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The Student Hotel is an innovative student housing project that marries the luxury of a boutique hotel with the simplicity of a student dormitory. The hotel provides an all-inclusive service, including on-site shared kitchens, study areas, gyms and washing facilities. These combined give students a peace of mind and create an ideal living situation

 

In its infancy, the student hotel had a simple, yet effective online plan. Short term and semester bookings were all arranged through the Hotel’s website while the popular social media platform, Facebook, was used to connect hotel guests. Online payment was also possible after being redirected to a third party payment platform. Disaggregating the services proved to be a successful strategy and was the preferred solution for a number of years.

 

The introduction of the new online portal has sparked some debate amongst hotel guests. While the online payment and maintenance request processes seemed to have soared above all expectations, the platform has fallen short on many other aspects of desired performance.

Our research findings point out that the portal’s lack of success can be explained by the strong correlation between the low portal usage and low portal likability (not causation). Guests believe that there should be an improvement in the system lagging problems, the user-unfriendly interface and the social element of the portal. In addition to these, other main features that students would like to see introduced are a laundry top-up and online payment system for meals and the possibility to reserve on site services like the ‘Classroom’ and ‘Kitchen’ online.

 

The previous findings suggest the way forward for the hotel’s information strategy is through a three tier approach. This approach outlines the creation of a mobile application, complemented with website access. Online payment, NFC services and convenience services will form the three crucial elements of the approach.

 

Introducing an NFC-enabled mobile application and website, hotel guests, the majority of whom are smartphone users, will be more inclined to make use of the technology during their stay. Hotels can only improve their processes and services if they have enough information. For this reason, the use of NFC tags across the hotel opens the opportunity to collect data from guests’ behaviour and system usage. The implementation will also create greater levels of satisfaction among guests as they will have more control over which services they would like to use – it also offers an innovative way to check into the hotel, acting as an access card. So whether it is strategically finding the right time to do your laundry or reserving a table at the Kitchen and paying the bill, the mobile application and website should give guests a whole new experience at the hotel.

 

This technology transformation should propel The Student Hotel into the future and help it maintain its status as technological leader in the local accommodation industry.  We would like to thank The Student Hotel and all the ones involved in making this analysis possible.

 

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqtWtxRlozw

Team:

379149sl    Shannon Lofgren

379156mo  Matt Overtveld

379207jl    Jake Lagaay

382073sd   Sergio Di Giacinto

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The value people give to their information has changed radically in the last couple of decades. Nowadays people have their lives linked to not one but several media accounts, we are becoming increasingly dependent on the internet and have already reached a point of no turnaround. The important question though is, what lies ahead? Will this connectedness continue to increase forever?

There are several paths that have been discussed by tech giants and futurists such as Elon Musk, Ray Kurzwell and even Stephen Hawking. Some theorise that we will become cyborg-like organisms and constantly be connected with every other human in the planet. Ray Kurzwell (director of engineering at Google) stated that we will become increasingly non-biological and sync gradually through technology becoming something one could call a superhuman.

Similar to a computer, our brain is essentially (in a very simplified manner) a set of electrical connections that make sense of reality through our senses. In essence, our brain turns data into information in a similar way computers do. This opens the possibility, as Mr Hawkings explains, “to copy the brain onto a computer and so provide a form of life after death”. Although computers are still far behind the capabilities of a brain, their growth is (as Moore’s Law states) exponential making the possibilities infinite.

In the case this ever occurs, then data and information will not be valued as they are now, they will be valued as life. Life will become bits, 0s and 1s travelling through an electrical circuit. This is where the value of information changes completely its direction.

The ethical, moral and psychological issue here comes with the concept of self-awareness. If you pay close attention to Mr Hawkings claims, it is important to note that he uses the word “copies” instead of transfers. So you do not transfer your consciousness, you merely make a copy of it in a computer such as making a copy of a word document. So, what does this imply? Well, following up on the metaphor, making a copy of the document leaves you with 2 copies and even if there was only one, how can you prove that you are self-aware?

In this case, one biological and one non-biological, the tough question here is, who is the real one? Is the one inside the computer really conscious or is it just a set of commands following protocols through hardware? Will we ever even reach this moment?

Sources:

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/can-an-uploaded-brain-live-forever–1329189

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35786771

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/661470/EXPLAINED-How-we-will-soon-be-able-to-upload-our-MINDS-to-computers

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With more than $70 billion in net income and having the biggest IPO in history ($231 billion), Alibaba (Chinese online market founded by Jack Ma) has become one of the most important players in the world. Alibaba based its model on the core of China’s expansion by connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers in 1999. Since then Alibaba has grown exponentially expanding from its basic B2B business model to C2C and B2C. Now Alibaba has surpassed can be compared to Walmart and is thought to surpass it in the near future.

But where does Alibaba’s power come from?

Some people might say that it took advantage of China’s unethical and unsustainable economic model of cheap and highly polluting production but the reality is far from that. Although China’s growth was a great catalyst for the company’s expansion its core competitive advantage comes from the fact that high levels of demand growth can be matched with low levels of investment since Alibaba has nothing to do with actual manufacturing. As Jack Ma puts it; “For Walmart to grow they need to build a new warehouse, a new store, buy new trucks to transport goods, etc. If we want to grow all we have to do is put a bigger server.”

Alibaba is one of the best examples of the exponential power of the internet. Although until now they have still most of their business based in China they are looking out to new markets such as India in which they are aggressively competing against Amazon for. They have launched numerous new platforms and initiatives since then but their objective is still focused on online markets such as their $500 million acquisition of Lazada Group (“Amazon” of South East Asia) in 2016.

Will Alibaba ever be bigger than Walmart? Will it be the only one?

In my personal opinion it will and faster than we expect but it will not do it alone. Other such online markets will participate in the development of new less penetrated markets. The world still has loads of space for this type of companies to develop, nothing is set in stone yet.

Sources:

Two Years After Its Blockbuster IPO, Alibaba Ready To Take On World

http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/earnings