Sponsored by Quantaco
Data-led hospitality management delivers significant benefits
The hospitality industry has been on a quest to modernise and embrace new technology.
Many of the tools used in the industry are accepted as being best of breed and cover everything from rostering and accounting through to point of sale. But bringing together all the data collected and used by each application has been a challenge.
Quantaco says it aims “make the opaque visible” through the use of data.
While the pandemic was responsible for some changes – about 92 per cent of venues took up QR code systems for ordering at tables, surveys show – others have been happening for some time.
With the global hospitality market a $7 trillion industry that is expected to grow by around 25 per cent over the next four years, digital transformation will be behind many of the opportunities the industry has to further improve service and profitability
Contactless payments and new point of sale systems have become ubiquitous, and operators use accounting systems to manage and report on cash flow. Staff members see their rosters through apps and are notified of new or changed shifts without the need for managers to make phone calls when a change is made.
Anthony Sullivan, the founder and CEO of hospitality advisory group Quantaco, saw the challenge of making sense of the different applications and data firsthand when he was working as a partner in a large consulting firm supporting clients in the hospitality sector.
Sullivan observed that venue operators who did a better job of bringing data together outperformed their peers.
Anthony Sullivan, founder and CEO of hospitality advisory group Quantaco.
“When businesses could bring data together, they were able to make better decisions,” he says. “For example, when they could track sales patterns, they could roster more accurately and not end up over or understaffed.”
Kirsten Browne, formerly the program director for hospitality, tourism, events and culinary management at Torrens University, commented last year on a survey showing that 93 per cent of hospitality businesses were planning to increase digital investment in the next few years as the industry continued to emerge from the pandemic.
However, extracting value from those investments is about more than simply installing a few new apps. What’s needed is a way to ensure data from applications can be shared so it enables better decision making.
“Many hospitality companies are still underutilising the full potential of machine learning, IoT connected [and] data driven strategies,” explained Browne.
Operators preoccupied with demands of the job
The survey revealed that hospitality providers were often too busy to think through digital improvements.
Nevertheless, “investing in a strong digital strategy not only improves efficiency and reduces operational costs, it also provides invaluable insight into their customers and business,” it noted.
Sullivan says the key to overcoming these challenges and being prepared for the future starts by taking an integrated, rather than piecemeal, approach to technology choices.
The Quantaco executive team.
“Venues need to look for integrated technology solutions that are specifically tailored to their needs,” explains Sullivan. “Quantaco uses a suite of premium enterprise applications connected to a cloud-first business management platform using APIs and our own proprietary technology.”
This integrated approach ensures venue operators and managers have access to powerful applications but don’t have to do the work of extracting data into spreadsheets and then wrangling it to make sense so they can make better decisions.
“When [hospitality] venues take a data-led approach, we see earnings that exceed market averages. And staffing costs are also better managed. The result is better service for patrons and reduced costs for operators. It’s a win-win.”
— Anthony Sullivan, founder and CEO of Quantaco
This has been especially important over recent years. With discretionary spending under increased pressure because of rising interest rates and inflation, venues are watching their expenses closely.
What data does
The benefits of an integrated platform with data that is shared between applications go beyond venue operations. It also helps with risk management and mitigation.
The days of maintaining an incident ledger in an old exercise book are well behind us. Venues must maintain accurate registers that are easily accessed and auditable. As well as boosting compliance, doing so can help drive down insurance costs as venues have a trusted source of information.
Registers can also assist with everything from managing capital expenditure, debt consolidation and even succession planning.
“Data doesn’t lie,” says Sullivan. “It paints a clear picture of what is happening inside a business that not only supports better operational outcomes but enables longer-term decisions to be made with confidence.
The ability to make great decisions relies on access to accurate and timely information that’s presented in a usable form. For the hospitality industry, being able to use data to deliver better operational outcomes, improve management regulatory issues and make better strategic decisions is critical.
“If you understand your data, you truly understand your business,” says Sullivan. “Armed with actionable information, the hospitality sector can continue to deliver great experiences for patrons.”
To learn more, visit quantaco.co
Sponsored by Quantaco
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