about digital information

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is a leading international fast-food corporation with a global focus on the chicken. Colonel Harland Sanders founded the company in 1952, and it has franchises all over the world, with its first in Utah. KFC has managed to become a household name in regions where the firm has launched franchises by frying finger-licking chicken. The corporation currently has activities in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, among other countries and continents. KFC is modeled to be the leader in western style quick service restaurant by offering services which are of good quality through friendly services in a clean atmosphere. The use of technology has great influence in terms of improving quality of products and service delivery. KFC has embraced technology throughout its departments, which is essential in ensuring that quality is matched at all stages, within all its franchises (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). An example being on Supply Chain Management, the company uses one system to ensure that gaps in inputs are minimized, through setting standards necessary for the operations of the company.
1.2 A critical analysis of the business model of KFC its current application of information technologies
Products
KFC has majored in chicken, which is prepared in different styles to suit client’s taste and preference. Some of the major brands includes Kentucky Grilled Chicken, Hot wings, Extra Crispy Tenders, just but a few mentions. All these products have been essential in ensuring that the chicken meets quality standards as well as the taste buds of clients. In countries such as China, KFC has been able to localize its menu in a bid to find consumer buy-in, one of the reasons which has attributed to its success in that niche (Kasriel-Alexander 2016, p. 19).
Competition
Companies like Baidu have also ventured into face recognition software to identify tourist who visit the parks. Through interfaces and segments that the company wants to achieve in terms of identifying what may be of interact to tourists, the company’s App is segregated into aspects such as age of a visitor or tourists, gender among other factors that helps filter clients data to be able to provide timely and efficient services.
Technology
Companies are investing in technology, which keeps of advancing over time. The changes being witnessed are a result of the need to be up to date with the latest technology, a factor that increases the competitive advantage of the companies (Baden-Fuller and Haefliger 2013, p. 421).
Alipay
In China, Ant is the main company that runs KFC’s in China. Paying for items has been revolutionized in the digital world. Through innovation, transactions have moved from the traditional use of cash, to credit card and even use of smartphones. However, KFC has unveiled a face recognition technology (Joshi and Gupta 2016, p. 53). Through an online registration platform, the interface being used is able to recognize ones phase, which is preceded by inputting phone number. Through a ‘Smile to Pay’ to the camera App, the App takes less time of approximately two seconds, to communicate through the use of 3D camera using the detection algorithm (Gade and Moeslund 2014, p. 246). Hence, one does not need to worry about carrying credit cards or even smartphones, provided they know their phone numbers, where approval and payment is done through phase recognition.
Using Alipay is one of the revolutions to ever happen, thanks to technological advancement. Alipay is run based on Ant Financial digital mode of payment, and it has received significant subscription across the KFC outlets. Using facial recognition software means that the overall contribution to the company’s success is tagged on features that guarantee safety as well as convenience. Alipay’s development incorporates analyzing more than 600 facial features, all which ensures that the degree of match is beyond doubt before initiating the transactions (Danner, Sidorkina, Joechl and Duerrschmid 2014, p. 168).
Mobile Payment
KFC’s mobile payment at Yum China restaurant is contributing to 45% of its payments, it ascertains the difference that technology can impact. Embracing technology shows the ever growing appetite for need to the changing business landscape, in which technology stands at the center of every transaction (Zhang 2013). People are shifting their allegiance to use of technology due to the need to have security features that guarantee clients safety from muggers and robbers as well as carrying bulk amounts to point of sales. For the case of Yum China, there is witnessed massive investment in the company hence a significant rise, reaching an average of 64% of the subscription, following the company being listed in 2016, at the New York Stock Exchange (Christian, Michelle and Gary, 2010, pg. 447). The positive increment in community’s acceptance of the payment model when analyzed keenly is seen to have had significant impact on the overall performance, as it provides a better payment buffer.
Training
KFC has embarked on VR simulation to help in the employee’s regular training, a robust and detailed program aimed at providing e-learning to the current existing staff and new staff who joins the dynamic team. The Chicken Mastery Certification program is an online platform for training its employees. The platform offers a more interactive means of gaining knowledge, offering brand recognition. Through its modeling, the interface provides an opportunity for employees with playful design and game mechanics. The use of technology is essential in helping the cooks to learn how to continuously improve on the art of making chicken even better. Way back in 2015, KFC embarked on investment in technology in its US franchise. The company invested in back of house technology, an initiative aimed at increasing g training capability. The company is realizing substantial increase in members who are being trained, to ensure that they conform to the changing needs.
2.9 A critical analysis of the likely benefit, cost and limitation of the selected technology to the business;
The Use and adaptation of face recognition technology is aimed at providing the company with secure mode of ensuring that the business unit succeeds. The security features that the technology embraces guarantees safety of the clients since there is not need of carrying physical cash to the outlets (Karczmarek, Kiersztyn, Pedrycz and Dolecki 2017, p. 29). Most of the operations using this technology provides a user interface that is friendly to use. Using 3D camera’s is one component that the company has embarked on, as technological advancement is widely acceptable and embraced by most business units. The use of technology by the largest fast food company, KFC enable it to wade off competitors. Most of the competitors are not able to match the cost associated with installing and running the interface, which is exclusively being used by KFC (Kagaya, Aizawa and Ogawa 2014, p. 1088).
