Tell us about Sona.
Sona is an AI-native workforce management solution. It provides forecasting, scheduling, HR, payroll, and communication tools for large hospitality operators. First designed for the care sector, the software is now making moves in the hospitality industry, using AI to enhance productivity and reduce operational costs.
Its AI capabilities optimise labour by analysing historic efficiency data and providing actionable workload rules, empowering managers to respond dynamically to business demands.
By utilising site-specific insights and leveraging AI across multiple locations, Sona is supporting hospitality businesses in addressing financial pressures and driving bottom-line performance.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Sona is the next generation workforce management solution. Its AI-native capabilities streamline operations and promote laser-focused decision-making. What makes it unique is that its AI-driven forecasting goes further than ever before, integrating data from EPOS and booking systems, plus other real-time factors like weather, school holidays, and other trends to predict sales with precision. Dynamic self-learning labour modules replace traditional time-motion studies by continuously updating, based on data insights and general manager input.
In addition to this, auto-scheduling generates realistic, optimal schedules, while the agentic AI Co-pilot offers actionable recommendations, guiding managers to make impactful changes that boost sales and enhance the guest experience.
What is your advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?
Firstly, it’s really hard to build a product if you don’t have a big personal investment in the problem it solves. Having that passion and interest is vital for success. Similarly, it’s dangerous to fall in love with the product or solution, rather than the problem at hand.
Overnight success isn’t a thing and if you don’t have first-hand experience of an industry, you’re probably wrong about how it works, what pain points and problems exist and so how they should be solved. Talk to everybody.
What most excites you about Sona?
Technology that utilises AI is something that’s new in the hospitality industry, so there’s a big opportunity for Sona to own the space. It’s very exciting for us at Sona to be a part of the movement and showcase how our AI-powered workforce management system can future-proof frontline operators.
The industry is under a lot of pressure at the moment when it comes to cost pressures and tightening margins, so it feels impactful to be working on a product that can really help businesses to flourish.
How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?
We first founded Sona as an AI-powered workforce management platform for the care sector and quickly grasped that the software can provide a key solution for other industries too, such as the hospitality sector. Approximately 80% of the global workforce doesn’t work at a desk, yet the workforce management tools that serve them are running on outdated technology.
Sona changes this by offering an end-to-end platform and the benefits seen by care companies that implemented Sona’s operating systems were undeniable – they were able to manage, engage and retain valuable team members, reduce staffing agency use by up to 60% and free up managers’ time with automated scheduling, streamlined absence handling and simplified payroll reconciliation.
From the very beginning, Sona was built on a flexible code base that enabled us to scale rapidly and be uniquely AI-native amongst other Hospitality solutions.
What can we hope to see from Sona in the future?
This year has already been incredibly exciting for us at Sona, and this is only set to continue. Our roadmap is packed with scheduled updates and new feature releases, including further enhancing an already robust HR functionality and more auto-scheduling improvements that cater to hospitality workforce complexities.
As well as this, we will also be enhancing our workflow builder, so automated tasks, notifications and actions can be configured to the nuances of individual hospitality businesses. All of this will be powered by advanced agentic AI functionalities that will empower managers to further drive efficiencies and growth.
Sona envisions a future where AI empowers hospitality operators to achieve operational excellence, adapt to challenges, and deliver exceptional guest experiences.
