Drill down on the data you have

Is your restaurant as future-proof as it could be? Whether you can answer yes or no largely depends on how well you are gathering, managing, measuring and responding to the data you collect – about your customers, your inventory, your sales throughout the day/week/month (and the list goes on). The information you gather now can prepare your business to power through the next crisis and, in stronger times, make it as profitable as possible. If you’re not in a position to hire a team member whose full-time responsibility is managing data, consider the tech acumen you already have on your team. What’s most important is an ability to see patterns in your data and make connections. Studying the approaches of quick-service restaurants, which had already been well on their way down this road before the pandemic, may also provide some clues. Start with your biggest pain points. Now is an important time to take stock of the challenges of the past year, identify key weaknesses, and use the capabilities of your POS system to defend against them going forward – or possibly eliminate them altogether.