Posted by Walker Thompson on Fri, Sep 03, 2010 @ 04:24 PM
Sometimes funny, but mostly about what makes the retail and restaurant industry tick, each Friday the WhenToManage team plays on our company name with a WhenTo(DO). This week's WhenTo(DO) is on the mobile front, or when should your restaurant go mobile? According to the technology website cnet.com, in the first quarter of 2010 over 314.7 million mobile phones were sold, a 17 percent increase year over year. Clearly, mobile is on the rise and now you're thinking: what does it mean to my business and how do I "use" it??? Good question, but one that doesn't have an end-all-be-all answer. The smartphone and mobile space is clearly evolving. Not to mention, all the "pads" that will soon launch. So the answer is stay on top of the trends! As committed and former restaurant executives, managers, cooks and servers, we also have some ideas on how mobile can help, and our software does just that, help...
- Communication
- Using our report creator, you can "subscribe" to any report you create. Once the report is created using our web-based excel-esque interface, sending to your managers or peers is easy. The data goes right to their iPhone or Droid and the data is now at their finger tips.
- Workflow
- Hundreds of restaurants use our report creator, and mention often how much they appreciate the SMS (text-messaging) functionality. Once a schedule is published, the employee is notified of the job and schedule of that job.
- Engagement
- Keeping every constituent engaged in operations is easy using our "alerts" functionality. If you're especially concerned about tip adjustments or cash over/short then why not have a mobility offering to KNOW NOW!
We care about how restaurant employees, managers and executives spend their day and mobile is part of it. But again, stay on top of all the trends by following these authors:
Posted by Walker Thompson on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 @ 09:56 AM
Is there something to reading the latest news on a Monday morning? Sitting back with a cup of coffee and your trusty Google Reader seems to set us in the mood for the work week. Great data comes not from just our application, but from others as well... Here are a few that piqued our interest...
What does it take to be a successful enterprise? Well, after reading about Panera Bread's top-100 fastest-growing enterprises perhaps you should ask them. Panera is one of only two restaurant concepts to make the 2010 list. Read more here...
The fast casual restaurant category accounted for estimated sales of $23 billion in 2010, up nearly 30 percent since 2006. According to the article, "restaurants in this market claim to combine the quality of family casual with the convenience of fast food. At $6–$12 per ticket, pricing falls between fast food and casual dining. Fast casual restaurants distinguish themselves from fast food through their modified table service, higher food quality, greater attention to healthful foods, and, in some cases, availability of beer and wine." Read more here...
Ever heard of a pop-up restaurant? You sit and served only what the chef prepares, but is this another trend or fad? Read more here...
We'll keep the list going... But if you find something of note or interesting to share, post a comment.
Posted by Walker Thompson on Mon, Aug 09, 2010 @ 04:59 PM
Over the past 30 or so years, the concept of Data Management consisted of getting data in and not much more. Now, through technical evolutions, getting data in wasn't so much the problem and Data Management evolved into Information Management or what data should we look at. Yet, another computing change altered the course of the data stream and Information Management evolved into Knowledge Management or now that we can look at the data, what do we improve. So the shift was dramatic: data in = no problem; data review = got that done; data listening = what the heck does that mean? Well, it means just about everything to a business looking to improve their operations.
Knowledge management is probably an understatement. Perhaps the better way to say it is try-surviving-without-it management. Visualize the following situations:
- A long-time restaurant owner wants to launch a new variant of his famous burgers. To do this he has to know past successes in order to know the best time to launch the campaign.
- The VP of Marketing of a large chain has a feeling that something is wrong with his latest promotion and needs to review the latest sales figures.
- A restaurant manager is overscheduling and losing money each day on labor costs as a percentage of sales. She needs to research previous labor schedules.
Situations like these are common, and without listening to your data, impossible to understand/improve/move forward. The data is the lifeline of any business whether one wants to arrive at a marketing decision or fine-tune a product launch. So what's the importance of listening to your data? Well, maybe that's not the right question. Instead, you should ask yourself what's not important about listening...
Merely analyzing data isn't sufficient from the point of view of making a decision. It is more than that; just like listening is more than the act of hearing. Consider it this way, when you listen to your data, knowledge is gained because the data is the supporting mechanism (data + analysis + engaging = listening). Listening to your data can offer the following benefits:
- Breaking a macro picture into a micro one to fine tune your preconceptions.
- Acquire meaningful insights and basing critical path objectives on real information.
- Turn passionate operators into better business people through the use of information when they want it, how they want it and where they want it.
We fully support the concept that knowledge should be managed and include discussions about processes that facilitate the use of information to influence decision making. Said another way, we help business listen to their data...
Posted by Jeff Schacher on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 @ 06:26 PM
Did Lee Iacocca, former turn-around CEO and Chairman of Chrysler, capture how to create a great team in one influential remark? "Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate and reward them. If you do all of those things effectively, you can't miss." Perhaps yes, or no, but who can argue with those principles?
When you really look at it, isn't his point: build great relationships? Motivations and listening are a key part to any relationship. Based on the right rewards, employees become motivated to perform. Perhaps they are monetary, or more intrinsic, such as a feeling of importance. To know any of this, listen. Without listening how would you know what motivates an employee to work that extra shift or, more importantly, add creativity to a guest experience that results in pleasurable dining. According to Inc Magazine, being more effective in an organization, requires active and engaged workplace listening. So, are you as engaged in actively listening all of the time? Hard for some of us, but we have an app for that...
