Operations analytics, looking at your establishment from a different perspective.

Many innovative companies use lean operating principles on a daily basis. At Hillstone Restaurant Group, operators of Houston’s Restaurants, every move, abbreviations, and kitchen pickup time is scrutinized under a microscope. They manage to have 3-minute pickup times for appetizers, and 8-minute pickups for entrees, without precooking anything. They accomplish this by embracing the concept of lean production.

Hillstone has a spec way of doing almost everything. They require all prospective employees to pass an extensive exam, to ensure they are smart enough to learn their systems. All abbreviations are made to ensure the quickest execution of orders (for instance, a side of sour cream is a side of c, so as to not waste valuable syllables). In turn they have created an almost unstoppable brand with some of the best service in the industry.

Iggy’s Restaurant in Singapore, utilizes lean production techniques and a prixe fix menu to keep costs low while giving impeccable service. Every step of kitchen and service operations are carefully measured in terms of value creation for their customers.

What other analysis can an operator take to his or her establishment? Analytics go deeper than just analyzing operational procedures. You can keep an eye on your barstaff by utilizing cash to total sales ratios, and if over a period of time patterns in that data will begin to arise. Any inventory management system can be scrutinized for better control. The key is to analyze a system or process from start to finish, and find ways to eliminate wasted movements.

All organizations continually evolve, start working on your business, not just in your business.

Restaurant marketing for the next century; the rise of analytics

For years, restaurant owners were told by marketing firms, spend x amount on marketing, but they were never told why. Traditional media (television, radio, and magazines) lack the capability of monitoring an ads true impact. The good news for restaurateurs is, new media (Google Adwords, social media, blogs, etc.) come equipped with analytical tools at no extra cost. The difficulty arises in finding specialists who understand that data, and then incorporating that into your organization’s decision-making processes.

Word of mouth is still the best form of marketing for your establishment, but now there is a way to track how much buzz your concept is creating in social media sites, most notably Facebook. Financial analysts can truly measure the Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return of a web marketing campaign, especially when linking POS sales data to specials run through this media. The ability to obtain a true Return on Ad Dollars spent is a new phenomenon that even large corporate institutions have yet to catch on. According to Mark Jeffrey of the Kellogg School of Management, 80% of organizations do not use data-driven marketing. He also states that 61% of firms do not have a documented process to screen, evaluate, and prioritize marketing campaigns.

That last statistic portrays the true issue at stake; media has changed so rapidly that marketing professionals have had difficulty keeping up. Would you allow your Chef to run the kitchen without keeping track of food cost percent? In a 2009 study of internet traffic, it was estimated that Google alone controls 6-10% of global internet traffic; can your organization afford not to have a Google presence? Social media has the ability to become your online maitre de, are you prepared to capitalize on this potential?