MBJ SWOT: HBG Design's innovation could pay dividends for its clients after COVID is over
See full article in Memphis Business Journal
by: Susan Ellis
Local economies are no different from organizations when it comes to taking stock of their ability to grow, innovate and thrive in lockstep with the times. Much depends on talent within: the employees of companies and nonprofits, the entrepreneurs who define a business community. But a lot also rides on the unique mix of ingredients that both define the local economy in question and play an outsize role in its success in navigating change or crisis. The SWOT analysis is nothing new for anyone familiar with business-school dogma, though its application to our small business community — as it rebounds from a pandemic — is probably a first. What follows is a breakdown of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats working for or against the region’s small-business owners as they climb back from one of the most economically and socially disruptive events in modern times.
MBJ SWOT: Weakness: Solutions when ‘all in’ might mean betting your life
One point the pandemic proved over and over again: The human body and economy are both highly susceptible to dramatic external forces like contagions, and the health and well-being of the first is inextricably linked to the ultimate success of the latter. When COVID started, Memphis-based HBG Design hit the drawing board to create solutions for its clients in the hospitality industry, whose revenue depended on the safety and confidence of customers. Their resulting innovation, Safebet, could continue to pay dividends long after COVID is gone.
HBG Design
Rick Gardner of the architecture/design firm HBG Design considers himself a “creative problem solver.”
So, when the pandemic hit, he assigned his team to answer two questions: How will this pandemic affect business? And, how will it affect the way they approach design?
HBG specializes in work in the hospitality sector. Past projects include the Guest House at Graceland in Memphis and the Desert Diamond West Valley Casino in Arizona.
“We zeroed in on specific solutions,” he said. “We asked ourselves a very specific question that became the mission statement for Safebet: How do we make sitting on a stool in front of the slot machine the safest place on the gaming floor?”
Since games on the casino floor are often rearranged, the Safebet system is designed to work on all sorts of configurations — rows, carousel, and trios.
“The reason we zeroed in on [slot machines] as opposed to other places in the casinos is the slot revenue is the engine that drives resorts,” Gardner said.
In designing Safebet, HBG also considered user experience.
“Most people are uncomfortable with the way things were before the pandemic, sitting down next to a stranger in close proximity,” he said.
He noted that the walls can be removed for guests who want to play together on the machines.
HBG hooked up with manufacturing firm KGM Gaming to make the components of Safebet. That firm will also do the sales and marketing, while HBG will focus on R&D.
Gardner said there may be other applications for Safebet as well.
“We’ve focused first on the gaming side of things, but we’re looking at dining rooms for restaurants,” he said.
Gardner said that while many restaurants already use plexiglass, he envisions bringing that to a more “sophisticated” level. He pictures Safebet in convention centers and resorts. The average slot machine costs $20,000, Gardner said, with large casinos having roughly 1,500, for a total expenditure of $30 million. Something like Safebet could be a smart investment — not just for now but for the future.
“We’ve had all kinds of viruses and pandemics in the past 20 years — SARS, MERS, and all that stuff. And they came and went,” Gardner said. “But, [COVID-19] has affected us much differently. It’s been imprinted in our psyche. We’re not going to forget it. What we all know now is that there’s going to be something next.”
GGB Magazine Spotlights SAFEBET: An Industry Game-Changer During COVID and Beyond
See Full Article in Global Gaming Business Magazine
Here’s a new twist on safety in numbers.
For the casino world, it means that without safety, there are no numbers. The gaming industry, aided by sharp vendors, enters a safety age exceeding hand-sanitizing stations, Plexiglas shields and social-distance markers.
At relatively breakneck speed, vendors have unearthed products integrating safety and finance. The advancements look so creative they may also help the country leave the Covid-19 era. Other innovations are psychological, as in the engagement between companies and patrons via social casinos and their marketing vehicles.
Once the Covid-19 era recedes—and it will—analysts may recall this time as the industry embracing unprecedented ingenuity.
Bet on Safety
HBG Design is well-known for building great structures, but when the pandemic hit, the company geared efforts toward protecting them.
Enter SafeBet, a solution geared to the epicenter of the casino economic engine, the slot floor. From a health standpoint, it’s almost a luxury super box.
A Plexiglas component, which can help prevent someone from being sneezed upon, is joined by an air-filtration system that catches small droplets. There are also partitions between stations. A player can be in the middle of the action while retaining personal space.
Rick Gardner, AIA, CEO, principal and practice leader for HBG, says the company began designing this solution last April, as the pandemic was closing casinos and halting projects. Its solution targets both the current and perceived post-pandemic environments.
