Posted Date: 9/30/2010
Big Brother is Watching. Bombay Bowl Monitors Staff, Customers with MVaaS
By Amar Singh, President & CEO, Bombay Bowl, Inc.
Inspired by the street food vendors of India, the Denver-based
Bombay Bowl features fresh, on-the-go Indian-inspired bowls, roti rolls and more, made with fresh spices and herbs, flavor-packed sauces and chutneys, freshly grilled meats and vegetables, and even tofu. Bombay Bowl has already been ranked among the nation's
Top 100 Movers & Shakers within the restaurant industry by Fast Casual Magazine. After the launch of its flagship concept, Bombay Bowl turned its attention to selecting a video monitoring solution. However the company was interested in looking beyond traditional closed circuit TV options.
Specifically, Bombay Bowl saw the
opportunity to leverage video not only for security and safety, but as management tool that could be leveraged to support business objectives and gain visibility into the customer experience. The solution not only had to be easy-to-use and offer remote access, but is also had to require minimal IT support, yet be scalable enough to accommodate anticipated growth.
After surveying its video monitoring options,
Envysion's managed video-as-a-service solution stood out. Envysion's video solution was easy to use, and in addition to offering remote video capabilities, it easily integrated to Bombay Bowl's point of sale system and features a number of reporting and alerting tools that made it a compelling business tool.
Plug-and-play
Once Bombay selected Envysion, the installation process was fairly straight forward. Envysion installed a DVR (called EnVR) at the Denver, Colorado location as well as a camera system. The system is plug-and-play. Once the EnVR was connected to Bombay Bowl's network, it was recognized by the Envysion network, providing management with a remote view of the restaurant's operations through any web browser. No additional configuration was required. As a final step Envysion integrated the video platform to Bombay Bowl's Radiant-Aloha POS system.
Since installation, the Envysion video solution is in constant use by the management team. Through the Envysion application Bombay Bowl is able to view POS data together with its corresponding video to get the real-life context behind any transaction. Envysion provides customizable report and alerts, which allow Bombay to quickly and easily monitor key business metrics such as voids and discounts. Bombay has set up a number of alerts that notify the management team with an e-mail when an exception threshold is hit so that the management team can immediately pull up the video of the events to see what happened. For example, if excessive discounts occur on a given day they are notified and then able to watch the video to see what occurred.
Bombay Bowl also remotely monitors operational procedures and the managers observe the customer experience through the application. A specific area of interest where Bombay has gained visibility is throughput during the day to make sure employees are serving customer promptly. Across functional areas Bombay Bowl has incorporated Envysion's service into their everyday management processes.
Amar Singh founded Bombay Bowl with the philosophy that Indian food served fast doesn't have to be a "fast-food" experience. Singh was Born and raised in India, Singh moved to U.S. in 1999 for graduate school. He has an MBA and an MS in finance from the University of Colorado. Singh has worked extensively in strategy, finance, and marketing areas ranging from e-commerce start-ups to a large multi-national retail organization.