When comptroller Gary Lamers was tasked with effecting savings and efficiencies at Cornerstone Bar & Grill in Ottawa, Ontario he identified that one of the key barriers to profitability was an outdated liquor, wine and beer (LWB) inventory system. Both the restaurant and bartenders had difficulty managing and accounting for inventory, since it was checked manually and inventoried only every week or so. This meant that at the end of a shift, bartenders would rely on the manual point-of-sale (POS) system to identify how much liquor they had sold. The restaurant had no way of confirming those reports until a physical inventory was taken days later, and no way of recouping the money if there was a discrepancy.
Managing spirits with digital technology
After Lamers and NRC-IRAP Industrial Technology Advisors (ITAs) Liza Medek and Sy Symoom discussed the strategic impact of implementing a new system, they agreed that digitizing liquor management would be the ideal first step. "We helped Cornerstone decide how to get the best return on their investment," says Symoom. "Gary is a savvy restaurateur who brought a lot of value to the table—an important factor in effective technology implementation." Medek was also impressed by Lamers’ foresight in seeking IRAP assistance, given that restaurants are not typical IRAP clients.
Pushing the success envelope
Cornerstone’s results are just the tip of the iceberg, and will swell as they are rolled out to the other restaurants:
Inventory losses at Cornerstone are down 15 percent
Savings have increased by $200,000
Bottom-line profit rose by 2 percent
Beverage manager hired in each restaurant to manage the system
"I would strongly encourage restaurateurs to look into digital technology, because it’s something everyone can use to advance the bottom line," says Lamers. He admits that, without digital technology, Cornerstone would not be so comfortably in the black, and knows there is "something for everyone out there."
Philippines' Restograph is a software-as-a-service platform which gather and transforms POS data into readable trends and projections that helps restaurant owners and managers strategize better, grow their business and prevent cases like restaurant theft. Restograph also includes presentation of customer ratings and reviews from Zomato and LooLoo.
Data works in two directions. Firstly, it gives businesses access to unprecedented volumes of real-time data about customer behaviour, preferences and context. It also provides consumers with information about where they should go for the best product range, experience, and pricing. Thanks to smartphones, consumers have this information at hand whenever they research purchases, shop, and interact with brands. Consider, for example, someone in a mall looking for the best nearby restaurant. He or she will look up nearby pizzerias on Apple or Google Maps or look up best restaurants on Zomato’s app. This provides the local owner of a pizzeria to target him or her with a contextual ad and perhaps an offer for a complimentary drink. Think about someone trying on a jacket in a clothing store – having checked out the colour and the fit, he or she may decide to find the cheapest price and order it online. This may be done via their mobile phone, a mobile app or a tablet, for next day delivery. Why not offer to match pricing from the biggest online competitors in a PPC ad when the customer does his or her mobile search on Google? The trail of behavioural, location, demographic and even psychographic data customers leave behind as they use mobile search and social media enables us to understand consumer behaviour and personalise messaging and right place right offer opportunity. Bear in mind that is aggregated customer data rather than information that identifies them personally. Continue reading at Memeburn.
Restograph
Brian Dimarucot, Bud Britanico, Chino Adasa, and Sky Salanio co-own an inasal (chicken barbecue) restaurant and they wanted a way to get their sales data without going to the store and printing the transactions recorded on their legacy point-of-sale (POS) machines or calling their manager to ask about the day’s figures. So they created Restograph, a software-as-a-service platform, which doesn’t only gather but also transforms their POS data into readable trends and projections, therefore helping them strategize better and grow their business. Dimarucot says Restograph is perfect for small and medium-sized restaurants that share the same pain. “We want restaurant owners to use Restograph as a business intelligence tool so they can discover ways to improve their bottom line.” In today’s world of big data, business intelligence is benefiting businesses in amazing ways. In a nutshell, it gives companies the big picture of their operations and helps them understand where they are and where they want to go next. Restograph’s business intelligence platform powers up ordinary POS systems
How does Restograph work?
Clients would export their transaction reports from their POS to Restograph, as a CSV file. From there, clients can see their POS data transformed into insight on consumer demographics, demand, and behavior. Clients can then process and analyze their POS data and discover sales trends and projections. With Restograph, restaurant owners can get data from their POS from their laptops, tablets and mobile phones. They can also immediately spot menu items that sell easily, track their monthly, weekly and daily sales, and analyze trends and opportunities.
Restograph also offers “extensions” or add-on features for their clients. For instance, owners may get a Twitter or Instagram extension, which will allow them to monitor what consumers are posting or sharing about their restaurants or products. Another extension is movie theater schedules, which owners can use in crafting promos to capture foot traffic from the cinemas. Learn more about online POS in the Philippines
Restograph
