Balancing Simplicity, Agility, and Innovation
With consumer appetites for new channels and digital experiences reaching near insatiable levels, what should a point-of-service platform look like in a modern cloud technology ecosystem?
INSIDE
Overview: product suite vs best-of-breed stack
Consumer Demand for New Channels & Digital Experiences
What Should a Point-of-Service Platform Look Like in a Modern Cloud-Based Ecosystem?
Restaurant Think Tank E-Book published by
PRESENTED BY
NEXT: meet the think tank
Product Suite or Platform:
A Restaurant Think Tank E-Book published by
Meet the Think Tank
Dave Harris Chief Information Officer Shake Shack
Vadim Parizher Vice President of Technology
Robert Peterson Area Vice President, New Business North America Oracle Food & Beverage
Robert Firpo-Cappiello Editor in Chief Hospitality Technology
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Amber Trendell Senior Director, Strategy Oracle Food & Beverage
Jon Tryzbiak Vice President of IT Checkers & Rally’s
NEXT: overview: product suite vs best-of-breed stack
Top Challenges Facing Restaurant IT Departments
Restaurants were asked to identify their top three IT challenges
from Hospitality Technology’s 2022 Restaurant Technology Study: Making Magic Happen
Overview: Product Suite vs Best-of-Breed Stack
Efficiency
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There is no single suite that does it all. So you’re going to have to have a flexible, multiple-solution ecosystem. You need principles that drive your solution: It’s about creating guest experiences and employee experiences. At Shake Shack, we find we need combinations of suites and point solutions to do that.
The restaurant space is changing very rapidly, and flexibility is very important, especially for big organizations. This is where Taco Bell came up with our Connected Restaurant, where we can plug in necessary solutions without the experience feeling disjointed.
A suite can make it difficult to push a particular vertical. For example, it wasn’t long ago that we were all happy swiping payments at a terminal—think how far payments have evolved recently. For Checkers & Rally’s, platforms that are very open to integration are the best way to drive value and move quickly.
“Now we’re moving into a post-pandemic era — shift from off-prem into the reality, scant resources, supply-chain issues, hiring issues,” notes Toby Malbec, Managing Director, ConStrata Technology Consulting. “Does that promote robotics? Other efficiencies? Menu changes?”
At Oracle, we’re continuing to see integration and flexibility as a top priority not only for big organizations but also for smaller restaurants that are trying to accomplish big things across channels. Restaurants increasingly have to think more like technology companies.
INSIDE THE DATA
42% early adopter
19% innovator
13% laggard
25% late adopter
NEXT: consumer demand for new channels & digital experiences
Difficulty integrating with legacy systems
Lack of sufficient IT budget
Lack of skilled technology resources in-house
Difficulty in measuring ROI for technology
Rising Customer expectations for technology
Security & privacy concerns with adoption of new technology
59%
52%
43%
37%
24%
13%
Top Off-Prem Technology Features for Restaurant Customers
The following features were rated of either moderate or extreme importance to off-prem diners.
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Technology is now seen as a revenue generator. The restaurants that can move into new operating models are creating better guest and employee satisfaction. Guests are used to tech and when you don’t or can’t provide it, that’s a differentiator in a bad way.
In the past four years, restaurants have quickly evolved beyond the four walls—new channels are all about convenience and personalization. It has become very important to efficiently move data within the channels (including loyalty, payments, online ordering, e.g.). Right now we’re seeing voice emerging as a new experience.
When it comes to understanding and leveraging customer behavior, I think hypersegmentation—knowing a lot about a specific group of customers and marketing to them—is more effective than understanding one customer at a time.
In a sense, each time you open a channel, it’s like opening thousands of restaurants all over again. You have to present the menu, the pricing, a ton of data processing. Ultimately, you want your customer data platform to have a 360 view of the customer—what do they order, how often do they order?— and offer real-time personalization.
We think about new channels that allow guests to interact with us the way they prefer, which then allows us to gather more data. The challenge is to perform rich analysis and really understand who the guest is and how to personalize offers.
from Hospitality Technology’s 2022 Customer Engagement Technology Study: Embracing Digital Transformation
Ease of online ordering process
The restaurant has positive consumer reviews and high ratings on third-party reservation websites and/or social media (Yelp, Facebook, etc.)
Ability to preview menus and nutritional information
Ability to place a food order from your mobile device
Ability to track order status
The restaurant offers food delivery
79%
74%
72%
66%
63%
62%
Ability to pay for food via your mobile device (i.e., contactless payment)
The restaurant offers drive-thru
55%
The restaurant has a mobile app
The restaurant offers curbside pick up.
51%
Cashless tipping
NEXT: what should a point-of-service platform look like in a modern cloud-based ecosystem?
Top Strategic Goals for Tech Investment in 2022
Restaurants were asked to identify their three top strategic goals
From Hospitality Technology’s 2022 Restaurant Technology Study: Making Magic Happen
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Improve digital customer engagement
Improve business analytics
Improve employee productivity and retention
Reduce costs
Support revenue-generating opportunities
Improve eCommerce/ Omni-Channel
41%
39%
35%
31%
30%
Enhance payment & data security
NEXT: what’s next?
The POS providers understand the need for an omnichannel environment. But I have limited patience to wait for platforms to enable the level of integration and access to data required. How are we going to architect to orchestrate the journeys we want? Can POS become the master data management platform?
We need to keep all the information about our products for distribution, which is a traditional restaurant challenge. The new complexity is orders coming from outside the four walls. We need Edge computing to facilitate multiple production lines. These challenges are all pulling us into new territory.
I’d love to see a smaller POS footprint in store. It requires so many resources to support it, including updates. It needs to have a lot of information, like menus, but it also needs simplicity, doing fewer things but really well.
17%
Increase and drive off-premise business
What’s Next?
Integration and flexibility will allow restaurants to efficiently manage current — and future — omnichannel opportunities.
Learn more at oracle.com
Understanding customer data more deeply will facilitate hypersegmentated marketing and real-time personalization.
Point-of-service platforms will embrace a range of complexities while offering a measure of operational simplicity.
Key takeaways for future planning
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Interested?
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