Alex Ponomarev
Need to bite the bullet — and select a new point-of-sale (POS) for your restaurant in the UK? If so, there are eight features you must demand. They could make the difference between success and failure.
Opening your first restaurant, expanding your empire, or trying modernise your business can take you far out of your comfort zone — and into the unfamiliar world of IT.
Multiple vendors claim their products are just what you need. But then the questions start popping into your mind: Do these people really understand the restaurant business? Will my staff hate using it — and resent me for inflicting it on them? And will it adapt when our needs change?
Getting rinsed and burned
Like being able to serve up a decent cooked breakfast, most POS solutions should be able to handle the basics in a reasonable. But it’s the finer details where many will come unstuck. And you may discover this later, when the sales team have long gone.
It would be horrible to go through all the effort, inconvenience and cost … only to find out your new POS creates more problems than it solves, you’re always on the phone to the vendor, and staff revert back to using paper-based manual processes — just to keep up with orders.
So how can you avoid making a disastrous mistake? You don’t want to have to end up buying a different system in six months, after all. 
Finding answers — in minutes
Most restaurant owners and managers don’t have time to visit endless trade-shows, meet with vendors around the country and pour over endless tech-spec documents. But what if you could get all the answers in the time it would take to toast a panini?
The video takes the form of an informal chat with Managing Director Simon Dadswell. And it gets to the heart of the matter in just seven minutes.
Restaurant systems shouldn’t be about gimmicks or me-too technology. Your business needs to gain a competitive advantage and a strong return on investment. And the right tech can do these things by removing the grunt work, keeping you in control and maximising revenue opportunities.
Only an all-in-one system will do if you want the complete picture of how your business is operating at any moment, whether you’re front of house, in the kitchen, at head office or having a day off playing golf. You need the perfect mix of sophistication and simplicity from a vendor that knows your world inside out.
