Technological advances in the restaurant industry have made daily operations easier for business owners and customers. The sector is evolving at a speedy pace and technology innovation is predominantly driving this evolution with new digital solutions, coupled with consumer demands and expectations to make running a restaurant easier, faster and more profitable.
This presents huge opportunities for anyone operating a restaurant franchise business, but also significant challenges to keep up-to-speed in this new era of connectivity as we see the effects of increased automation. Sanjeev Sanghera, Döner Shack’s Co-Founder & Managing Director, looks at the tech trends driving change and how automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are offering unique solutions for restaurants to differentiate themselves and for owners to streamline their businesses.
Robotics in kitchens
Robotics have already been adopted in some restaurants as they have the ability to automate much of the labour-intensive food preparation work and minimise food waste. Just as the fast-food sector and the techniques it introduced changed the restaurant industry years ago, robotic automation is changing today’s food industry. Assigning menial and repetitive tasks to machines can not only enhance production, it can also increase output while improving safety and allowing people to focus on other related work that either requires more thinking or is enjoyable.
“We are the first kebab restaurant in the UK to design and implement state-of-the-art robotic cutters into our kitchens to help reduce labour-intensive food preparation time and minimise our food waste. It’s a clever way to consistently cut the exact quantity of meat required for each day, which reduces, if not eliminates, the chances of errors occurring. The robots have also lowered our operating costs by automating tasks that our staff would normally have to do, allowing them to focus on the customer experience.
“We are continually striving for greater efficiency in our restaurants, so we need to be pioneering in our innovation to ensure our speed of service is best in class, as well as creating a safe and simple place to work. By accelerating our processes with robotics, we can enhance the behind-the-scenes operations, but it is important to strike a balance between automation and our people who provide the personal touch.”
The role of data in restaurants
Customer data can support key marketing and loyalty initiatives and form a stronger connection with customers by helping to offer a very personalised service. It can also help restaurants understand their customers on a greater level, which subsequently creates new revenue streams for increased sales and customer traffic.
“Collecting customer data is an important step for any restaurant but being able to effectively interpret and put that data into action is key to understanding and meeting customers’ expectations. Further to offering a more convenient ordering and payment process, these devices can also offer better customisation and personalisation by mining data from customer order history.”
Ordering solutions
Consumers have moved towards a more efficient virtual ordering experience and are now looking for the safest options to place orders and pay for their meals, especially as they flock back to in-dining experiences. Contactless ordering solutions and online ordering are expected to become more intrinsic to the operation of many restaurants to reduce queue times, enrich customer convenience and for health and safety reasons.
Contactless ordering helps restaurants to manage the full-order life cycle to ensure their customers receive their food faster and to detailed preferences and online ordering gives customers more choice and greater flexibility, without compromising the control restaurants have over their kitchen and operations.
“We have developed an integrated online ordering solution to enable our customers to easily order directly from our restaurants, which removes any third-party delivery fees and takes better control of the customer experience. Click and Collect is a growing trend for many restaurants, including ourselves, and we have implemented a system to give our customers a seamless ordering experience at all time and direct contact with our brand whether they are eating in, collecting a takeaway or ordering a delivery online.”
Over the years, technology has become the key ingredient for success in the restaurant industry and franchises need to be prepared for what lies ahead so they can exploit these evolving developments.
Purely having good food is not enough to keep a restaurant in business – it is the newest innovations that give restaurants the much-needed edge over the competition. Despite these technologies coming at a cost, the results that restaurants will see in their business will be worth the investment.
