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Page 3 of 3
On the Menu
Sullivan says managers and executives have been excited by early insights that have been gained, such as how overall market conditions may be affecting their bottom line.
In the past, restaurant managers were limited with the EatSuite application. They could compare, for example, how well their Chili's restaurant was doing versus other Chili's, but they couldn't see how well they were doing versus a Macaroni Grill in the same market.
Sullivan's team is in the final stages of rolling out a new application, which will be built on top of the Teradata warehouse, called Restaurant Performance Management. With it restaurant managers will be able to compare their operations against any other restaurant in the Brinker chain. Sullivan says the information is being served up in a way that restaurant managers can quickly understand and the types of analysis being performed in much more detail than was available with EatSuite. "We've been able to give our managers more details around such things as product mix, buying that was influenced by discounts or contests, trending details such as how did I do yesterday compared to a week ago, or a year ago, or year-over-year," he says.
"If my sales are down, I can see if everyone across the Dallas region is down, or if it's just my restaurant, or perhaps, just my particular chain. Am I doing better at selling appetizers than another chain? So, it really gives our managers deeper insights into what's going on around them, not just their brand."
It has also provided some early surprises. Bottlenecks in restaurants' To Go operations have been a common problem among Brinker operators. During the height of the dinner rush, restaurants have difficulty keeping up with the number of orders coming in over the phone and at the take-out counter. Sullivan says the gut feeling among managers was that the kitchen staff couldn't keep up with the number of orders being placed, but after taking a deeper look at the number of orders being placed and how long it was taking the cooking staff to fulfill those orders, Brinker realized that wasn't the case at all.
In most cases, the kitchen was keeping up with the orders fine - this could be determined by seeing how long it took orders to be entered into the POS system, then "bumped" on the KDS system. By process of elimination, it was determined the bottleneck was in the food packaging and take out counter areas. "The hunch turned out to be wrong. Now, by focusing on the right area our managers have been able to improve their Take Out performance," Sullivan notes.
Brinker has clearly decided that business intelligence can give it a competitive edge in the crowded restaurant sector, but it isn't alone in using sophisticated tools to gather and dissect information gathered from its operations.
Applebee's International, which operates a chain of 1,900 restaurants, has also implemented a Teradata data warehouse to act as a central hub for information from its various operational systems. Randall Parman, the Overland Park, Kan.-based company's database architect, says data is like gold in a mountain, but it's not until you mine it for insights that it truly becomes valuable. "If you don't use the gold, you will have someone else come along and take advantage of the opportunity," he recently told a business intelligence gathering.
By mining restaurant sales data against customer satisfaction surveys, Parman says Applebee's has been able to draw a direct link between the types of food people order and their satisfaction with their dining experience. Applebee's has been able to use that information to tailor its advertising toward menu choices that will product better customer satisfaction levels.
Brinker is looking to produce similar insights. In the Denver market the company has begun experimenting with a customer loyalty program called Eat & Enjoy Rewards. Through the program customers are awarded points every time they spend money in a Brinker restaurant which they can later use for free food, drinks or desserts.
Sullivan says the program will give Brinker a means to more closely analyze restaurant performance and offer more personalized service. If Mr. and Mrs. Jones tend to order certain drinks before their meals, that information can be served up to the waiter. Similarly, if one of the Jones boys is having a birthday, that information can also be given to the server.
"The most exciting thing for us is the program will allow us to develop a closer relationship with our guests, because now we understand more about them. It's no longer an anonymous transaction," says Sullivan.
"Now, when a customer tells me they're not happy, I can look at cook times in the kitchen and see if their order was delayed, or the food being ordered. Instead of dealing with soft information, I now have hard information to look at."
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