the next generation of integrated tech stacks, and the infusion of artificial intelligence throughout the guest experience. "Everyone wants to merchandise and retail more than just the room... becoming more of a retail experience, not just a room stay experience, is a key objective. Digitising that and making it available online to pay and book these services online is going to be critical. And then, how do you infuse that with AI? How do you generate an experience that is enabled or enhanced through AI?" The convergence of digital integration, data-driven automation and artificial intelligence is reshaping not just competition, but customer expectations across hospitality. "If we're not able as an industry to cater to that, then guests will just vote with their feet and select the company or the hotel company that enables them to meet their expectations in digital journeys."
Techday NZ
16-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Exclusive: Inside Motorola Solutions' vision for the future of retail
Organisations in the retail sector are getting used to shifting from one challenge after another. Amidst the panic of the global pandemic, Australians ran toilet paper supplies dry in supermarkets. Violence in retail environments remains at concerning levels while retailers continue to grapple with better ways to serve customers and help their staff to manage their workflows amidst a deluge of demands from shoppers. To better support retail in overcoming these challenges, Motorola Solutions has directed considerable resources and investments towards its strategy and innovations for the sector in recent years. From new acquisitions, to productivity-enhancing software to help retail workers stay on top of their daily tasks and prevent customer "walk-outs", physical security solutions and beyond – the company is pursuing a dedicated strategy to transform the technology that powers the retail sector. Speaking to TechDay, Daniel Leppos, Motorola Solutions Director for ANZ, Pacific Islands and Indonesia, said the company's focus in recent years has been to build and connect technologies that help to unify public safety and enterprise organisations, a development that brings strong benefits to retail. "Historically, you would think of frontline workers as being public safety officials – police, paramedics and firefighters – but when you look closer, retail workers are at the coal face too, and they have similar needs for technology that can help them work more productively while keeping themselves and shoppers safe," he said. "Our ecosystem of connected technologies spans voice communication, software and video security; and all three of those core platforms can make a big difference in retail." Leppos pointed to the company's acquisition of Theatro in March this year as a clear example of Motorola Solutions' strategy to drive innovation in retail. The maker of AI- and voice-powered communication and digital workflow software for frontline workers provides a suite of collaboration applications that deliver information in real time to help improve productivity and physical safety for workers. One of Theatro's solutions is a voice-activated AI device that can be worn by retail workers and operates over in-store Wi-Fi. The device integrates with back-end systems and enables workers to quickly check inventory levels or query back-end policies to guide fast and effective customer service measures. "So imagine a retail worker pressing a button on this device to ask 'what's our store's policy for dealing with a spill or how to clean up damaged or broken products?' or 'can I get this shoe in a different style, size or colour?'. "It delivers assistive AI to frontline workers when and where they need it, helping them to deliver better customer service which translates into more sales," he said. In 2024, Motorola Solutions bolstered its offering for the retail sector with the acquisition of Noggin, a global provider of cloud-based business continuity planning, operational resilience and critical event management (CEM) software headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Noggin serves a number of retail customers globally, providing software that helps enterprises to anticipate, prepare for and efficiently respond to incidents. With a single, easy-to-use interface, Noggin's software enables response teams to communicate directly, follow unified procedures and view the same operating picture during everyday incidents or emergencies. Safety solutions for retail Safety and security technology have been central to Motorola Solutions' innovations throughout the company's history, and Leppos says these solutions remain fundamental in retail settings. Motorola Solutions examined the scale of challenges facing the retail sector in its 2024 retail safety survey. "We found that one in three frontline retail workers has considered quitting their job because they feel unsafe. Yet, more than half of our survey respondents also told us that wearing body cameras could help them to feel safer because it's a technology that actually helps to deter abuse or even assault," Leppos said. Major retailers in Australia have started deploying body cameras including Motorola Solutions' new V200, helping to increase awareness and accountability in interactions between workers and shoppers on the floor. The camera, designed for enterprise use, integrates with broader incident management platforms. It can record video up to two minutes before and after activation, and can be configured to capture audio recordings. Footage from the cameras is stored securely and made accessible to managers in real time, helping