“We immediately started thinking about making casino gaming safe in the face of Covid-19, but a few months into the spring we quickly realized this is a different kind of pandemic, with a lasting impact unlike anything the world has experienced before,” Gardner asserts.
“I’m an optimist at heart, but there will be something else post-Covid affecting public health even after we get vaccines in arms and achieve herd immunity. Even if we’re just talking about the human psyche, we are forever changed. Will anyone want to sit shoulder-to-shoulder at a slot bank ever again? We don’t think so. Human behavior pre-Covid already favored physical separation between individuals.”
Why not embrace it? The safety measures enable people to play, but the concept can also be used for exclusivity, especially for high-limit games. Any operator able to manage this may turn survival into revival.
Here’s how it works:
Air from the indoor casino environment enters SafeBet through the intake grill, designed low to draw less smoke-laden air than air found in the upper reaches of a typical casino floor. As the indoor casino air enters the SafeBet intake grill, it is propelled by a recirculating fan through a patent-pending, ultraviolet-C lamp fixture custom-designed for SafeBet.
The indoor air is cleaned via two proven filtration systems. They are UVC radiation, designed to kill any viruses, bacteria or mold spores by exposure to ultraviolet light; and needle point bipolar ionization, which attracts air particulates like a magnet, stopping them in their tracks before proceeding to the supply air in the breathing zone.
The distribution of ionized air is introduced evenly into the breathing zone at a low velocity into the SafeBet station at the approximate height of an average person’s head/nose/mouth, providing a clean, particulate-free air supply to the guest.
“I think one of the key differentiators of SafeBet as a Covid product is that it’s not what you typically think of first,” Gardner says. “When I think of Covid products, my mind goes to jumbo-size hand sanitizer pumps, face masks, washing hands, etc., more in the PPE realm. I also think about the Plexiglas partitions that were initially installed as temporary fixes.
“So, when I think of SafeBet as a Covid product, it represents more of a design enhancement that solves customer safety challenges, but you honestly can’t even tell it’s a Covid product. That’s part of the beauty and ingenuity of it.”
Gardner says HBG wanted to create a long-term solution to innovate, adapt, research, design and build a product that not only addressed the critical needs of its customers now, but anticipated the future.
Gardner says SafeBet will be a difference-maker between casinos. HBG is collaborating with its manufacturing and distribution partner, KGM Gaming of Philadelphia, to take the product to the market, initially through existing casino clients who represent first adopters. A prototype is available to explore and experience in KGM’s Philadelphia showroom.
HBG expects to have initial installations in place in the first quarter of 2021.
“Casino customers have a choice in where they want to go and play, and by and large they gravitate to slot machines,” he says. “When a customer experiences the choice of gaming in a SafeBet station, we believe their time on machine will actually increase, and the stations themselves will generate more play.”
See our new insights on navigating Covid-19 in Indian Gaming Magazine
See article in Indian Gaming Magazine
Insights from HBG Design Principal, Dike Bacon:
NAVIGATION: HBG Design has historically been able to navigate through industry challenges in a nimble fashion – and that hasn’t changed with COVID-19. Like many professional services firms around the country, we transitioned both our Memphis and San Diego offices to a work-from-home model in response to COVID-19. We were pro-active with this decision before local government directives required it. Our primary goal was and still is to keep our staff safe and healthy. Fortunately, we had plenty of very sophisticated technological platforms and accessible infrastructure in place to move swiftly and be fully operational in a matter of days.
Regarding our tribal clients, we have been fortunate in that much of our work has continued to progress. A number of our projects have continued through planning and design phases. It seems many clients have proactively decided to continue to advance their projects and get them ready for construction when the timing is right. We also have a number of projects that were in construction pre-COVID-19 and these have continued to progress through the pandemic. A big part of this success is attributed to construction companies that implemented numerous health and safety protocols in order to keep projects on schedule.
DRAWING CUSTOMERS: We have been studying the re-design of a number of the typical resort amenities. One of the most important has been food and beverage. We think that design solutions that respond to spacing requirements and COVID-19 restrictions should be flexible and adaptable as conditions continue to change and improve. This means more modular systems and easily modified seating arrangements that can actually create a feeling of luxury and exclusivity. The temporary re-use of existing conference and meeting space has been in recent discussions. The conference business will come back but in the interim these large spaces can creatively and temporarily be used for gaming space. Wiring, security and ingress/egress have to be addressed but it can work. In the right climates, increased outdoor activities may continue to be a very successful way to serve higher numbers of guests and keep the proper distances.
Sycuan Casino Resort Featured in Global Gaming Business Casino Style Magazine
https://issuu.com/globalgamingbusiness/docs/casino_style_2019/28