JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – 28 August 2019 – The softest, most comfortable mattresses and a power shower, no longer break the top of the list of hotel guest requirements. They’re expected. The fact is, intelligent tech in hotel design is quickly altering customer’s perceptions of hospitality. While the fundamentals of exceptional hospitality will always remain true, with more and more visitors searching for truly distinct and personalised hotel experiences, the hospitality industry has turned to technology to offer guests greater control over their stay in the hotel.

Digital Natives Are Here to Stay

Today, millennials account for 30% of all hotel guests and that figure is set to rise to 75% by 2020. They have grown up in a mobile-first world, as a dominant tribe of digital natives and expect to be able to use their mobile devices and applications to do anything from shopping to meetings, to tracking their home security. Also, they travel in a BYOD [Bring Your Own Device] culture with various devices and expect digital characteristics and applications that are essential to their stay, while likewise expecting to readily verify their information and communicate with their hotel immediately via an app rather than an email, mobile, or web browser.

A New Generation of Hotel Managers

Some hoteliers have expressed worries about applications and tech depersonalising the hotel experience. However, hoteliers who adapt to a first tech approach are improving guest satisfaction faster than ever. Technology offers guests a return to proper hospitality in this environment, giving them a higher level of control over their on-site, in-room experiences, enhancing their stay and delivering previously impossible, highly personalised experiences.

Welcome to Positive ROI

In an increasingly crowded and competitive industry, hotels groups across the world are embracing and experimenting with smart tech in hotels to deliver innovative and ground-breaking experiences. For example, Samsung South Africa in partnership with HTI Consulting hosted key hotel partners at its Samsung offices in Johannesburg for key industry leaders from organisations, including the Hilton Hotel Group, AHA Group, Legacy Group and the Hospitality Property Fund.

Samsung showcased innovative products designed to enhance customer touchpoints across the hospitality sector from business to leisure. These include the ground-breaking QLED TV range, Hospitality Display Range, Samsung Fl!p and QLED curved monitors – products suited to an industry that continues to raise the bar in terms of customer experiences.

“Innovative business solutions require powerful business technology. We’re pleased that our products have received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic reaction from an industry, intent on taking customer satisfaction levels to unprecedented heights”, says Reggie Nxumalo, B2B Director at Samsung South Africa. “Utilising smart tech in hotel design is opening doors to increased revenue, unlocking new income streams, reducing waste and improving sustainability”

Sources

• http://occa-design.com/hotel-technology-5-ways-were-embracing-smart-tech-in-hotel-design/
• https://www.cordonbleu.edu/news/digital-disruption-in-the-hotel-industry/en

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – 22 October, 2018 – We live in an era that embraces collaboration and diverse perspectives. Effective brainstorm sessions are therefore more relevant now than they’ve ever been before. The idea of company brainstorms has been around since after World War Two, but the focus now is on how to best harness their power to serve the short and long-term needs of modern businesses. Here are six ways you can do so:

Make A Statement

The first step should be to determine a clear problem that the brainstorming session will address. This could take the form of a question, such as “How can we expand our delivery routes in the North West?” It’s then essential to set boundaries for possible solutions. For example, solutions may need to be implemented within three months. The tighter the boundaries set, the greater the chances of finding appropriate solutions.

Clarify The Statement

Next, compile any additional information participants will need to know. If possible, send the details ahead of time to elicit more productive responses during the session. Additionally, it’s important to establish definitions of key terms and ideas so everyone works from the same page. Every pertinent word in the initial statement should be expanded on to ensure all participants share a common understanding of the problem to be solved. The process of unpacking this information is itself a catalyst for effective brainstorming.

Choose The Right Facilitator

The facilitator can make or break a brainstorm. They should be selected based on their ability to keep the session on track and be unbiased. Their central role is to make sure everyone participates and that no one dominates the discussion. Importantly, the person selected should be approachable. An imposing senior manager, for example, could prevent the free flow of thoughts.

