A tech-revolution is upon us as the foodservice industry is rapidly charging into the technology age. Restaurants are adopting technologies throughout their operations to improve operational inefficiency, streamline reservations, seating, order-taking, menus, payments, accounting, tracking of customer preferences, bar management, restaurant inventory management, food temperatures for safety, staff scheduling, restaurant staff incentives, receiving, stocking, and more.
It’s no longer just about getting customers and serving them food. If you’re not taking advantage of our many restaurant GPO technology solutions, you might be falling behind your competitors. From making better business decisions to automating inventory levels and costs, restaurant technology can be a game-changer for your operation.
Restaurant Insights and Intelligence Technology: The Power of Clean Data
Restaurants generate a tremendous amount of data from invoice data, pricing data, inventory levels, location spend details, contract utilization, rebate values, and others. InsideTrack’s Spend Management Platform tracks spend data in real-time and allows users to run customized reports in any configuration needed: by category, location, time frame, manufacturer or vendor and more. This information is securely stored and easily accessible for daily check-ins or end-of-quarter assessments.
Gathering and cleaning data is only half the battle. InsideTrack organizes purchasing data into easy-to-read dashboards that put clients’ most pressing procurement issues right at their fingertips. InsideTrack uses pre-built reports that provide insight into purchases by time period, location, and category, and compares purchasing data to commodity markets, monitors contract compliance, updates rebate claims, payments, and reports that can be customized, saved, or favorited.
Nonethless, ensuring your data is correct, consistent and usable by identifying any errors or corruptions is another challenge. However, when data is cleaned and normalized, operators earn more rebates and have far better insights and intelligence about their operations. InsideTrack is the most effective data cleaning and normalization technology in the foodservice industry.
Restaurant Inventory and Food Cost Technology
Your restaurant Chef and Manager are already in the walk-in counting items to place orders – why not log those counts and have your restaurant’s inventory automatically updated? Keeping track of your restaurant’s inventory as you go makes it easier to solve problems and maximize utilization.
If your restaurant only takes inventory once a month or once a quarter, it can be very difficult to solve problems like shrinkage, theft, waste or spoilage that may have occurred 3 weeks before the issue was even identified. Plus, keeping a close eye on restaurant inventory lets you know what’s in stock and what you are running low on, so you can set up specials and promotions to maximize the usage on the products already in your walk-in or storage area.
Food cost management can be challenging. Many restaurants struggle to get beyond the basics of simple “spend” reports. Going deeper with ingredient price trend analysis helps a restaurant quickly respond to changes in plate profitability or simply find invoicing mistakes from their supplier. Missing these changes can put a dent in your profitability.
Restaurant automation has arrived! Orderly inventory management software already knows about every product in your walk-in and what you paid for it. You can simply build each recipe inside the Orderly app to calculate an accurate cost for each recipe. As ingredient prices fluctuate each week, your recipe costs will automatically adjust, giving a clear picture of how your prices affect your profitability.
Dining Alliance: A Restaurant GPO with Cutting-Edge Technology
Operators who are quick to recognize the opportunity to adapt technology to transform their businesses will not just offset their growing operational costs, but could actually enjoy healthier profits thanks to more streamlined operations, smarter data-led marketing, and the strategic redistribution of existing wait staff to maximize profit from higher value guests through exceptional customer service. The push for technology in the foodservice industry doesn’t stop on the consumer side—it also continues to advancements for operators. From online inventory management systems to pricing and streamlining efficiency, technology is taking hold for restaurant operators as well as distributors.
Dining Alliance brings the latest restaurant technology to our members. Our vetted technology offerings help our restaurant GPO members reduce costs and increase efficiency. We’re more than just a food purchasing group or restaurant buying group. We are a foodservice GPO and technological leader in the restaurant industry and serve as a resource for our members to discover innovative technology that helps their operations succeed.
Dining Alliance restaurant technology programs help members update their systems and processes with discounts on essential restaurant technology applications. Contact us today to get started! It’s FREE!
