The problem with fast food is that it's so, well…fast.
When everything moves at lightning speed—with meals being served in a matter of seconds—who has time to pore over volumes of data for clues to solve complex business processes?
This was the challenge faced by Shawn Taylor, whose company Family EATs, operates 28 Taco Bell franchises in the Houston area. He knew that his restaurants were collecting all of the information necessary to streamline his operations, boost customer service, and lift profits. But how could he pull it all together in a timely way, and then act on it quickly?
Taylor's dilemma is common in the $133 billion US a year fast food industry. Studies suggest that most restaurants are run inefficiently. For example, a 2005 government survey concluded that nearly 10 percent of the food in fast food restaurants is thrown out.
Taylor turned to XFormity, a Dallas company that is part of the Microsoft Smarter Hospitality initiative. This comprehensive solutions framework is designed to help lodging and food service organizations improve the way they interact with their guests, improve workforce productivity, and streamline operations.
XFormity's QSRx product suite is a series of hosted applications that captures information from each restaurant, combines it with information from other sources, and merges it into a repository where it can be sliced and diced in different ways. XFormity's connected franchise offered Taylor's Taco Bell restaurants a practical way to quickly turn the raw data from his locations into actionable intelligence.
Some of the benefits of QSRx include:
Get more data, faster. QSRx quickly integrated data from all of Taylor's restaurants, including speed-of-service, point-of-sale, and other back-of-house information. OSRx integrated data from the corporate franchisor, supplier invoices, and surveys from mystery shoppers, plus food safety audits. Before QSRx, Taylor had to ask his managers to pull all of this information and send it to him by fax or e-mail. But when the system was brought online, he had access to the information in real time—no more delays. "I figured out that it cost us $40,000 a year, in terms of our time, just to pull those reports," says Taylor.
Run a more efficient business. Within a few days of installing QSRx, Taylor noticed some areas that could be improved right away. For example, some managers weren't closing their restaurants on schedule. Thanks to the real-time information the system was sending Taylor, he could see the restaurants that needed attention. Within a few weeks, 99 percent of his restaurants were closing on time. Having the QSRx data enabled Taylor and his managers to focus on improving daily sales and reducing persistent challenges such as erroneous orders, called deletions in restaurant speak. "When I first got on the system, our order deletions were over 6 percent," Taylor remembers. "Now they are in the low 2 percent range."
Make profits sizzle. The information provided by QSRx enabled Taylor to look for opportunities to increase profits. Take business hours, for example. The system allowed him to see what restaurants were still going strong in terms of sales at closing time, so he could extend their hours. When Taylor's restaurants stayed open longer, he recorded a 40-percent growth in his late-night business. The system also suggested that stepping up the pace in the take-out window might boost revenues. "A five-second decrease in drive-through time equals a three-percent increase in sales," Taylor says. Since QSRx was put in place in 2003, Taylor's Taco Bell locations have outpaced the average franchise growth. Last year, for example, the average Taco Bell grew by 7 percent. Taylor's restaurants grew by an average of 15 percent.
Improve customer service. Restaurant patrons have noticed a difference in Taylor's Taco Bell franchises, too. The restaurants are open when they're hungry, even if it's 2 A.M. Service is faster and more efficient. QSRx enables Taylor to determine if his restaurants are being staffed at adequate levels and adjust his payroll accordingly. "Having that data helps our speed of service and our hospitality," Taylor says.
Use proven technology. XFormity built on the Microsoft .NET Framework—an integral Microsoft Windows operating system component that supports building and running the next generation of applications and XML Web services—to create QSRx, according to Chris Ball, XFormity general manager. QSRx is an ASP solution that captures information from a number of sources, including in-restaurant systems, corporate franchisor, vendors, and weather services, and then feeds that information into a SQL Server data repository. A QSRx Rules Engine analyzes incoming data and generates actionable alerts, exception-based reporting, and balanced scorecards. Ball says the technology creates opportunities for restaurants such as Taylor's, "…not just to become more profitable, but to become a better business—to have employees that are better trained and a restaurant that is being run more efficiently."
A fast food restaurant is, as the name implies, a fast-moving enterprise. But with the right data and technology, it can also be a smooth running, profitable, and efficient business.
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/hospitality/businessvalue/xformityarticle.mspx
