Unify Archives - Inventum

Your Post-COVID Fresh Start Kit.

The epidemic is expected to cast a serious and lasting impact on the hospitality industry in the short term and is likely to recover in six months’ time. Due to the suppression of customer demand during the epidemic, the industry is expected to face a period of concentrated demand release after the epidemic. How to quickly and accurately capture the change in customer demand, how to turn crisis into opportunity and how to seize the opportunity for development? These have become the key challenges for hoteliers to ponder. This is a fabulous time for hotels to reinvent themselves and infuse their operations with fresh thinking.

Here are some tips to help hospitality overcome the difficulties that COVID-19 brings.

Adopt cloud technologies

Remote working becomes the norm for today. Thanks to innovations and technology, even such a people-centric industry as hospitality experiences an increase in telecommuting. In fact, hoteliers can manage all the hotel processes without even being there. With cloud-based Property Management Systems, they are able to control all operations at anytime from anywhere.

Products like Udaya offer a fully cloud managed experience for hotels and restaurants, allows hoteliers to use a mobile app and control everything about their Wi-Fi experience. The Udaya series of products are all managed centrally from a public cloud including configuration, monitoring, captive portals, SMS sign-on, payment gateway interfaces and analytics.

Use this time for hotel maintenance and renovation

Coronavirus outbreak doesn’t mean hoteliers are closing doors and are just waiting for this period to end. It’s a perfect time to catch up and improve. Whether it is a spontaneous renovation or completing your Property Improvement Plan, there’s no better time to do this. To begin, you can make a list of items, things, and everything that needs to be repaired.

It’s time to invest in Guest Wi-Fi. Guest Wi-Fi is a brilliant solution to the common problem hoteliers face – how to make Wi-Fi pay for itself. With Guest Wi-Fi each person who uses your Wi-Fi becomes a marketing opportunity from the moment they first log on and give your business a ‘Like’. From that point onwards you have almost unlimited opportunities to communicate with them through email and social media to promote your business.

udaya is a scalable and cost effective solution suitable for any hospitality deployment. It controls user Internet access, sets limits, engages users, provides powerful analytics and helps hoteliers run different marketing strategies to maximize revenue from their Wi-Fi.

Sure, PMS systems are not something new. Hoteliers have been using them for years. But in these times, this system can bring even greater benefits. For example, if the PMS goes with mobile concierge apps, which can help engage with the guests without personal contact, starting from check-in to meal and service orders. Products like Inventum’s MSG gateways supports leading PMS systems for seamless access for in-room guests using room number and guest name. Free or upgraded speed plans can be offered against payment to both guests and hotel visitors.

***All-in-One Solution for Broadband and Wi-Fi Hotspot***

Focus on meal delivery from the hotel restaurant

Hoteliers can take steps to increase restaurant sales during the COVID-19. Remember about aggregator, delivery and concierge apps that can help provide both hotel guests and non-guests with the option of meal delivery right to their rooms without even talking to someone.

Reconsider existing health and safety techniques

Plot the guests’ journey from front door to guestroom, and then to check-out. Can you simplify and reduce staff interactions so as to better a more contactless environment? It is crucial to have appropriate health and safety policies in place, especially for hotel business that relies on in-person interactions. In these contexts, hoteliers should promote proper health and safety measures, which may include self-service pay systems and orders through mobile apps.

Cut down on discretionary spends

The next 6 months are going to be extremely tough for business and only the ones who have operated with a tight leash on their finances and guest experience might survive. Independent operators who manage to survive and continue on this journey, should analyze their expenses and cut down on discretionary spends. Instead, spend this money on improving the client experience whenever business resumes, this would include ensuring top-quality linen and house-keeping, strict hygiene standards & better Wi-Fi experience.

Hotels/Resorts/Restaurant can also consider zero capex UNIFY™ cloud solution to get started immediately. The offering includes virtual routers as part of the subscription allowing any server (PC) on facility to be used as a gateway router for the hotspot(s). All other elements are managed via the UNIFY™ Cloud platform with no additional on-site hardware required. All you need are Wi-Fi access points to get started!

Give it a go. Now’s the time to make the change.

Connect Your Students to the World!

The concept of online learning and self-teaching has been widely adopted. With the rising popularity of online courses, students now expect to be able to connect to their educational resources at anytime, anywhere. From online live lectures and webinars to e-Books and other online resources, it’s clear that the Internet has become a powerful teaching tool in education.

Wi-Fi connectivity helps in seamless teaching and learning. The role of wireless campus for the enhancement of teaching learning process is vast. With Wi-Fi access throughout the campus, information is just a click away. The wireless campus also supports everyday activities seamlessly in classroom contexts.

