Embed, a leading worldwide supplier of point-of-sale and revenue management systems, launched STATS, its latest innovation, at IAAPA Expo 2022 in Orlando, Florida. Four months on, as the team prepares to showcase the new tech at DEAL Show 2023 in Dubai, UAE and Amusement Expo International 2023 in Las Vegas, US, we take a deep dive into this data visualisation dashboard to find out how it can transform operations for attractions.
STATS is a robust data and reports visualisation platform. The firm designed it to enable FECs to use data to derive insights for informed business decision-making, thus improving the guest experience, boosting operational efficiency, and optimising their income.
The product is a response to what Embed recognised as a key need in the FEC sector – easy access to real-time, actionable insights. Building on this realisation, Embed turned to its technology partner, Amazon Web Services, which already supports all its SaaS solutions. Together, they developed STATS.
Responding to what operators want
Data and analytics are key points of frustration for many operators, who often face a battle with complex and time-consuming tools in order to get the insights they need. This was something that the Embed team discovered during the pandemic. The firm paid particular effort during this time to communicate with its customers and understand their struggles.
Despite the closures of many arcades & FECs during the COVID crisis, Embed didn’t slow down. Instead, it used this time to concentrate on technological development, and it also held several events as part of its EmbedLIVE campaign, talking with partners and customers and hearing their challenges.
Talking to blooloop about this period, Sara Paz, Embed’s chief marketing officer, explained:
“We simply asked them, ‘What would help you the most?’ And what we heard repeatedly was that there’s so much information that goes through the Embed system – who plays what game, when they play it, when they’re spending, etc. Their feeling was that they already had 150 reports via our REPORTS product. We already had more reporting than any other player in the industry. But what they wanted was insights.”
Simplifying a complex task
Research from analytics platform Alteryx and IDC, the International Data Corporation, confirms what Embed was hearing from their customers about the frustration around getting the data they needed.
This study found that 30% of staff who do data work felt that they spend too much time in data preparation, a task that can be automated. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that 44% of the time is wasted every week on unsuccessful data activities. Just think what an operator could be spending this valuable time on instead, concentrating on the tasks that will help their business thrive. For many in the industry, the small and medium players, they don’t have the luxury of data teams or data analytics teams. It’s usually the FEC owner who runs the operation.
Alteryx and IDC also report that 25% of staff who do data work find that analytics tools are too complicated. So, any solution to this problem needed to be one that was easy to use, rather than adding more complexity to operators’ daily workload.
What can STATS by Embed do?
STATS makes operators’ business insights and reports work hard so that they don’t have to.
Firstly, while the tool itself is powerful, the team has taken care to ensure that it is straightforward for operators to use. It features a state-of-the-art viewer with customisable widgets and clear, uncluttered visualisation. This means that users only get the data they need, in an easy-to-digest format. It is also cloud-based, so it is accessible from anywhere, at any time. The interactive widgets, called STACKS, deliver bite-sized insights, enabling operators to identify key revenue management areas to increase profitability.
With STATS, operators can track game and guest activities and get deep insights on things like games performance and revenue; guest activity, average dwell time, & spending habits
It can also be used as a planning tool, delivering reports on operational planning, and forecasting game revenue and sales based on historical data.
Managing inventory and manpower
With deep insights into things like what their guests are spending their time on inside the venue, how long they are spending on each game, and how much they are spending, operators can more easily manage their manpower, optimising their staff to cater to peak hours. This also improves the guest experience, with the right number of employees on hand to ensure a smooth visit.
Meanwhile, the real-time inventory updates help to prevent supply issues – again making sure that the guest has the best possible experience and that businesses are managing their operations as efficiently as possible. Users of Embed’s STATS dashboard can find and fix supply chain inefficiencies. To avoid overstock, understock, and deadstock, they can use the application to swiftly evaluate historical sales trends and verify stock levels for various products. Gone are the days of manually updating inventories on spreadsheets.
Personalisation is key
For any attraction operator, better insights into their guests allow them to provide a better guest experience, by meeting their visitors’ needs and expectations.
Users get access to statistics and information from STATS on visitor activity, average stay length, and purchasing patterns. These can aid business owners in locating sales opportunities and loss mitigation techniques, as well as the previously mentioned manpower optimisation.
And there are benefits for marketers too, helping them to increase customer satisfaction and retention with data-driven promotions. Essentially, data enables operators to create promotions that they know their guests will actually like. Users of STATS can track customer retention rates and contributing variables like price points and promotions. They can then utilise this information to develop marketing plans that will draw in repeat customers.
Reliable technology
STATS is part of what Embed is calling its Tech of Transformation – a new line of innovative, integrated hardware and software solutions developed with technology industry leaders to transform the FEC industry. This Software as a Service (SaaS) solution is a response to ever-growing challenges that traditional FEC operators face as the industry digitizes.
The STATS insights platform leverages Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) global cloud infrastructure, in order to offer accessibility, security, and low latency.