Get The Right Group Dynamic

The session should include people in the company who understand the problem based on their relevant exposure and/or expertise. However, one or two participants from another area of the business could add unique insights that could potentially take the session to a more productive level. Where possible, invite a diverse mix of participants from varying cultures, backgrounds and age groups. Some of the best ideas are generated when a group is made up of individuals with different perspectives on the same problem.

Use Technology To Your Benefit

Technology has touched every facet of the business world and can positively impact a brainstorm session. A great example of this is the traditional flip chart, which has now undergone a remarkable transformation, courtesy of Samsung. The Samsung FL!P can add that extra sense of connectedness, vital to any brainstorm. It’s a brilliant, ultra-high definition LCD mobile display stand, with a super responsive stylus for writing and drawing, making it feel like you’re using a marker on a board. Better still, the FL!P is web-connected, making fully synchronised collaboration possible in meetings. Those with a laptop, tablet or smartphone can mirror their screens to share content. Ideas from the brainstorm can also be recapped and shared instantly, using built-in email, distributed over your network or saved to USB storage.

Take A Shower

Ideally, a brainstorm should not last more than an hour. At this point, attention spans waiver and the quality of suggestions weaken. Once the session is complete, the list of shortlisted ideas should be shared. Quite often, it’s the hours or days after the brainstorm that inspires the best thinking. After reading a recap of the session, the magical Eureka moment can happen in the unlikeliest of places, like the shower or while driving home from work.

“The best business solutions are often unearthed in conditions conducive to lateral thinking and the sharing of insights. When brainstorm sessions are organised, collaborative and the initial results are easily shared, the ideas arrive like a bolt of lightning from the skies. That’s when the power of brainstorming makes an impact on the bottom line”, says Reginald Nxumalo, Director of Consumer Electronics, Samsung South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 16 October 2018 – We live in the digital age, a time that tests our brains’ ability to concentrate on single sources of information. It’s therefore no surprise that our attention spans are on the wane. Which is why creating and delivering engaging workshops has become a greater challenge than ever before. Fortunately, there are steps to escape the blank stares and contagious yawns of participants.

“In the information era, the very technologies that seize our attention can also be used to focus them,” says Reginald Nxumalo, Director of Consumer Electronics, Samsung South Africa.

Here are five tips to keep an audience riveted:

Are we there yet? Ensure that your learners are aware of the overall objective of the content as well as the expected course targets. Where possible, attendees should state their personal learning goals at the beginning of the workshop. These measures lay the foundation for productive training sessions. Afterall, we’re more likely to go along for the journey when we know the destination.

Location, location, location! You don’t always have the luxury to choose the perfect training room. You should however use your existing environment to its full potential. Are there windows? Let the light and air in. If the room feels lifeless, add colour. Even the addition of a pot plant or two unlocks the potential of the room and opens minds. Ideally, by challenging convention and surprising attendees with tweaks to the layout of your existing space, you can take your training sessions to the next level. The Samsung FL!P is an ideal tool for any environment – not only is it mobile, it’s secure as well, keeping your information and ideas safe.

Are they listening? There is no reason to give a bad presentation. In fact, there is every reason to use tools that turn ordinary workshops into memorable experiences. The Samsung FL!P is an innovative digital flipchart that helps create interactive presentations that capture the imagination. This means both facilitators and learners can work smarter, faster and better. It’s a flipchart on steroids, with a touchscreen that allows you to display course work, graphics and AV material, as well as write and save notes.

Let’s connect! In most sessions you’ll be competing for attention with learners’ phones. If you can’t beat them, join them. Construct your programme like a social media feed – shorter, engaging snippets of information. Make the content relevant and where possible, entertaining. Additionally, taking a short break after an hour or two makes a world of difference. Give your group the chance to walk around, grab refreshments or just chat informally. This allows you go effortlessly from information overload to information upload.