Universities & colleges need a flexible, cost-effective and future-proof network infrastructure that enables students and staff to connect with ease and throughout the whole campus.

Key Challenges in a Campus

Nowadays, institutions compete for students, and campus experience plays a large part in the decision-making process for prospective undergraduates and postgraduates students. Students demand high-quality, reliable Wi-Fi experiences not only in the classroom but also during free time when they’re streaming Netflix, YouTube etc. or accessing online resources. More and more, potential and current students judge the quality of a university by its wireless network, and an under performing Wi-Fi network can impact the institution’s bottom line.

For university CIOs and their IT staff, the design and upkeep of campus Wi-Fi networks was once a moderately straightforward undertaking. Today, however, situation is totally different. Campuses are now facing key challenges:

I. A larger user base is trying to connect

There are masses of users (students, Faculty members & guests) trying to connect to College Wi-Fi and most of them have at least two devices that they want to connect. With demands like that across campuses, colleges need to take steps to ensure that students are able to access what they need for education and entertainment.

If your institution isn’t accounting for this vast user base and its ramifications in terms of bandwidth, coverage and security, you can bet that students and staff are experiencing problems with your network.

II. Bandwidth management

One of the biggest challenges that most campuses deal with are issues surrounding bandwidth. Some users consume all the bandwidth and other are left with no connection or poor connectivity. In order to keep up with your users expectations & demands, location based access restrictions for students and other similar policy controls are some of the controls that campuses need.

III. Accountability & Content Filtering

Complying with local laws and ensuring objectionable content is blocked is a key requirement of campus networks. There are today thousands of websites linked with terror networks and cybercrime which may adversely impact the student community. With growing security concerns, particularly from unverified visitors in public hotspots, most campus owners are looking for ways to track the network activity of Wi-Fi users. Having logs to investigate cybercrimes is critical for any public hotspot.

IV. BYOD Brings Increased Demand and Challenges

The fact is BYOD puts a heavy strain on a campus’ bandwidth, and dealing with the issue requires more than simply telling users to limit their usage. Does your wireless networking infrastructure enable your IT professionals to have a high level of application visibility and control? Have you developed policies to prioritize different applications and devices accessing the network? If the answer is no, this is a pretty big indicator that your campus Wi-Fi network may be failing and you need to take action now.

V. Your Network Is Unsecure

There’s no room for error when it comes to protecting student and staff information, so it’s crucial to ensure that your campus Wi-Fi network is protected from cyber threats like ransomware and other dangerous intrusions. Securing your wireless network must be a top priority when you’re dealing with hundreds to thousands of users connecting through multiple devices at every moment of the day. If you’re allowing guests to connect to the main network and you’re not ensuring robust protection against intrusions, your campus Wi-Fi network is failing.

VI. Monetize

Campuses often act as an ISP providing paid broadband services to on campus student housing and usage limited monthly plans. Managing the recurrent billing and collection of such services is a key challenge to monetization of services.

VII. Portal & Dashboard

Users also need a Self-service tools to check their network activity, view usage, pay bills and change network passwords.

Inventum’s offering allows your campus to benefit from fast, reliable Internet service. Now, institutions can flexibly connect staff and students with ease, while enjoying peace of mind that access is secure and controlled.

Bandwidth Management — **Inventum All-in-one solution for hotspots**

Inventum’s MSG gateways offer a single-stop solution for campus networks. The all-in-one appliance combines the functions of a router, firewall, NAC, user directory & more in a ready-to-deploy solution. Administrators can directly connect WAN & LAN links to the appliance for end-to-end operations & management of their Wi-Fi networks.

It also offers a built in portal and self care system. All new customers are redirected to a login page where they can first register using forms or a simple mobile number with OTP verification code. Prepay PIN, scratch card, Internet plan purchase using credit card or roaming from aggregators such as iPass are all supported. Returning customers are seamlessly recognised with zero touch access.

It can also set a speed limit per student, limit download volume and ensure fair bandwidth distribution. Built-in firewall secures the network, filtering content and keeping browsing logs for legal compliance.

For end point connectivity, Institutions can also use Inventum’s udaya series of products which are all managed centrally from a public cloud including configuration, monitoring, captive portals, SMS sign-on, payment gateway interfaces and analytics.

Campuses with multiple locations can consider our zero capex cloud solution to get started immediately. The offering includes virtual routers as part of the subscription allowing any server on campus to be used as a gateway router for the hotspot(s). All other elements are managed via the UNIFY™ Cloud platform with no additional on-site hardware required. All you need are Wi-Fi access points to get started!

Key Benefits

Easy setup & management
Easily scalable
Excellent price-to-performance value
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