September 23, 2002
New arena embraces 'nothing but net' outsourced technology
By Alan J. Liddle, Editor
DALLAS - Remotely hosted information systems accessed via the Internet are helping to improve business processes and service as well as tally transactions and track inventory, managers at American Airlines Center here said.
In one of the highest visibility examples yet of remote hosting of point-of-sale and back-of-house software across the Internet and of monthly fee-based technology outsourcing through an application service provider, AAC management last year partnered with POS vendor and ASP InfoGenesis. Santa Barbara, Calif.-based InfoGenesis remotely hosts and has ultimate management responsibility for all of the software and databases powering foodservice and retail operations at the year-old AAC.
Neither InfoGenesis nor AAC's management firm, Center Operating Co., would discuss the cost of technology at AAC, one of the priciest sports and entertainment complexes developed to date.
Open since July 2001, AAC is home to the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, Dallas Stars pro hockey franchise and Dallas Desperados of the Arena Football League. It also regularly hosts a variety of other events, including rock concerts, ice shows and the circus. The $420 million facility features five concourses, 142 luxury suites, accommodations for 20,000 fans and a vast array of digital signage and video display technology.
Contractor Sportservice, a division of Delaware North Cos. of Buffalo, N.Y, manages AAC's food-and-beverage operations on behalf of Center Operating Co. At AAC, Sportservice operates 36 generic and branded concession stands, a number of restaurants and catering facilities that support suites and premium seating on the arena floor and Platinum Club level, and roaming vendors in general seating areas.
Steve Casad, Sportservice general manager at AAC, characterized the center's technology as supportive of "real-time business management" and capable of generating "comprehensive" operations reports.
AAC's technology infrastructure comprises InfoGenesis' e-Revelation managed POS product integrated with Eatec Corp.'s EatecNetX, a remotely hosted back-of-the-house management system. Also used by InfoGenesis at AAC are Ameranth Wireless Inc. tools for networking and integrating handheld computers with mission critical applications, such as POS, and Shift4's $$$ On The Net, a high-speed Internet gateway to credit card-transaction processors.
Hardware pieces at AAC include more than 230 IBM SurePOS terminals, many with integrated IBM thermal-paper printers, numerous Epson dot-matrix kitchen printers and 30 Cassiopeia handheld computing devices running Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.
All AAC foodservice and retail operations data are hosted by InfoGenesis at the IBM Equinix data center in San Jose, Calif. InfoGenesis said the center uses around-the-clock security bolstered by biometric identity-verification devices, gas-based fire-suppression systems, and batteries and diesel generators as backups for conventional power supplies.
Among other things, AAC's assortment of technologies creates a database of individual transaction details, automates a good deal of the purchasing and inventory-control processes, and integrates with the center's ticketing system to help manage event-staffing levels and fine-tune concession stand opening and closing strategies. Depending on access privileges, AAC or contractor executives and supervisory staff can view real-time snapshots of business activities within the facility using a "dashboard" reporting tool, InfoGenesis vice president of operations Brad Bennett said.
Detailed event reports of up to 72 pages are available via e-mail or through Microsoft Terminal Services sessions two hours after operations closeout, AAC management and some contractors relayed. Some reports, including those tied to EatecNetX and $$$ On The Net, can be accessed over the Internet using Web browser software.
"It has the capability to support credit-card usage at each location, and processing those transactions doesn't take any longer than handling cash," Sportservice's Casad noted of the AAC system, which, because of $$$ On The Net, reportedly returns authorization from card processors within three to seven seconds.
Facilitywide credit-card support and high-speed processing at AAC are important to Casad because "sometimes 30 to 40 percent of our sales are from credit cards," he said. The Sportservice manager added that during a typical Mavericks or Stars game his staff might complete more than 18,000 transactions.
Brad Mayne, chief executive of Center Operating Co., said his company originally considered purchasing and trying to integrate technology from multiple vendors. However, a presentation by InfoGenesis a little more than two months before opening day convinced his group to give the contract to the Santa Barbara ASP.
The contract went to InfoGenesis, Mayne explained, because InfoGenesis agreed to provide a transaction-management system that could be used by both foodservice and retail contractors in a variety of different AAC settings. The quick access to data and data analysis capabilities inherent in centralized database schemes also made the InfoGenesis proposal appealing, he indicated.
"We felt that managing the sales process was important to us," Mayne said. He also noted that analysis of historical transaction information pulled from the San Jose data center has allowed his company "to put together processes that cut service times."
Regarding service improvements expected from the InfoGenesis installation, Dallas Mavericks representative Martin Woodall said earlier this year, "Our goal was to implement technology to enable our customers to order what they want, when they want it, from anywhere in the facility."
Mayne said the resulting system is so flexible that it permits Sportservice employees working premium seating areas and suites to accommodate guest requests to buy retail goods, such as leather jackets, as well as the specialty foods available in those sections. Sportservice workers enter those orders on the Cassiopeia units and can use those handheld terminals to process credit card payments.
As an example of how AAC's integrated systems and real-time reporting can benefit food-and-beverage operations, Sportservice's Casad cited the circus, which typically attracts a lot of walk-up business. Each day the circus is at AAC, Casad's management team can monitor ticket sales to adjust staffing levels up or down, depending on how much attendance has varied from the previous day or whatever historic benchmark was used to make up the schedule, he said.
Foodservice and retail-outlet managers at AAC have the ability to remotely survey concession-stand inventory during an event, Mayne pointed out. He said the capability permits supervisors to requisition more inventory on behalf of stand managers who might be too busy serving guests to notice dwindling supplies of key products before running out of them.
"If a stand is falling behind in sales transactions, we can send a supervisor over to find out what is going on," Mayne said of another use for remote, real-time monitoring.
EatecNetX helps manage purchasing, inventory tracking, in-facility supply requisitions, food production and pre-event orders for catering departments. An add-on, EatecTouch, which supports touchscreen inventory reporting, is in use on many of the POS terminals throughout AAC, Mayne said.
"We've improved our inventory-control processes because our personnel can complete their work on the point-of-sale [terminal], without having to find another computer," Mayne said. "In addition, EatecTouch enables us to close out a stand almost immediately after an event, which helps us control our labor costs."
Speaking of the entire AAC technology package, Mayne acknowledged that "it took about six months for us to understand the system and to get it to do the things we wanted it to do." However, he made it clear that if he could somehow revisit the development of AAC's technology infrastructure, "I'd choose the same system."
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