Discussion and recommendation:
3.1 A discussion of the potential areas of application in the business, the strategic value of the technology and the corresponding business model evolvement

The potential area of application of the face technology is the creation of a database of customers based on the food preferences that they have. As such, the business can establish the number of regular customers that it has and the preferences including the frequency and time patterns when the customers are likely to visit the fast food outlet. Having a customer database that is inclusive of the food preferences is integral in planning for the food that ought to be prepared and at what time, thus, minimizing the wastages that could result (Bettadapura, et al. 2015, p. 581). Additionally, the creation of the customer database enables the business to have a personal relationship with their customers and get to know their feedback on the various services that are provided by the fast food outlet. Face recognition is integrated with the cloud storage technology to store the customer data including the recording of all the previous orders that they have made (Satyanarayanan 2015, p. 21). However, the customer has to consent before his or her details are captured by the face recognition technology.
The technology is valuable to the fast food outlet since it enables its staff to predict the orders that the client is likely to take. When taking the orders, for the first time that the client makes an order, the waiter or waitress can ask for additional details (Christian and Gary 2010, p. 444). The details include if the diet needs to be vegetarian or not and the allergies that the patient has been diagnosed with to guide on the cooking oil that ought to be used in preparing the food. Such information is vital in ensuring that the orders that are granted to the customer meet the required threshold of quality that conforms to the needs of the customer. Furthermore, the technology enables the business to remodel their business evolvement to suit the preferences that have been set by the customers. Fast foods general offer the same products are relatively same products. However, the differences that lie are pegged on the quality of services that the business offers to its clients. Many customers prefer to go too fast foods that have a personal relationship with them and have knowledge of what they like.
The face recognition will enable the company to come scale up to e-commerce with the feature also allowing the clients to pay their bill online safely. Through the use of Alipay platform, the face technology will ensure that the clients are appropriately billed. The face recognition can be easily integrated into the computer systems of the company, thus, compatible with the management information system that the company utilized for its routine management procedures.
In conclusion, the face recognition application is disruptive and could shape up the operations in the fast food business operations. The advancement of e-commerce activities has many customers having a preference for online payment, which they would need to be safer. The use of face identity has minimal chances of fraud of the online payment account of the customer being hacked, thus, being of preference to the customer. Additionally, the testing of the face recognition technology in some of the retail outlets of KFC has been a success to the company. KFC can keep track of their regular customers, their food preferences, allergies and timings in which they attend the restaurant. However, there is need to ensure that there is enough cloud space before the commencement of the project owing to the acceptability of the technology during piloting.
3.2 Recommendations
The use of Alipay has been used to revolutionize how payments are being done. From a more conservative approach, the use of face recognition has substantially gained ground, given that its accuracy surpasses even that of credit cards. One has to be physically present to effect the payment meaning that the overall usage is limited to persons who have the mandate, and responsibility to pay cannot be hence transferred to a third party. People have embraced the idea, and there are lots of inquiries into how this sophisticated payment model can be rolled out to other part of the world. The use of online payment model as seen can only work under circumstance that the company has complementary payment model. Understanding that not everybody is able to access the App, the company has to have human interactions to ensure a that service delivery remains the company’s priority. Investing in Alipay across the franchises helps in making customers who travel to other regions also gets to experience the services of the company. Another component that can be useful is using the App on two fronts, both on online platform and offline. The essential bit is that instances where there are network challenges; customers should not be limited to enjoying their meals due to technological failures, arising from KFC’s endpoint. KFC can also invest in the use of robots, as a technological advancement to realize standardizes services. The robots when are programmed can be useful in ensuring that the company remains true to itself, based on the efficiency and wastages that can be minimized within the company.
References
Baden-Fuller, C. and Haefliger, S., 2013. Business models and technological innovation. Long range planning, 46(6), pp.419-426.
Bettadapura, V., Thomaz, E., Parnami, A., Abowd, G.D. and Essa, I., 2015, January. Leveraging context to support automated food recognition in restaurants. In Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2015 IEEE Winter Conference on (pp. 580-587). IEEE.
Brynjolfsson, E. and McAfee, A., 2014. The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. WW Norton & Company.
Christian, Michelle, and Gary Gereffi. “The marketing and distribution of fast food.” Pediatric Obesity. Springer New York, 2010. 439-450.
Danner, L., Sidorkina, L., Joechl, M. and Duerrschmid, K., 2014. Make a face! Implicit and explicit measurement of facial expressions elicited by orange juices using face reading technology. Food Quality and Preference, 32, pp.167-172.
Gade, R. and Moeslund, T.B., 2014. Thermal cameras and applications: A survey. Machine vision and applications, 25(1), pp.245-262.
Joshi, J.C. and Gupta, K.K., 2016. Face Recognition Technology: A Review. IUP Journal of Telecommunications, 8(1), p.53.
Kagaya, H., Aizawa, K. and Ogawa, M., 2014, November. Food detection and recognition using convolutional neural network. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM international conference on Multimedia (pp. 1085-1088). ACM.
Karczmarek, P., Kiersztyn, A., Pedrycz, W. and Dolecki, M., 2017. An application of chain code-based local descriptor and its extension to face recognition. Pattern Recognition, 65, pp.26-34.
Kasriel-Alexander, D., 2016. Top 10 global consumer trends for 2016 (pp. 18-21). Euromonitor International.
Satyanarayanan, M., 2015. A brief history of cloud offload: A personal journey from odyssey through cyber foraging to cloudlets. GetMobile: Mobile Computing and Communications, 18(4), pp.19-23.
Zhang, D.D., 2013. Automated biometrics: Technologies and systems (Vol. 7). Springer Science & Business Media.