Introduction
The Challenge: Accommodate enterprise-level customers
As an emerging technology startup, BarVision had a grand vision. Offering a creative solution for bars and restaurants, BarVision aimed to enhance profitability for hospitality businesses of all sizes.
BarVision aspired to work with enterprises and scale with the growing needs of their customer base. Yet, three obstacles stood in their way:
- Using multiple, disjointed applications for business needs
- Lacking a robust infrastructure for security needs
- Applying unscalable data models for customer needs
All of these challenges kept BarVision from reaching the full range of their potential.
The Solution: Scale with a cloud-based application
With Simplica’s help, BarVision scaled its business model to support even its largest customers’ goals. BarVision could now achieve extraordinary levels of innovation in the hospitality industry, helping its customers see up to $10,000 in revenue growth per month.
Together, we advanced their technological solutions by implementing:
- Custom Application Development to automate crucial processes and securely manage data collection and reporting.
- A Managed Cloud Solution that is highly available and secure to ensure the security of their enterprise-level customer data.
- Big Data Solutions that leverage BarVision’s unique technology to enhance data flow to the application and improve data modeling and analysis.
Our Story Together
The Background: Smart Spouts meets Simplica
In 2020, a trusted partner of Simplica introduced our team to a young venture called BarVision.
Founded in 2017, BarVision was a technology startup with a groundbreaking product for bars and restaurants: Smart Spouts.
While appearing to be standard pour spouts for spirits, Smart Spouts used sensors to detect every pour and to measure the amount of volume lost from a bottle. This Smart technology provided real-time "pour" data for every bottle, which BarVision then organized into valuable performance reports.
Then, Smart Spouts made creative use of this "pour" data. The spouts had a unique ability to match pour data to a customer’s Point-of-Sale (POS) system data. This data stream allowed the spouts to identify all overpours and lost restaurant profits in real time as they were logged on checks.
Smart Spouts granted BarVision remarkable potential to enhance enterprise profits, operational efficiency, and inventory management across the hospitality industry. Yet, the startup could only offer this innovative IoT product to a few customers.
What was preventing Smart Spouts from helping larger businesses?
The Challenge: Bringing Smart Spouts to the Enterprise
When BarVision began collaborating with the Simplica team, it became clear to us that they had a revolutionary product. Yet, they were missing a key tool and the infrastructure to bring this solution to the right audience.
BarVision had their sights set on hospitality franchise and multi-level enterprise customers. Still, BarVision struggled with challenges that often limit young ventures with a unique vision:
- Reliance on multiple applications to achieve goals, leading to inefficient operational processes.
- Lack of a secure and scalable infrastructure, leading to challenges in handling the increasing data volumes and demands of a growing customer base.
- Manual data reporting and correspondence with customers, leading to inefficiency and an overreliance on staff.
BarVision needed a one-stop solution for its infrastructure and application needs. The aim was to honor and build on the Smart Spout’s innovative ability to match “pour” data to POS system data.
This task seemed to test our team’s expertise in next-generation cloud and application development.
Always welcoming a challenge, Simplica set out to provide a solution that would help BarVision exceed their goals.
The Journey: Empowering Smart Spouts with our Holistic MVP Roadmapping
Implementing Big Data Models
To develop a transformative answer for BarVision’s challenge, Simplica wanted to understand the startup’s existing business model.
We met with BarVision team leaders to learn about their current data architecture and the challenges it presented. Their data model needed to address the specific needs of their key target market - hospitality enterprises and franchises.
Consequently, we collaborated with BarVision to create a new data model that would empower multi-level enterprise customersto use the Smart Spout Point-of-Sale (POS) technology and application technology.
This new architecture established a data flow from Smart Spouts to our custom application, so we could automate and thus eliminate the inefficiency of manual data reporting.
Identifying Core Application Development Needs
Moving into application prototyping, Simplica needed to identify core features for BarVision’s new, revolutionary application. We ensured that these features aligned with overall project goals and business objectives.
Primarily, the Smart Spouts needed application components that would automate crucial user processes such as reporting and analytics.
To meet these needs, our team leveraged the Simplica Web Platform to swiftly provide flexible, pre-built application modules. We tailored modules such as dashboards, user administration, and analytics to the startup’s unique vision.
