Apps and Big Data: How They Are Changing The World of Multi-Location Restaurants – Part II

Here is part two. Part one was posted on Monday, click here to read part one if you haven’t read it already.

If sales drop, for seemingly no reason, Big Data can look at customer reporting sites like Yelp through an automatic data harvest to see if bad scores are driving away people.  Without Big Data, for all you know, your bad Yelp score may actually correlate with a broken air conditioner, and it should not be forcing you through the expensive process of a menu change-out.  Or, it may be that all your key performance indicators are indicating perfect operations, yet one of your locations is under performing all the rest by a meaningful degree, until… Big Data shows you that you must look elsewhere for the reason, and it’s the long-term road work project that’s driving people away. And that can be fixed with a call to the mayor and his department of public works.

Collect it with Apps

Clearly, Big Data holds the key of viewing performance metrics in an extremely creative and revealing way.  So, what has limited the use of Big Data in multi-location restaurants?

You need a method for collecting the data and feeding the Big Data analytics. And that’s where Apps and mobility come in to play.

Today, tablets and iPads are linked to the internet.  That’s no secret.

And we can put these tablets and iPads in the hands of workers for pennies a day. That’s no secret either.

The trick is to deploy clever apps that drive the workers through their inspection tasks so the enterprise is capturing the data at the right times and the right locations, no matter what the skill level of the worker. That’s what apps can do with a high degree of accuracy.

Call it workflow regimentation.

Call it process control.

Call it worker discipline.

Call it good training.

The trick is to have an app that A) prompts the timely collection of data, that B) records and stores the data (the need for CYA never dies), and most importantly, C) the app should serve as a portal to a Big Data analysis that you, at the enterprise level, can make use of to maximize the profits of your operations.  (The fact compliance with health laws is enormously easier with these types of apps is a major side benefit.)

So, when you think multi-location restaurants, you should think Big Data.  But when you think Big Data, you should ask what apps are the most appropriate for feeding the very algorithms on which your success depends.

Tommy Yionoulis

I've been in the restaurant industry for most of my adult life. I have a BSBA from University of Denver Hotel Restaurant school and an MBA from the same. When I wasn't working in restaurants I was either doing stand-up comedy, for 10 years, or large enterprise software consulting. I'm currently the Managing Director of OpsAnalitica and our Inspector platform was originally conceived when I worked for one of the largest sandwich franchisors in the country. You can reach out to me through LinkedIn.

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1 Comment

  1. Hi Tommy, Your two articles on big data have been interesting thank you, You have only covered the opportunity and benefit of using big data but not how the data is analysed (I am guessing you have a product that does that).
    The tablet type central management of record keeping and compliance works well but the simplification of the information into a dashboard with corrective actions (live time) still appears difercult to make correct where there are multiple factors . Have you got any thoughts on how this can be done better?

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