Knowledge is power. This is true in life and the restaurant industry. The more you know about your operations, your guests, your sales, and everything in between, the better equipped you are to make the decisions that will grow your business.
There was a time when it took countless hours to analyze a restaurant’s operations over a single day. From counting inventory to reviewing a pile of receipts, it was an arduous process to gather insights about a restaurant’s guests and menu. As a result, many decisions were made by feel and intuition about what was driving in customers, or keeping them out.
An overwhelming reliance on an operator’s innate understanding of their customers and the restaurant business is the key reason why many restaurants are forced to shut their doors. Experience matters a great deal, but it’s just one piece of the knowledge pie. Knowledge must be enriched and supplemented over time to ensure ongoing success.
Even with the advent of new technology, some restaurant veterans still rather do work by hand that computers can do in seconds. This is akin to sending an urgent message to a loved one via snail mail versus email. Yes, it still works. But, why would you do it?
Holding on to the way things have always been done limits a restaurant’s potential. In an increasingly competitive landscape, such a mindset threatens one’s entire business.
This is exactly why knowledge is power. It doesn’t mean that as an operator that you need to be omniscient. It means that you need to be aware of what you don’t know, and be willing to find ways to fill in those gaps. Thankfully, in today’s technology-rich environment there are solutions designed to do just that.
By leveraging platforms like Upserve, an intelligent restaurant operating system that delivers operational and marketing insights, restaurateurs are able to make more informed decisions. The data has always been there. It’s just been locked away and hidden from plain sight. Upserve is a connective layer that transforms independent systems into a single working machine. Its sole purpose is to help you make better decisions.
A truly smart restaurant operator is one who blends personal knowledge and experience with information gained from intelligent systems. He trusts in technology’s ability to do the heavy lifting that would have previously seen him buried under a pile of spreadsheets and receipts.