to capture evidence, support incident investigations or simply document opportunities for process improvements. "When an incident happens, it's all about communication," Leppos said. "By sending real-time footage and audio directly to a control room, you're able to bring more people into the picture about what's happening on the ground. That leads to better-informed decisions on how to respond in the moment while providing valuable data and learnings for organisations so they can decide where to place their resources in the future." Leppos said that while all of Motorola Solutions' voice, video and software technologies can support retailers in delivering better outcomes, ever-greater benefits come from integrating these technologies together. "When you walk into a major retail store and see the discreet use of radio devices, video security to maintain visibility inside and outside of the trading environment and software to help frontline workers, you know that valuable data is being generated. That data makes a fundamental difference when help is needed in response to an incident, or when you're seeking to provide the best possible customer service." To extend the reach of its deployments, Motorola Solutions' channel network and train-the-trainer programs scale up to serve the needs of large retail networks. This helps to ensure retail staff understand how to operate their devices, manage their data, and stay compliant with industry regulations. Motorola Solutions sees similar applications for its technology in other sectors, too. "For example, universities, stadiums, airports and hospitals are other areas where large flows of people create the need for better coordination among frontline teams as well as better security to protect against potential risks." These "Campus-based deployments" are already emerging," Leppos said. Meanwhile in Asia, the market dynamics are a little different, Leppos said. Productivity is the main driver of technology adoption. "Australia invests in both safety and productivity. In Asia, it's more about getting that higher level of operations efficiency. But demand for our solutions is growing across different sectors including hospitality, logistics, and campus security." "We've always been rooted in radio communications," Leppos said. "Now, we're investing heavily in video security, software, AI and IoT – all of which produces data that can be integrated and delivered to a central point such as a command centre. That's the key – to making workplaces safer and more productive in the future and where retailers stand to gain considerable advantages."
Techday NZ
11-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Exclusive: How legacy systems expose firms to security and cost risks
Legacy systems are dragging down the digital ambitions of modern enterprises, making them vulnerable to security threats and inflated costs, according to David Fairman, APAC Chief Security Officer at Netskope. "A lot of it comes back to legacy architectures and the way that organisations have been built," Fairman told TechDay during a recent interview. "Unless you're talking about truly cloud native, modern companies, many organisations in sectors like healthcare and financial services have significant investments in legacy technologies, and these simply haven't adapted to the realities of hybrid or distributed workforces." The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to hybrid work, which in turn altered how and where data flows. For businesses in tightly regulated industries, this shift has brought friction, as old systems struggle to keep pace with new operating models. "Those legacy architectures just haven't really adapted," he explained. "That causes a natural friction." Crucially, Fairman believes the result is a stark trade-off: organisations must now choose between robust security and agile performance. "Maybe they start reducing their overall threat protection capabilities. More importantly, they lose visibility in that hybrid environment - knowing where data is traversing, who is using it, and whether it's being accessed by third parties," he warned. This lack of visibility puts strain on security teams. "The ability for a security team to truly have the insights they need to make fast and efficient security decisions and responses is deteriorated." Fairman also highlighted how fragmented infrastructure creates duplication, operational headaches, and rising costs. "We're trying to stitch together these disparate security capabilities that aren't integrated, that aren't a true platform solution," he said. "It creates complexity. Complexity creates cost, because now we've got multiple teams, multiple skill sets, multiple processes that we need to try and stitch together and make that work in unison. It's not efficient." In contrast, modern infrastructure designed for the cloud era offers a clear path forward. "The distributed workforce is the norm today. We need to think about how we build architectures or technology services that enable the flexibility that's demanded by that hybrid workforce," he said. However, the complexity does not stop at technology. Regulations - especially around data sovereignty - add further complications for global firms. "Different jurisdictions are driving a lot more complexity and expectation around data sovereignty, and that's very hard for a global organisation to try and work through," Fairman added. To meet these challenges, Fairman advocates for radical simplification. "I believe that we can improve security by reducing complexity. Platform simplification and tech stack simplification has always been a mantra of how I've