Employing smart people will boost your restaurant’s performance. But what’s the most effective way to embed intelligence within your entire operation? Let’s think it over.
Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale once said: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are our opinions, let’s go with mine.”
And in today’s world, data is king — whether that’s Netflix serving up films to keep you interested, social media suggesting friends to add, or advertisers tracking you online. Products, services, and strategies are all crafted around data.
For the food and beverage (F&B) industry, the big challenge isn’t simply about how to gather data (which often remains a problem in itself), it’s also how to use it in meaningful ways. For example: “How can data help me to gain better control, save money and grow revenues?”
Many restaurant apps on the market were designed to replicate routine manual processes and gather data in a digital format. But they struggle to get beyond that — and provide what operators really need to succeed. In other words, the business value of the data is wasted.
Turning data insights into action
The genius of Next-Gen technology across industry applications is that it puts your data to work. Using artificial intelligence, it’s designed to proactively look for problems and opportunities, to then gather important contextual data, and finally prompt you to make a decision — or take action itself. And it can do all of this in seconds.
Here are three examples of how it works in F&B tech:
#1: Maximising performance
You can’t manually oversee every restaurant and every shift in your chain — to the most granular and responsive level for true control. However, Next-Gen tech can be your eyes and ears — and do more than that. It can show you how each venue’s performance compares with previous months as well as against other venues in your chain, whether you’re looking at sales, supplier pricing, labour costs, wastage, write-offs or host of other factors. You can check 24/7, set up alerts and take action immediately if needed.
#2: AI-powered forecasting
Using recent sales data and seasonal patterns, Next-Gen tech can predict your future sales accurately. It looks at your stock and tells you how much to increase or reduce to support your order profile. It can even issue orders to suppliers automatically on your behalf. The tech will then use the forecast to create daily (and part-daily) prep plans for your team to follow, removing unnecessary administrative ‘grunt work’, that saps your managers time.
#3: Enabling ‘what-if’ scenarios and ABC/XYZ analysis:
In today’s economic climate, restaurants need to be agile. Next-Gen tech lets you carry out ‘what if’ and ‘ABC/XYZ’ analysis and discover the impact on profits. This could be about changing your menu and ingredients, altering prices, switching suppliers and paying more or less for products. You can get the answers in a few clicks.
Staying one step ahead
With a ‘tech first’ approach, you can embed intelligence within your operations. That means nipping problems in the bud sooner, taking the grind out of countless routine tasks, and optimising your business while staying nimble. With Next-Gen restaurant tech, you can stay one step ahead.
To discover more, get your copy of our whitepaper ‘Next-Gen tech for the F&B industry‘. You’ll discover how tech-first businesses can transform end-to-end performance and thrive in a new era.
