How VARs Can Educate Restauranteurs On Business Intelligence

By John Workman, Product Management Director, NCR Hospitality

Not long ago, restaurants were run mostly by intuition and personal experience. Restaurant operators would put a menu together, serve their customers and hope the customers liked it — using anecdotes as the metric of choice. They would estimate how much staff was needed based on their recollection of history, and hope the managers scheduled enough — but not too many.

Today, all that has changed with the arrival of real-time analytics tools that empower restaurant owners and managers with facts to solve their problems. Restaurant operators have significantly changed their approach to processing data with the primary goal of incorporating actionable data into day-to-day operations.

Previously, data’s primary purpose was loss prevention and improving operational efficiency.

However, the lens has widened to enable restaurant operators to use data in ways that drive real-time marketing efforts and improve the overall customer experience.  In fact, the proliferation of mobile consumer devices now creates opportunities to use data even before the customer enters a restaurant.

With real time analytics, key operational metrics, such as voids and comps, net sales by hour, time of day and category are available to restaurant managers and owners at any time, from almost any device. They, in turn, can use this information to make immediate decisions that directly impact the bottom line, regardless of where they are.

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