thought about building a security capability," he said. A consolidated platform offers consistent enforcement of security policies and fewer opportunities for gaps or misalignment. "If you have one security policy, one security engine, one inspection engine, one team, one set of skill sets… that simplicity allows you to minimise the gaps that you would have in a complex organisation," he explained. By contrast, fragmented approaches only exacerbate inconsistency and cost. "You have an inconsistent application of a security policy. It becomes very costly and expensive because then you've got different teams trying to sync toolings and policy sets that don't quite match… that becomes somewhat opaque," he said. The administrative overhead is considerable. From managing multiple tools to the risk of key-person dependency, duplication affects both performance and resilience. But with consolidation, Fairman said, organisations benefit from "single processes, single skill sets and the ability to achieve multiple outcomes," such as compliance and adaptability. Fairman also argued that regulatory pressure could be turned into an advantage with the right systems in place. "If you have platforms that help you achieve [compliance] in a very clear and consistent manner, it reduces that burden and that overhead. It allows them to focus their attention where they need to focus, versus the regulatory drivers or the control drivers." Security and network operations are also undergoing a merger of their own. "The internet today is the network. We used to build networks; now it's the internet," Fairman said. This convergence, he believes, can help break down operational silos. "The consolidation has really driven a convergence of those network and security teams. It's broken down some barriers. It gives you a consistent view and helps organisations achieve their regulatory requirements in a consistent manner." With security budgets under pressure, Fairman encourages IT leaders to think lean. "How do I drive down cost? I do that by reducing some complexity," he said. But simplification isn't just technical - it requires operational reform too. "You can't run your organisation the way we used to run them yesterday; we need to transform our operating model, not just our technology. They go hand in glove." Looking ahead, Fairman anticipates more upheaval in secure networking, driven by data growth and emerging technologies. "AI is going to absolutely drive a wedge in how we're thinking about the world today," he said. "Data lineage and data control, data growth is going to expand exponentially… and of course, how can we forget post-quantum or quantum computing and the challenges that that's going to start to drive for us?"
Korea Herald
07-07-2025
- Automotive
- Korea Herald
LG's top execs visit Honda HQ to showcase EV tech
LG Group is hosting a private "Tech Day" event at the headquarters of Japan's Honda Motor Co. this week, underscoring its push into the future mobility sector to strengthen its foothold in the burgeoning electric vehicle components market. Led by LG Corp. Vice Chairman Kwon Bong-seok, a high-level LG delegation flew to Tokyo on Sunday to meet with Honda's top executives, according to industry sources on Monday. The delegation includes CEOs from LG's major subsidiaries such as Cho Joo-wan of LG Electronics, Kim Dong-myung of LG Energy Solution, Jeong Cheol-dong of LG Display and Moon Hyuk-soo of LG Innotek. Tech Day at Honda headquarters is likely to feature a range of LG's cutting-edge technologies tailored for future vehicles, including infotainment systems, automotive cameras, communication modules, EV batteries and in-vehicle displays. As the global auto industry shifts from internal combustion engines to electric and software-defined vehicles, LG has been doubling down on its efforts to supply key components. The group has already secured partnerships with top-tier global carmakers including Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai Motor, Toyota and General Motors. LG is placing strategic emphasis on its EV component business, with Chairman Koo Kwang-mo overseeing its development as a key driver of future growth. The conglomerate has established a "one team for EV parts" system, fostering close collaboration among affiliates such as LG Electronics, LG Innotek, LG Energy Solution, LG Display, LG Magna and ZKW Group. The integrated approach enables the group to combine each company's technologies and products into comprehensive solutions, which are increasingly being supplied to global automakers in the form of bundled offerings. This week's visit to Honda marks the latest in LG's series of targeted engagements with global original equipment manufacturers. In March 2024, LG held its first Tech Day at Mercedes-Benz's headquarters in Germany. It followed up with similar events at Hyundai Motor's Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, in April and Toyota's headquarters in Japan in September. "Typically, face-to-face sales through local visits foster deeper relationships and significantly increase the likelihood of meaningful business outcomes,' said an industry source who requested anonymity. "LG Group is being highly regarded for its exceptional display quality and advanced electronics technology, as well as for its strong understanding of EV structures, including battery systems,' the source added.
CNBC
24-06-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Real AI revolution is still to come, Bosch chairman says
Stefan Hartung, chairman of the board of management of Bosch, discusses the company's artificial intelligence strategy on Bosch's Tech Day.
