Amid the rise in tech-driven automation, ordering and payment capabilities in recent years, one question often hovers in the background: Will restaurant jobs be eliminated? While it’s clear that some roles are becoming obsolete in light of these changes, it’s also true that new ones are appearing. Specifically, as restaurants juggle multiple tech-based ordering channels – and vie for guest engagement and sales – they are looking for people who can develop and build upon their digital expertise. Increasingly, large restaurant chains and parent companies of such brands are hiring digital leadership roles – a recent Pymnts report mentions Denny’s and Focus Brands as two examples. Smaller, independent brands are likely adapting too. If you have found ways to outsource restaurant tasks to tech, are there opportunities in your business for key staff to take on new responsibilities in digital management and development? Your ability to manage what’s happening at the back of the house – and particularly the ingredients that you have available – can make as much of a difference to your guest experience as a streamlined ordering and payment process. Your inventory management tools should help you communicate in real time about what you are able to serve guests and what items shouldn’t be advertised for sale. At the same time, it should empower you to stay a step ahead of such events so you’re not often in the position of having to tell guests you’re out of the dish they specifically came to your restaurant to enjoy. While being able to fulfill a guest’s anticipated order won’t necessarily build their loyalty, not having that dish will certainly chip away at it. When deciding where to invest in technology improvements, it makes sense to focus on the back of the house first. Once you have support with employee scheduling, inventory management and other operational functions, your staff should have more time to deliver positive experiences for guests (which also helps them feel more positive about their jobs). This is the approach that Domino’s – long a trendsetter in the restaurant tech space – is taking with their embrace of new AI tools the brand is developing in partnership with Microsoft Cloud and Azure OpenAI Service. According to a recent report from Nation’s Restaurant News, Domino’s is working on a generative AI assistant to support employees and personalize customer service, with special focus on invisible back-of-house technology. The brand’s chief technology officer said she believes helping the team access information and make decisions more quickly can help them respond more promptly and effectively when mistakes are made. This makes people’s jobs easier to do – and will likely trickle into the front of the house in the form of shorter order times, fewer mistakes and a better overall experience. It’s worth bearing in mind as you consider tech priorities, regardless of whether you’re implementing generative AI or not. Your restaurant is likely becoming more digitally connected all the time – not only with guests, but also with equipment across your kitchen and with vendors across your supply chain. While this connectivity brings greater control and oversight of how your business is operating in real time, it also creates new security vulnerabilities. Are you doing all you can to protect the data you store and the devices that collect and transmit it? A recent Restaurant News report advises restaurant operators to prioritize network security protections including (but not limited to) encryption and protocols for authenticating users. It’s also important to scan regularly for potential vulnerabilities. Your technology service provider should provide support here – and have a number you can call whenever concerns arise. If you’re looking for ways to manage high guest demand and unsteady labor with the help of technology, brands are offering new examples of how it can be done – or at least how they are approaching it based on the popularity of different menu items. Take Chipotle, which recently introduced a test of an automated digital makeline in collaboration with Hyphen, a foodservice platform that helps automate kitchen operations. A Fast Casual report says the brand will be using the automated makeline for digital orders of its bowls and salads, which comprise 65 percent of its business. Each dish travels along the makeline as an intelligent dispenser releases the desired ingredients. When the item arrives at the end of the makeline, a staff member places a lid on the dish and adds any final requested items to the order. The goal is to free up employees for other tasks and increase capacity for (and accuracy of) digital orders. It’s easy to see how this might help a restaurant better adapt to employee absences as well. Looking at your menu, are there certain dishes that make up a large portion of your sales and would be easy to automate? As data is becoming a more powerful predictor of business success, restaurants are transforming into data warehouses. In the process, they must consider their responsibilities for protecting both themselves and the people who offer their personal information. One recent real-world example of this is White Castle’s use of a terms & conditions page on their drive thru ordering screen, which is perhaps a sign of similar policies to come in restaurants making use of guest data. The general public is increasingly aware of how valuable their data is – and that it must be protected. A recent Forbes report suggested that consumers’ growing awareness of data privacy is generating trust issues, which isn’t a big surprise considering the regularity of cyber breaches. As you set out to collect data from guests and others, it is becoming more important to have a technology provider you trust to help you understand how you’re using and protecting that data – and what immediate steps to take if you lose control of it. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the restaurant technology options available today and where they seem to be taking restaurants, you might be relieved to hear about the key themes that emerged from FSTEC, the annual conference of foodservice information executives and technology vendors. A Nation’s Restaurant News report from the event, which was held in Dallas in late September, indicated that it was less about robots and the flashier side of tech than it was about back-of-house software solutions and a general sense of caution about finding technology that provides the best value. Restaurant operators are watching their spending right now and feeling cautious about stepping into new territory with technology. There was a focus on how tech can support back-of-house efficiency – how restaurants can marry AI and operational data to better manage tasks such as inventory management and employee scheduling, for example. Further, there was some push and pull between the need for technology and the desire to provide traditional hospitality. How is your business balancing the two? How well do you understand the path your menu items have to take to make it from their source to your restaurant? Being able to trace the journey accurately can help you zero in on the origin of recalls promptly (before they pose food safety issues), identify bottlenecks that delay products en route to you, and generally give you greater confidence in the safety and quality of what you’re serving. As a recent article in Restaurant News indicates, the Internet of Things can connect each link of your supply chain using sensors, RFID tags and blockchain technology – and it is an important tool to bring transparency to the path your food takes before it reaches your guests. If there are links in your supply chain that you don’t see as clearly as the others, ensure your suppliers are on the same page about food safety and the best ways to protect it. There is no shortage of restaurant tech on the market – so a number of players have been stepping out with more specialized offerings to stand out in the market. These include offerings that aim to facilitate orders in high-volume settings during morning and afternoon rush periods, as well as streamline delivery. Pymnts reports that Toast has launched a solution designed for cafes and bakeries, Oracle has a new offering aimed at independent restaurants looking for a more transparent and affordable tech option, and Uber Eats is expanding its white-label services through a partnership with Deliverect. (The partnership would allow restaurants to integrate Deliverect’s online ordering software into their POS system, then have Uber Eats deliver those orders.) How well is your restaurant able to harness real-time data about how it’s operating? Right now, devices connected through the Internet of Things (IoT) are making it possible for restaurants to not only generate more revenue, but also avoid costly problems. Consider parts of your operation that customers don’t necessarily see, but which are critical to how you operate – like your energy consumption or equipment performance, for example. Sensors connected through the IoT can analyze data from these parts of your business, identify patterns and flag problems or unnecessary down time. As a recent report from Restaurant News says, this can help a restaurant stay on top of equipment maintenance and avoid costly repairs, or help optimize energy consumption so you can avoid an unexpectedly high energy bill and operate with less environmental impact. |
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