The growth of workplace productivity tools has turned the once unknown project or process into the known. We can now listen to the dining room remodeling process, by engaging gantt charts via project management tools. We can communicate with vendors about orders on upcoming special events (I guess they listen in this example). But what about your employees? How can a busy restaurant operator listen "to it all of the time"? The trick is employee engagement. Below are just a few examples of how to engage your employees, through listening...
- Pass it on... Managers should be ready to listen to employees and should not be reluctant to pass any grievances or problems faced by their employees to their superiors who have the authority to take the necessary actions.
- Speak your mind and heart... As a manager, speak up and say what you think. As obvious as this point seems, people have a difficult time articulating their needs, wants and desires.
- Actions speak louder than words... an employee’s experience of your organization’s actions influences them much more than communication, but communication creates the linkages and can play a central role in many of those experiences.
Next Blog: The secret is listening to your data
Posted by Jeff Schacher on Thu, Mar 05, 2009 @ 12:14 PM
What is business intelligence anyway? According to wikipedia:
Business intelligence (
BI) refers to skills, technologies, applications and practices used to help a business
acquire a better understanding of its commercial context. Business
intelligence may also refer to the collected information itself.
BI applications provide historical, current, and predictive views of
business operations. Common functions of business intelligence
applications are reporting, OLAP, analytics, data mining, business performance management, benchmarks, and predictive analysis.
Business intelligence often aims to support better business
decision-making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support
system (DSS).
You may have read about BI tools and are maybe even using some.
Typically, business intelligence software has been looked at as
something for a large enterprise. Big company = lots of stores = lots
of data, and so they invest lots of money in a software system to
crunch all of their data to tell them things like their burgers can be
priced higher or that they are wasting labor dollars due to inefficient
scheduling or where in the country to open the next 10 stores.
I am here to tell you that things have changed.
- It's Easier - with the growth of the Internet,
it's much easier to move your POS data from each store to a centralized
place for processing.
- It's Cheaper - the Internet has also allowed
web-based companies to build less expensive infrastructures and methods
for collecting and processing the data. They require no large up front
investment and you just pay as you go.
- Size Doesn't Matter - now that business
intelligence tools are easier and cheaper, there's a high return on
investment for independent restaurant owners to load up their sales
data and finally get some assistance with business decisions.
As an example, the company I'm affiliated with offers a product that
fetches your POS data and gives you multiple reporting tools for
analysis of your data for less than $3 a day and there are other great
BI tools out there as well.
Even a well-designed spreadsheet
can do the job, but the point is that your restaurant generates a large
amount of very useful data. This data can tell you about the past and
just as importantly tell you about the future.
As the old saying goes, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it," and in a recession, you'd better be measuring.
Posted by Jeff Schacher on Fri, Jan 09, 2009 @ 05:37 PM
These
days there are several vendors offering web-based solutions for
restaurants. The more units a restaurant has, the more benefit to
using an online solution. In my next post, I will dive into the details
regarding all the benefits to using software as a service (SaaS), but
first let's take a look at what is out there.
- Labor Scheduling - this is the first place for any
restaurant to start. Let's face it, you're online and your employees
are online. With online scheduling, everyone can get their schedules
via the web, email, or cell phone. They can make requests, trade
shifts, and just basically communicate with the staff. At WhenToManage, this was our first product that we launched. HotSchedules is another company that offers a solution.
- Inventory Management - one great thing about
web-based inventory is that more and more suppliers are offering online
ordering, so it only makes sense to allow these systems to talk to each
other. For a restaurant company with more than one unit, an online
solution allows them to manage their recipes from a central location as
well as manage the entire supply chain from any laptop in the world. WhenToManage offers online inventory, if anyone knows of another web-based solution out there, please let me know.
- Reporting - getting the numbers from a single
location is one thing, but when you start multiplying it by 5, 10, or
50, you really need a system to pull everything together from your POS
systems, inventory systems, payroll systems, etc. Just imagine
automatically getting an email on your Blackberry every morning at 7am
with all your sales data from all your stores for the previous day. WhenToManage offers this as does a company called Guest Metrics.
- Marketing - this should actually be #1, but I
thought it was too obvious. Unfortunately, it's probably not obvious
enough for a lot of companies out there. There is not an easier or
cheaper way to reach your customers than email. At the very least, you
should have a customer database and send them an occasional email about
your latest and greatest promotion. From there, you can upgrade to a
loyalty program and stored value cards. There are lots of great companies that offer these services. Fishbowl and Stored Value Solutions are two that come to mind, but there are many others.
- POS (Point-of Sale) - POS
systems are the core of any restaurant operation, and a web-based POS
solution may strike fear into your heart, but rest assured, there are
some amazing products out there and they all have systems to secure
your data and keep everything working when the Internet goes down. How
great would it be to update a price a) from home b) for 20 stores at
the touch of a button? How great would it be to open the store in the
morning with the latest POS upgrade that installed itself before you
got in (and did I mention that your other 20 stores were also
automatically upgraded at the same time)? NetPOS offers a fantastic solution that I know quite well, and Halo also offers a web-based POS.
Hopefully, this will get you thinking about making the next step in the evolution of your restaurant.