A rewarding experience. Learners are naturally more motivated by recognition. A reward on the horizon motivates every step towards the end of the course. Even small competitions and prizes create inspired students. Often, a little dose of competition can be just the right tonic to gain and maintain the attention of learners.

“The FL!P is an incredibly adaptive product and can be used in just about any environment where information needs to be displayed and discussed. It’s one of the human-driven innovations that Samsung is famous for and something we believe should be in every classroom and every boardroom,” says Nxumalo.

Ultimately, training is as much about entertaining as teaching. Creating a lively setting, interactive experiences and unexpected moments ensures that information is understood, retained and applied.

Mission accomplished.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 25 September 2018 – Sharing ideas, improving collaboration and enhancing understanding has never been easier. The reason – you can now ditch the traditional way of presenting paper-based ideas and FL!P through to a wholly innovative digital solution. The Samsung FL!P is a brilliant, pixel-rich ultra-high definition, LCD touchscreen, with a super responsive stylus for writing and drawing, making it feel like you’re using a marker on a board.

Anyone who has been part of a presentation to a client where creative ideas are shared understands the frustration of back and forth instructions or reverts as a new brief begins to unfold. It’s often an exasperating and challenging experience. In marketing and advertising, the creative process isn’t merely putting down a couple of images and some words – it takes a lot of effort, thought and research into aspects such as the psychology of colour, target market needs and desires, as well as messaging that’s consistent with the brand as well as the consumer. When it comes to presenting a mood board for interior design, for example, mixing and matching ideas can also be difficult when the client wants one thing swapped out for something that might not actually fit within the presented scheme.

To the rescue is the Samsung FL!P, an award-winning interactive display that enables efficient collaboration and streamlines productivity. You can take notes, present and distribute ideas in either landscape or portrait orientation to help your team work faster, smarter and better together. Another innovative FL!P feature is that you can easily connect and collaborate with mobile devices to mirror and respond to content. A lot of sophisticated engineering and design went into FL!P and it shows.

Reginald Nxumalo, Director: Consumer Electronics at Samsung South Africa, says, “We’ve definitely turned the traditional flip chart on its head – the FL!P is an interactive digital board that allows incredibly easy collaboration. For instance, FL!P Notation gives users the smooth fast, familiar feel of traditional writing in a versatile digital format, with a variety of colours, styles and widths available. Up to four people can write simultaneously, using a finger or just about any blunt-ended object as a writing tool. And because the FL!P is mobile, it can be moved to any room effortlessly.”

Many people don’t really know what they want until they are faced with an idea that inspires them. Very often, what’s placed before them tells them more about what they don’t want than what they do want. Creative briefs are frequently ‘sketchy’ with just a few pointers like, ‘make it bold and inviting’, or ‘we want to tap into the power generation’, with little real direction. The bottom line is that the picture in a client’s mind is rarely well expressed in the brief and a lot of guesswork is involved during the creative process. This doesn’t mean its random, though and after much thought and development of a concept, the creative team needs to get down to selling the idea – to convince the client that what has been produced is exactly what will work.

Imagine being able to thrash out a brief and changes in real time. With a display that’s as crisp and vivid as you’d expect from Samsung, the FL!P will showcase an idea on screen and using anything from a finger to a stylus, images can be highlighted, moved, isolated and notes made. This makes the entire process far more unified and much easier to capture than various scribbled notes on pieces of paper or notebooks. Through the FL!P’s connectivity, FL!P Capture lets you and your team share and make notations within a variety of content files, all maintained at optimal visual quality.

Going back to an interior design scenario, being able to isolate and move a couch from one mood board to another is easily done – so the effect of a client’s musings can be instantly seen and explored. The display is completely interactive. Once the conceptualising, discussions, changes and new ideas have been uncovered and conveyed, all the notes can be easily captured and shared with everyone involved. No misinterpretation or murky instructions will survive the process. This not only speeds up the final design, but also ensures everyone is on the same page, creating a better all-round relationship and understanding.

Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary is simple. Just FL!P it.