Almost every restaurant owner ventures into the restaurant business with the ulterior motive of one day building a large restaurant chain business. Running a single outlet is not a cakewalk, and one can only imagine the massive task at hand when one plans to run a restaurant chain.
While it is essential for a restaurant owner to be involved in the running of the restaurant business comprehensively, it is impossible for him to be physically present and monitor the operations of each of his outlet. And hence, it is essential for a restaurant owner running a restaurant chain to take refuge in a restaurant technology that will be his right hand and help him in streamlining and optimizing his entire restaurant chain operations.
How To Manage Your Restaurant Chain Operations Efficiently
Although managing a restaurant chain is a humongous affair, you can do it just right if you have a stellar plan which you follow diligently. Below we have mentioned the important things that should never be ignored if you want to establish a large restaurant chain.
1. Streamline The Base Kitchen Operations
Having a base kitchen is one of the most basic prerequisites of running a successful restaurant chain business. Once you have set your base kitchen, it will automatically help you ease out your restaurant operations. It will ensure that you maintain consistency across all your outlets while negating the need for all the outlets to be in touch with the vendors, which can be a confusing process.
Ideally, in large chain restaurants, the vendors deliver the raw materials to the base kitchen, where the materials are semi-processed and are then delivered to the various outlets as per the indents raised by them.
Once you take help from a restaurant management system to streamline your base kitchen operations, you will see, how it helps you to streamline your entire restaurant kitchen operations.
- The software that comes with a central kitchen management feature would help you to view the yield of each item of the inventory automatically.
According to the yield of each item, you will be able to place your order, and this will ensure that you don’t order more or less than what is necessary to run your kitchen seamlessly. This will help you reduce your restaurant food cost considerably. - Since a robust restaurant POS gives you the details expense reports of all the outlets, you will be able to understand the food cost in all the various outlets. This will help you strategize better and know the areas where you can cut down on your food cost.
- While running a restaurant chain, it becomes imperative for you to maintain consistency across all the outlets. With a restaurant POS, that comes with a recipe management feature, maintaining consistency will be a cakewalk.
All the recipe items will be clearly defined, which includes each item and the quantity that goes into preparing and presenting the dishes, the process of cooking and the exact temperature at which it needs to be cooked. Once this recipe is followed across all your outlets, not only will consistency be maintained, it will all reduce the generation of kitchen waste which will in a way to reduce the overall restaurant chain expense.
2. Check Stock And Inventory Diligently
One of the major challenges of running a restaurant chain is managing the inventory. The restaurant inventory is already prone to internal thefts and pilferage, and this happens on a large scale in the case of multiple restaurant outlets.
Keeping track of the stock consumed daily of each outlet becomes tedious if you collect the reports manually from each outlet. A smart inventory management software can help you manage the stock consumption of each outlet and enable smooth circulation of stock across multiple outlets.
- You will receive real-time reports of the stock available, the beginning and the closing inventory reports, which should give you the idea about the stock used in a day.
- You should religiously check the variance between the ideal stock that should be consumed during the day and the physical stock that is available at the end of the day. The variance report will help you to keep a check if any misappropriations are happening in the inventory section.
- If you are having a base kitchen from where raw materials get circulated to the various outlets, then it is important for you to track if the circulation of materials is happening as expected. A stellar restaurant software will show the stock requirements of the multiple outlets in the central POS.
- You can also set real-time alerts whenever a particular item reaches its reorder level. You can even manage the shelf life of the perishable items as you will receive notifications whenever an item reaches its expiration date.
- Maintaining consistency across all the outlet is crucial while running a restaurant chain. Checking inventory and maintaining the consistency of the recipes are interlinked. A smart POS will be able to update the central recipe which will be instantly shared with all your outlets. This will make maintaining consistency extremely easy.
3. Monitor Outlet Level Sales
As a restaurant owner, it is one of your primary duties to ensure that you check detailed and multi-level reporting of all your outlets on a daily basis. Depending on the reports, you should then plan your future to augment your sales further. However, depending on your restaurant manager to receive all the correct reports in a detailed manner is something that we would not recommend you.
Hence, one of the easiest way to ensure that you are informed about your restaurant operations on a daily basis is by bringing in a stellar restaurant POS. The POS will ensure that you receive real-time reports of all your restaurant operations. The total number of bills generated, discounts conferred, the footfall acquired in each outlet, the stock available and the stock used each day, the performance of each staff and other related reports will be on your fingertips.
An efficient POS is also capable of comparing the performance of the different outlets. This will help you understand the outlets that aren’t performing well, on which you can focus more. With these reports, you will be able to judge how the different items are performing in the various outlets and make appropriate changes in your menu to bolster your sales.
4. Manage The Vendors Well
A single restaurant might get its raw materials from multiple vendors, and so is the case when running a restaurant chain. Certain perishables need to be procured daily, while some items can be purchased and stocked on a monthly and weekly basis. Now, these items are purchased from different vendors and keeping track of all the vendors, and their details become a difficult task.
However, it is an extremely important task which you should never miss. Since it is the raw material which is the heart of your restaurant business, you should never compromise or take risks regarding the same. This is where a restaurant POS which comes with a vendor management feature will help you out. An integrated Vendor Management feature will help you achieve the following –
- Manage the profile of all the vendors of multiple outlets at the central level.
- Manage contact details and information of the vendor such as PAN Card details, ID proof, TIN and the like at one single place.
- Create one panel from where you will be able to view and manage the price of different vendors of multiple outlets.
5. Have A Centralized Marketing Control
Marketing for restaurant chain demands different strategies and a different approach than marketing for a standalone restaurant. While traditional offline and online modes of marketing should not be ignored, there are new marketing hacks that will keep your customers hitched to your restaurant chain without much effort on your part.
Using the information from the CRM database, you can run specific and targeted marketing campaigns. Considering that your customer’s preferences will differ from outlet to outlet, depending on the culture and the local habitat, you will have to craft your marketing strategies keeping this in mind.
If you have outlets in all the major cities of India, then you can bring about outlet specific offers of the special festive menu. For example, you can introduce a special menu during the Durga Puja in Kolkata, some interesting offers in Delhi during Diwali, or something that will keep the customers hitched during the Ganesh Chaturthi at Maharashtra.
Also, an integrated Enterprise software lets you run targeted SMS and email campaigns based on the customer ordering history and behavior. Targeted efforts help you get a better ROI on your marketing efforts as well.
Running a restaurant chain is a daunting task. But if you are capable of making sure that the above-mentioned duties are followed keenly, then you can be assured that it will optimize your restaurant chain operations. Hence, what are you waiting for? Create your own checklist and follow that diligently and see your restaurant chain business soar!