Integrating seamlessly with Simplica Cloud, our Web Platform provides powerful data security and management needs for BarVision’s enterprise application.
Pioneering a New User Experience
BarVision wanted to create a harmonious user experience and interface for all their customers. To make this concept a reality, we developed interactive wireframes and prototypes that clearly showcased the ideal design of the BarVision application.
Simplica continued to refine this unique vision through feedback from the BarVision team.
Inspiring Flexibility and Enhancement with an MVP
Using our strong collaborative process and the Simplica Web Platform, we built a minimum viable product (MVP) for BarVision. As a first step, this MVP streamlined all of BarVision’s existing processes into a singular application, with the enhancements of Simplica’s pre-built modules.
Visionary MVP Roadmapping allowed BarVision the flexibility to adjust application features as their user needs continued to scale.
Together, Simplica and BarVision achieved clarity on project timelines and budgets as we continued to roll out iterative versions of the application. With such thorough collaboration early on, we could create room for innovation.
Innovating with IoT Technology
As a visionary startup, BarVision held a similar philosophy to Simplica - that we should adopt creative technologies to build successful solutions.
We believed that a key way to implement newer technologies was to establish a smooth data flow between our solutions and BarVision’s solutions. Accordingly, we used Internet of Things (IoT) technology to weave a seamless data network between the Smart Spout devices and Simplica Cloud.
BarVision and Simplica continue to innovate and explore new technologies for enterprise-scale needs, as we will discover.
The Solution: Smart Spouts...made Simplica
With Simplica’s Custom Solution, the Smart Spouts gained 3 powerful digital tools:
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An Enterprise-Scale Custom Application that automates crucial processes such as reporting and analytics, and provides a harmonious user experience.
BarVision customers needed a single place to view all Smart Spout and POS system data reports and analytics.
Now, BarVision’s enterprise-level customers do not need to rely on receiving reports in an email. Instead, they can immediately access a sleek dashboard featuring Smart Spout data and restaurant profit reports with analytics.
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A secure, scalable Managed Cloud Solution that is highly available and flexible to evolve with BarVision’s growing portfolio of customers.
BarVision’s customers needed their sensitive data to be secure during every stage of transmission and storage. When BarVision works with enterprises, the company infrastructure needs to provide for increasing data volumes and user demands.
Now, customers can experience optimal performance and satisfaction with enterprise-level data needs. With our fully Managed Cloud Services, the Simplica team handles setting up and maintaining all components of a scalable, secure infrastructure for BarVision.
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Innovative Big Data Solutions that establish a clear, streamlined data flow between:
While BarVision pioneered the ability to connect “pour” data with POS system data, they also needed a smooth data flow into their custom application and cloud. The Simplica team met this goal while honoring the original Smart Spout technology.
Now, BarVision customers can seamlessly access and analyze Smart Spout data from the Cloud and application with Simplica’s leading-edge data architecture and IoT technology. Data modeling and analysis capabilities are now enhanced on every end of BarVision’s technology infrastructure.
The Result: Smarter Spouts Grow Customer Revenues Up to $10,000
BarVision has recognized an incredible opportunity for bars and restaurants to see greater revenue. According to the company, even the most efficient hospitality entities generate only 80% of potential liquor revenues. BarVision is helping to change that.
Simplica has automated a core ability for BarVision to skillfully analyze Smart Spout data and create relevant reports that help hospitality operators succeed.
As of March 2024, BarVision is able to help its customers see between a $2,000 to $10,000 revenue increase per month, with the support of our technological collaboration.
The Implementation: Smarter Spouts through Testing and Training
As BarVision continues to expand its business, the Simplica team will seek opportunities for technology enhancements.
Throughout application rollout, we conducted iterative testing to confirm that all objectives were met. Simplica continues to monitor the Cloud infrastructure to support evolving BarVision customer needs and data volumes.
Simplica also provided necessary training to BarVision team members with a technological background, who could then educate other crucial stakeholders.
As for the Future of Smart Spouts...
Simplica and BarVision continue to discover new technologies and opportunities to enhance the customer experience.
BarVision’s next-generation objective is to use data mining to discover crucial Smart Spout and profit knowledge that can benefit a business on a deeper level. With our expertise, Simplica aims to make this a reality.
As BarVision keeps scaling, Simplica will expand the company’s architecture and migrate all their legacy systems into a leading-edge technology structure.