“We have a close working relationship with AWS,” said Paz. “So, we went to them and asked what we could do with all this data that we have access to. We developed it together. We started experimenting with pulling in different metrics from the system, and with help from AWS, we found that we could do this very deep, rich data visualisation that was also dynamic.”
“For the Embed team, it has been a labour of love to work on STATS.”
This support from the AWS team, as well as the Amazon technology itself that underpins STATS, is a really important factor, according to Paz:
“Being reliable in this industry is so important. If an FEC system goes down, they can’t run their games, they can’t get reports. Operators say to us, they don’t want to be in that position because it impacts revenue. We can reassure them that with Amazon Web Services, you will never be down. It isn’t like a storm can wipe out a server in the Midwest. Their data centres are so secure; the backup has a backup, it’s all in the cloud.”
Embed launches STATS
When Embed unveiled STATS at IAAPA Expo in Orlando, the response was overwhelming. In fact, the team needed to convert some of its other demo stands on the booth to STATS, to accommodate the number of attendees who wanted to see it in action.
Embed customers have been enthusiastic about the release, said Paz, speaking to blooloop at IAAPA Expo 2022:
“For existing customers, it was a no-brainer. One of the first demos that we gave was to an existing customer who runs 17 locations. He signed up immediately. Anyone we showed it to who’s currently using REPORTS signed up for it as well.
“And then there were new customers, who came to the booth and wanted to look at our whole system. When we showed them STATS, that was the turning point. Because it’s AWS, it’s one of the most trusted and respected technology brands in the world.”
“We were ecstatic to see the amazing reception of both prospects and customers towards STATS when we launched it at IAAPA,” said Renee Welsh, CEO at Embed, speaking after the event. “STATS was the demo-in-demand at our booth and the show. With the help of the brilliant representatives from Amazon Web Services, we illuminated show attendees with the benefits of cloud-based solutions such as STATS and the virtues of other Software as a Service (SaaS) products we offer.
“It is not to our surprise that operators are now making the decision to digitize and automate processes such as data collection and consolidating reports. It is exactly what the STATS dashboard is designed to answer. Developing this highly automated data visualisation dashboard with flexible widgets will help eliminate the counterproductive data work that operators struggle with and enable them to make real-time, data-driven decisions that drive business revenue and profit.”
STATS in action
One happy client is Kevin Taylor, CFO of Station 300. With four venues across the US – Gainesville in Georgia, Saline and Grandville in Michigan and Bluffton in South Carolina – Station 300 is a popular bowling alley and family fun centre chain.
Speaking to Embed about STATS, he said:
“STATS in my opinion is one of the most effective and versatile management tools we have at our disposal with which to manage our business. It is well done, and I love it.”
As a small to medium business, Station 300 is well-placed to reap the benefits of STATS. The company is using it to gain more insights into the day-to-day running of its four venues. The easy-to-operate tool will help it to streamline operations and make the most of its resources, while also improving the experience that it offers to visitors.
Speaking to blooloop, Taylor added:
“I am quite impressed with the program and the visibility that it provides into our business. The STATS platform has provided a level of visibility which proves more valuable with each use. Implementation was straightforward, and the team was a pleasure to work with.”
Embed continues to innovate
In order to enable, empower, and ease the business of fun, Embed has been launching industry-firsts for more than 20 years as part of its commitment to technological innovation. For instance, its 2019-launched Mobile Wallet virtual game card is still the only non-banking, non-finance, and non-loyalty brand to be available through Google Pay or Apple Wallet.
“We are on a continuous pursuit to develop tech solutions that will propel businesses to become the FECs of the future,” said Welsh. “In line with this goal, we worked with the world’s most comprehensive and adopted cloud provider Amazon Web Services to leverage the power of cloud technology to create a software solution that will transform FECs’ operations, revenue landscape, and consumer journey.
“Research shows that staff who are assigned data analytics work spend 90% of the work week on nitty-gritty data-related tasks. And this does not include the analysis required to gain actual insights that drive business decisions. The STATS dashboard is our commitment to being part of the solution.”
Everyone can benefit from STATS by Embed
Joel Garcia, ASEAN head of technology at Amazon Web Services, says:
“As the traditional FEC industry model digitises, venue operators can use cloud technology to extract and analyse insights to arrive at data-driven business decisions and enhance customer outcomes while focusing on growing their business.
“We are excited to work with Embed to help the family entertainment industry go digital with AWS. We look forward to continuing to support Embed on their innovation and growth ambitions.”
Finally, Andy Welsh, CTO at Embed, adds:
“Given that FECs come in single or multiple locations, we worked closely with both small-medium and large FEC customers to understand their needs and deliver the deep visualised data insights operators wanted from their Embed system. We combed through their data and created sets that will suit the needs of any organization.
“Out of these efforts, demos, and trials came a dashboard so flexible and versatile that it doesn’t matter what size of FEC is using it. Everyone can benefit from STATS to maximise their business.”
