YOUR MISSION: Prepare to see Grand Central Terminal on whirlwind tour filled with hidden history and delicious treat! The game is created by Watson Adventures, acclaimed by the media and the public alike for humor-filled hunts that are like walking tours spiked with caffeine.

 

YOUR CHALLENGE : Munch Around Grand Central On teams, you’ll follow a trail of tricky clues to answer fun and funny questions about what you find. You’ll also discover that Grand Central has also become a bit of a gourmet mecca. Your team will discover the foodie destinations and have to stage “photo ops” to provide evidence that you’ve dabbled and delighted in the delectables along the way.

 

For networking, fun and inspiration, join us on this Experience. There is no charge to attend but pre-registration is required. This program is open to registered restaurant operators and “Experience Sponsors only.” 

When having an experience is the expectation, brands have to find ways to be extraordinary. In order to be successful, today’s leaders have to think differently – not only about the business, but about the role they must play in order to blend the physical with the digital.

 

Dustin Garis, Former Chief Troublemaker at Procter & Gamble (Global Brand Innovation Leader, P&G FutureWorks), will share insights on how to break free from the shackles of a “what you must have” mentality and go deeper to find the next frontier of innovation and bring it to life. Through personal experiences and lessons from the world’s most innovative brands, Garis will help attendees rethink leadership mentality and offer a fresh perspective on how to navigate the digital landscape to uncover the true meaning of brand engagement and customer experience. From his own personal and professional journey, attendees will learn how to balance virtual with reality to emerge as a true leader and innovator during this age of hyper-authenticity and experience.   

The top two strategic goals for restaurant technology are improving digital engagement/loyalty and improving customer analytics, according to HT research. In this session, Brian Best, head of interactive engagement, P.F. Chang's, will share how leveraging guest data can yield opportunities to increase frequency of loyalty customers, acquire new customers and re-engage lapsed customers. Best will share examples of strategies that have driven sales for P.F. Chang’s using digital, mobile, social and CRM technologies while utilizing first and third party data to personalize communications. Attendees will learn from P.F. Chang’s wins and collaborate on other ways to understand brands’ competitive sets and regain marketshare.

Enabling digital ordering and tools like email or push notification have become “table stakes” for all restaurant brands. In an effort to catch up to other industries, restaurants have put many of these tools in place, but to what end? In many cases, they may not be creating more orders and operators are often unclear on how and what to measure to see if strategies are having the intended impact. In this Innovation Lab, Hope Neiman, CMO of Tillster, will highlight what today’s guests are really looking for restaurants to deliver based on exclusive, independently conducted consumer research. She will also help attendees identify what metrics to measure for success and how to keep the customer you have paid to acquire — before they choose to go down the street. Find out: is delivery “delivering” returns for your company; what digital tools guests think are most important to offer; how to make sure your customer is coming back; and whether or not your digital mix is relevant.

The 2017 MURTEC Breakthrough Awards honor restaurant companies for outstanding achievement in innovation. The awards are presented to operators for leveraging groundbreaking technology in exceptional ways to improve the customer experience and/or overall business strategy and operations. HT is proud to present the award to winners in two categories: customer-facing innovation and enterprise innovation. Winners will be announced live at the 2017 MURTEC Executive Summit! The companies being honored for their landmark achievements in using technology to improve business, will then provide attendees an exclusive look at the award-winning initiative or technological achievement. Presenter: Dorothy Creamer, Editor, Hospitality Technology

When fast isn't fast enough -- enabling digital ordering integration is rapidly becoming a competitive must-have for restaurateurs. This session will help attendees chart a course to a successful online ordering and delivery deployment, from solution selection to integration and deployment. As customers are continually redefining convenience, The speaker will draw from experience to help attendees recognize what is driving guests and how that must be considered when rolling out next-generation ordering platforms. He will offer insight into how to align the in-store with the online journey and how the proper platform will enable the things that guests really want. This interactive session will help attendees assess when to select an end-to-end solution vs. limited scope solution; how to integrate POS with demand generation platforms; plus best practices and tips for integrating with 3rd party creative agencies and web developers.

You must choose wisely when deciding what data is good data. Analytics is a top strategic goal for 39% of restaurant technology investments in 2017, and its importance can’t be undervalued. However in an age of an overabundance of data, businesses need to crystallize what’s real, what’s “fake” or skewed and how to avoid the pitfalls of living in a data-hungry industry and world. In this keynote, Janneke van Geuns, head of insights & analytics, food, beverage & restaurants for Google, will cut through data misconceptions to get to actionable best practices that will help restaurant operators do analytics right. Through her experiences across the restaurant industry, she will help attendees realize how to engage data to empower their companies.

Think your restaurant is safe from a cyber-attack? Now is not the time for complacency as hackers continually refine their tactics to access valuable restaurant and guest data. In this session, Jeffery Kent, CIO, American Blue Ribbon Holdings will share lessons learned from the breach attempts orchestrated by hackers on his own company. Kent will identify where restaurants’ vulnerabilities lie and how to correct them, while keeping an eye on how to stay one step ahead of hackers. Attendees will learn how to lay out defense layers and what investment will be required to make constant adjustments to their depth of security. Kent will share what, in the absence of a silver bullet, restaurants should do in the event a breach does occur.  

Leadership can’t exist in a silo. New paradigms and the modern digital consumer are reshaping how technology fits into greater overall business strategies. Attendees won’t want to miss this powerhouse panel featuring top technology leaders from the restaurant industry. Through a candid discussion, find out what is keeping these execs up at night, what technology they are excited about, and how they make IT a part of the overall business strategy. This is a unique opportunity to get inside the minds of the restaurant industry’s top executives in the C-suite.