The surefire way to ensure the customers at your restaurant receive quality and efficient service is to ensure the operations are streamlined. This doesn’t only mean keeping the servers on their toes but ensuring that every aspect is on point.
One of the keys to achieving this is to harness the use of technology in your operations. Even better, keep all your systems on track by using an enterprise mobile management (EMM) system. Your customers’ experience is about to change. Efficiency, speed, and accuracy will become the order of the day.
When exploring different options for an EMM system, you’ll need to consider the system and licensing options. Do some research to establish which system is best suited for your restaurant.
What exactly are restaurant operations?
When you think about the operations of a restaurant, it refers to all the tasks that need to be done efficiently to ensure everything in the restaurant runs smoothly. This includes all areas from front-of-house to the kitchen and activities such as managing stock, coordinating bookings, and facilitating patrons’ experiences.
Managing restaurant operations is about making sure that every aspect runs smoothly. Ultimately, this means things will be productive all around and will generate more income.
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How is technology used in a restaurant?
In front-of-house
One of the simplest uses of technology in a restaurant, which you may take for granted, is a point-of-sale system. This involves both hardware and software that makes ordering and paying for food much easier.
Central to a POS is the space where payments are made. You may have a cash register near the front of your eatery, where customers pay for their meals and other goods directly. You’ll still find this traditional form of POS in smaller restaurants and fast food places. However, particularly in larger restaurants, the POS includes devices allowing customers to pay for their meals at their tables.
The server takes the machine straight to their table, and they pay with their credit cards or mobile phones to tap and pay.
However, a POS is about more than just payments in a restaurant. It refers to the system the restaurant owners use to manage the whole business. This includes managing the seating, counting inventory, and controlling how the staff is scheduled.
In the kitchen
The most important part of any restaurant is the food. Before it’s prepared and served, it has to be kept properly so that the food remains fresh. The checks and balances that must be monitored consistently can be done manually, which wastes a lot of time.
It is more common to use a digitized food safety system that includes checklists, that must be completed in real-time; automated logging of temperature and other relevant conditions, and relevant alerts when something is not as it should be.
You can also use a digital checklist to keep track of all the kitchen staff and their working schedules.
What is Enterprise Mobile Management?
Enterprise Mobile Management is a system that has the sole purpose of managing mobile devices, apps, and data in an organization. It combines tools, technologies, software, and processes to do so.
More and more businesses are using mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, in daily operations. It’s important that the operations conducted via these devices are managed so that everything runs smoothly. A vital part of the process of management is to make sure data is protected.
Using Enterprise Mobile Management to Streamlining Restaurant Operations
So, now your restaurant has technology in place to control different areas and operations. There is the PPOS, the digitized food safety system, including remote and automated temperature monitoring, and the digital system to control shifts and workloads.
How can an EMM system help to manage these and streamline all the restaurant operations? Read on, and you’ll be enlightened.
- Using an EMM system will help make the patrons’ experience of choosing and ordering food more efficient. They can download the restaurant’s menu by scanning a QR code and then order and pay via their mobiles.
- If your restaurant uses conventional menus, your patrons will still pay with their mobiles. Even taking down orders can be made more efficient. Instead of using the old paper and pen method of writing down orders, the server can do so on a mobile device, which is far more efficient and unlikely to cause any confusion or lead to errors.
- Taking inventory regularly is an inevitable and important part of the restaurant business. This can mean checking on furniture and the like. Most importantly, though, it means checking stock. An EMM tool can allow the staff to scan stock, then record and update what they need to – all from a mobile device. This will make the process of stocktaking quicker, which means saves money, and more efficient, which saves on buying unnecessary stock or running out of something.
- A restaurant relies on its staff, who work hard for long hours. It’s essential to make sure no one is overworked, so schedules are important. An EMM system can be used very efficiently to work out and manage the schedules; accommodate any requests for, or necessary, shift changes; and communicate changes or updates to schedules to the staff.
- An EMM system can be used to run and manage every aspect of the POS in the restaurant, which means everything will run in relation to each other. The level of efficiency of the systems will improve the customers’ experience, which will encourage them to return. It’s likely that it’ll also open up tables more quickly for more customers.
- An EMM system will manage all the functions of a digitized food safety system, making sure that the stocks are kept frozen, chilled at the correct temperature, or fresh, as required. Of course, this is invaluable to the running of the restaurant.
Takeaways
·Using technology in your restaurant adds to the efficiency and accuracy of the way it runs. An EMM system will manage all aspects of the technology, including food safety, POS, and stocktaking so that the restaurant runs smoothly. Organizing and running employees’ times, shifts and schedules is far easier and more efficient with an EMM system.
Photo Credit – Photo by Kampus Production