Restaurants - Software: Benefits

From old prescriptions and new technologies.

If someone in the middle of the past century had predicted the huge increase in the business you are about to inform yourself about, he/she would never have told it to others, and now in the world there would have been no countries, only exclusivity territories.

But if the forecast then was not diaphanously so clear as one supposes seeing it from the distance given by the past, there is one thing that hasn't changed since then, and that will, oddly enough, change in the future: everyone wants to minimize risks when investing.

Businessmen have been since a long time ago the unique owners of supreme knowledge involved in their business management. Suspicious of all external intrusions, they were able to work more hours than a clock can show for the sake of their beloved business. The fear that their highly appreciated treasure may be corrupt by others, including relatives, made hotel businessmen real gladiators of the antemeridian and the postmeridian.

What occurred fifty years ago, now continues to occur, but with less frequency. Which trick made megalithic working days get disappearing little by little? Apply some amount of new technologies to the old recipes. Or perhaps you thought new technologies would be the last to enter in the hotel and restaurant management?

Let see some examples how new technologies become involved in hotel management:

· Tactile screens: these colored and robust devices have been one of the big advances in the sector, they changed the way of work, from thinking how we should work with the machine, to making the machine work the way we think it should.

· Wireless: wireless networks installed in homes can be installed in all establishments. This way, classic written paper can be replaced with a PDA or a pocket agenda.

· Biometry: the typical science fiction movie scene where people are recognized by their fingerprints is now a daily fact. Fingerprints scanners allow identify users in less than 2 seconds and have a very low cost than most people would presuppose.

· Electronic Documents: we all appreciate our time a lot, and nothing molests us more than waste it in things we consider …not much gratifying for us, or useless. Book keeping, receive delivery notes… all these tasks were made repeated times until recently. What a waste of time! Isn't it more logical not to keep making repeated tasks once and again? This is the point in making use of Electronic Documents. If the dealer's commercial takes the order in his system, I don't have to retake it. Sharing documents one can save a lot of time of administrative tasks.

· Remote administration: a cash point is no more than a PC prepared to work in conditions found in hotel establishments. This means that since we can connect to our home PC remotely from outside, we can also connect to our business cash point machines from home, travel place, or any other place. This implies passing fewer hours in our business place.

· Tracking: increasingly, it is more common to maintain exhaustive control over all materials used to manipulate food and drinks, also for accomplishing different quality norms, like ISO, blue Qs or others. With an IT system, maintaining a control over all materials we work with, and especially those served to others, means avoiding trouble when assuming accounts if something goes wrong.

These are only some of the possibilities introduced recently in the hotels management sector by making use of new technologies. But, what advantages imply these possibilities? To make it easy, we will identify the 10 most important:

1. Improves the public image of your business: yellow boxes are out of fashion, live colors and flat screens give more sensation of modernity. Moreover, with the kitchen printers you avoid noise and loud voices of waiters and cooks.

2. Increase the customer's satisfaction: if we take an order with the wireless terminal, this order transits directly to the kitchen and the drinks bar, and can be served to the customer in seconds when he wants to pay. The serving speed increases considerably, and also quality, as the whole process is documented on paper.

3. More rotation for tables: the advantage for the customer becomes an advantage for us as well. If we reduce the table time, we get more rotation in rush hours. We can increase table rotation from 2 or 3 times to 3.5 or 4 rotations, depending on the circulating amount.

4. Avoid thefts: with the biometric elements both store situation and staff presence can be controlled. Having all employees movements controlled in their turns, we know instantly who makes what, and can restrict access to determined users to certain places.

5. Increase customers outside rush hours: you can easily write fidelity coupons and discount bonds. This way, you give incentives to regular customers to come outside rush hours time. A cash point enables create coupons, cards, have customers data…

6. Control the warehouse: powerful cash points allow optimize management of stores (yes, yes, in plural), as well as cold-storage plants. They generate custom alerts as much as the quantity in the warehouse diminishes, they can notify us and generate automatic purchase orders when the stock reaches a determined minimum, they sort references so that expirations get ordered adequately, and maintain a history of prices in order to calculate provider profitableness …

7. All what is served is billed: having terminals in hand one can introduce each article when it is generated, so we don't forget second orders. Similarly, all prices are indicated by the machine, so they need not be memorized. Also, prices can be modified easily without affecting the habitual functioning. The difference between what is sold and the amount of consumed raw materials appears rapidly with the warehouse control.

8. Optimize the staff: provided with a hand terminal, a waiter can attend a lot more tables than doing it with paper and pen. Our offer is changing teams of waiters-assistant with teams of waiter- 3 assistant. The waiter is not paid the same way as an assistant, is it? With a cash point system it is possible to optimize the wage classes and the number of staff in each class, saving labor costs.

9. Improve taxes and processes management: with a cash point machine you account only for what is sold, having a reliable and immediate reality of the fiscal situation of your business. You have more time for management and data entry of your business.

10. More profitableness for your business: a cash point machine or a cash point installation should not be considered as a cost, but as an investment to improve the establishment management: how much money will you save with the new system? How much time you will dedicate to other tasks by computerizing your administration? How many times you felt that it is billed less than what is sold? How many times you wished not to have to pursue the employees to check if they arrive in the adequate time?

After all this, is there anyone who believes it is not worth installing a cash point machine?