Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

The Fig Bistro, a small popular café in Vernon, British Columbia specializing in healthy local foods, is seeking innovative ways to grow its business by providing faster and more efficient service for customers using state-of-the-art computer technologies. Specifically, the establishment wants to explore whether new voice-enabled food ordering technologies have the potential to cost-effectively expand its business by reaching more customers and diversifying its target market. While it is recognized that large corporations such as Amazon, Google and fast food giants are developing comprehensive voice-enabled applications, it remains to be seen how viable and cost-effective these technologies are for a small hospitality enterprise. *This research and development (R&D) project involves an exploration of available voice-enabled technologies to determine the potential advantages and limitations of this technology to address small enterprise growth needs. The research will answer the following question: Can emerging voice-enabled technologies help small businesses with less than ten employees to increase their growth and market reach? The R&D will include creation of a prototype voice-enable computer application that will be tested and evaluated as a pilot project.*Research findings from this project will be of interest to small Canadian businesses in the restaurant/hospitality sector seeking to increase their sales and market growth. The project will be conducted in partnership with Okanagan College researchers who will use the new knowledge and technology for future teaching and applied research purposes.*